Bicycle Touring England

Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is bicycle touring England on Saturday, 19th September. Bognor Regis to Wootton Bridge. 54 miles. As it was such a lovely sunny morning today, I decided it was too nice to stay at home. So I’ve come to the Isle of Wight. I’ve had a very leisurely cycle today, and I even had a tour around Portsmouth before getting the ferry over.

I had a lovely chat with a man on the ferry, he was a retired head master and he knew one of the people who inspired me to start cycling! Ann Mustoe, who was also a teacher. When she retired, she decided to cycle around the world totally unaided and on her own. I read a couple of her books years ago, and as I said, it inspired me to do long-distance cycling. Sadly, though, she passed away a year or maybe two years ago. I would have loved to have met her.

When I arrived on the island, I decided that I wasn’t going to do my normal route across the island; I was going to go somewhere different first. I’ve been coming to the island for donkeys years, but I’ve never been to Cowes. So I thought I’d give it a visit. I can’t say it was anything special; it had a quaint old high street, and that was about it. There may have been more. But I just did my normal thing of cycling through and not stopping. If it doesn’t appear on my route, then I don’t see it!

Just along the coast from Cowes was Gurnard. That was nice as the road there ran alongside the coast, so there were some lovely views looking out over the Solent, with all the little sailing boats bobbing up and down in the water. I was following the around-the-island cycle route, but I soon got bored with that. It kept going up some really steep hills! In the end, I got bored with the hills and changed my mind about going to Brighstone. And ended up at a campsite near the ferry.

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You can also follow my progress and see where I stop each night by visiting the Where’s Garry web page; there, you’ll find a map of the route I’ve taken so far.