Bicycle Touring England

Garry McGivern Travelsonabike2 is bicycle touring in England on Saturday, the 23rd-January-2016. Christchurch to Bognor Regis. 69 miles. Seeing as the weather’s fairly good at the moment, I’ve decided to go away for a day or two. For the past few weekends, I’ve been going out on rides, and after getting so far, I wished I’d brought some overnight stuff so I could continue. So this weekend, I did.

I left home quite late this morning with no real plan of where I was going to go. All I knew was that I was going to head west into the wind. So, I had it on my back when cycling home. It wasn’t until I reached the pink ferry at Warsash that I decided I would continue on. I reached Southampton and caught the Hythe ferry. I decided I was going to ride through the New Forest to Brockenhurst and stop there for the night.

By the time I reached Brockenhurst, it was starting to get dark. Cycling in the dark is never nice, especially in the New Forest, where there’s no lighting. All you hear is the bushes rustling along the side of the road. It’s only the New Forest Ponies, but it does make you wonder and puts you on edge a bit. Anyway, after arriving in Brockenhurst, I went to the Rose and Crown, the pub I intended to stay at only to find it was closed for a refit. I tried another hotel, but it was full.

Mr Impatient

Not being one for looking around too much. If a hotel doesn’t jump out in front of me, I don’t bother. I’ll just continue cycling. So, I continued on in the dark. The only trouble was that the batteries in my rear light were flat so I had to buy some new ones which wasn’t a problem apart from when I stopped to buy some my bike fell over spilling all the contents of my bar bag into the road.

After picking everything up and changing the batteries, I continued on my way. Unfortunately, it was now raining. But it was only about another ten miles or so to Christchurch, where I am now. It wasn’t a very pleasant last few miles. The road was narrow and busy and was made worse by the dark and rain.

I’m not too sure whether or not I’m going to continue on somewhere else tomorrow or head home. I don’t have to be back until Tuesday, so I have a couple of days. I think I’ll decide in the morning.

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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.