Wednesday 13th February. Bognor Regis to Sandown IOW. 50 miles.

Well that was another day that didn’t go according to plan!

I was heading for Swanage and was doing fairly well!

If you look at a map, the best and quickest way to Swanage from Bognor, is via the Isle of Wight, on a bike that is!

So I cycled to Portsmouth, caught the ferry, got to the island and got a puncture!

Well me being my normal useless self, that I seem to be these days, it took me well over an hour to fix! And it was early afternoon by the time I was back on the road!

Half a mile up the road I stopped again for some reason, I can’t really remember why, I might have been trying to see ferry times, I don’t know! Anyway while I was parked up in a bus stop, an old lady came past walking her dog. Well he was a lively little thing jumping up at me and wagging his tail, which I didn’t mind at all, he was lovely!

Well the long and short of it is, she could talk for England! And I think I must have been there for more than half an hour! Which to be honest, I really didn’t mind, she was quite pleasant!

Once I’d finished talking, or rather listening to her, I continued on.

After passing through Newport it dawned on me, that I wasn’t going to get to Swanage until really late, so I decided to stay on the island.

Now that I’d decided to stay on the island, I thought I’d give youth hostelling a go, but after phoning them I learnt that they were all shut!

My next plan was to head back across the island towards Sandown, as I new there was a lot of campsites around there and it was an easy ride along the Red Squirrel Trail.

That turned into a nightmare! Well maybe not a nightmare, but a bloody pain! They’d closed part of it off, but failed to put any signs up notifying anybody! So one and a half miles down one part of it I had to turn around, go back and find another route!

I reached Sandown but unfortunately couldn’t find any campsites that were open, so once again I’m having to stay in a hotel! I will get to camp one day!