Day 10: Seaford to Cleres, Goodbye Island Hello Mainland

English Leg Facts

10 Days, 346 miles, 546km, 58 ½ hrs of cycling, 5.61mph ave speed including walking and stopping, 21901 calories burnt, 14969 feet climbed, £1.07 spent on average everyday including Maddy :) 4 new beers tried. Riots places visited 5. Interrupted trowlies 2. Incidents 1. Best animal seen so far, a dead deer.

Awoke with a full belly from the night before and had a cooked breakfast on top of that. Our Amazing hosts R&C fed us well and then insisted we take half the contents of their larder and freezer with us. Loaded up like mules we can just about get the bikes upright, We wave goodbye to Seaford and head for Newhaven to make the 09:30 ferry to Dieppe. No catastrophes en route and all goes well. 4 hours to catch up on stuff and have a nice rest, perhaps even a nap...No chance.

The wind is even worse than yesterday and the sea is whipping up in the harbour. Once the ferry is on the move the full extent is felt and it rocks like nothing I've experienced before. I try doing some work on the laptop and within five minutes feel sick. I keep having to go outside even though the captain has announced its too dangerous. Every time I open the door I'm hit with some one's smoke who has gone outside for a ciggy, this makes it worse. After a few hours of this the sea calms a bit and normal service is resumed. We dock in Dieppe and wave goodbye to our fellow cyclists and some vintage car owners who are off on a rally and head into town. Mapped up and eager we head for Cleres our first destination after Dieppe. We climb a long hill out of the port and the legs have to start working straight away. We pick up the cider route and stay in the bottom of a valley running along side a river. Drizzle is the order of the day interspersed with sunshine. We reach Cleres about seven and purchase some local cheese and cider just like in the book. We then cycle out of town still following the D3 road and find a good spot to camp in the woods. The cider and the cheese make an excellent appetizer to the main course. The rain is on and off so we hide inside the tiny tent to the sound of peacocks and other strange woodland creatures that would not sound out of place in the jungle .