Apologies for the lack of updates in the last few days.
I just returned to the world of mobile data (it finishes at Voe on Shetland Mainland, if you’re interested).
Anyway, I made it to the last bit of road in the UK yesterday (Monday). Â You can see it above.
I’m now returning south, and will hopefully put a full update in this evening.
It may even be properly justified, rather than sticking to the right margin 😉
Well, I got hit by a truck.
From behind. Cowardly truck…
I’ve spent the last 48 hours or so in hospital, mostly comically spaced-out on painkillers:
Sadly, this means the trip’s over.
Happily, I’m still alive, with only a smashed collar-bone and some heavy bruising and scratches to show for it.
The Beast’s at a police station in unknown condition (guessing not good).
Will update you on how things are in another few days.
And what happens next, of course 😉
Dreadful internet connection, so this post is just to confirm that I’m alive and well, and am now in Utah.
More to follow when I get decent wifi again…
I watched a thunderstorm being born the other day, as I biked ever-westward along the Katy Trail. It’s an impressive process, as clouds organise themselves into columns before merging and blackening. And eventually dropping vast amounts of water everywhere. In the end, as you might be aware, they look something like this:
Which is lovely, as long as you assume that your local weather tipster is correct, and that storms always go along the river, and not across it. I met an Irish tourer called Phillip a couple of minutes after taking this picture. Unfortunately, after a couple more minutes chatting (he’s doing a loop around all the 48 US mainland states), it became alarmingly apparent that the storm was not playing by my weatherman’s rules, and was, in fact, about to attack.
The couple of minutes chatting turned into an hour-long incarceration in a very tiny (but dry) post office, which at least gave us plenty of time to discuss frames, disc brakes and spokes, etc, etc. There really is no end to the excitement in touring cyclists’ conversations, and we were both slightly surprised to see that the postmaster hadn’t committed suicide from sheer boredom by the time we left.
I just had time to hoof it to Missouri’s rather beautiful state capital, Jefferson City before dark.
I finished with Katy yesterday, in the pretty town of Clinton. It was a messy break-up, as I’d not been so lucky with the storms. An absolute monsoon hit at around 1205 (I’m never going to assume that ‘rain in the afternoon’ means about 3 or 4 o’clock again), which converted me into a half-drowned wretch, and the trail surface into sticky gloop which got everywhere.
On a slightly different note, I’d been waiting for a fortnight to be mistaken for an Australian. This has happened reliably within a couple of days of arrival on every trip to the US. This time, it’s taken four states, but Missouri has enthusiastically taken up the slack with five misidentifications in three days.
I don’t blame the Americans; it took me long enough to be able to tell a US and Canadian accent apart. No, it’s entirely the fault of the Queen and Crocodile Dundee. If you don’t speak like Her Britannic Majesty, you’re assumed to be antipodean. Especially if you can’t quite kick the (entirely English, I’m sure, just stolen by the Australians) habit of calling people ‘mate’. That’s all most people took away from the, erm, classic film series; Aussies call people ‘mate’, not Brits.
Ah, well. No point getting worked up about things you can’t change. Especially things that don’t really matter. A rest day today by the Truman Reservoir, and then on with the show. Kansas is calling; maybe tomorrow if I go long, maybe the next day. It’s back to the flatlands for a while before the Rockies rear up. And the humidity has eased with the rain, so life on the bike and in the tent are a little more pleasant. Long may it stay that way…
Since leaving Indiana, I have, as predicted, been sweating like a pig. It’s the hottest week of the year here in south Illinois, and the humidity is genuinely disgraceful. I’m not going to harp on about it, I promise. But just so you know, it’s nasty.
I’ve spent two days riding a national landmark as I head towards St Louis (I’ll still be riding it tomorrow as I head towards St Louis – big country, America…).
Route 40, as it is now, was built to get settlers westwards after the Louisiana purchase. It’s much less famous than Route 66, but it’s fascinating to imagine the convoys of covered wagons and horses heading west along the same route I’m travelling. It was fascinating enough to take my mind off my raging thirst for a few minutes, at least…
The countryside is changing, with less corn and soya (though they are still there), and more woods. And even some small hills – quite exciting after all the flat lands, but a tough ask in the heat. One result is a new contender for nicest camping spot; in the shade, next to a lake with no mossies – spot on.
The heat’s set to last for at least a few more days, but I am slowly getting used to it. I’ve gained time in the morning, as the clocks are another hour back in Illinois, so I’m trying to make ground early. And then slowing dramatically as the heat takes hold. And I hit the 2000 miles mark on the bike yesterday. Another little milestone ticking by…
There are still a couple of things I don’t quite understand about America (this is a colossal understatement; it’s a few more than a couple of things). The camping in Illinois is half the price of either Ohio or Indiana, which is nice, though the reasons are unclear. And I’m drinking a root beer. Which I don’t understand at all. I’m not sure what it’s made of, or what it’s supposed to taste of. But then, that seems to be the extent of my worries at the moment, so mustn’t grumble 😉
So, the flight was caught, and I was on my way to North America. Leaving Lisbon an hour late, and with the bike entrusted to the tender mercies of airport baggage handlers, I was really looking forward to being deadline-free in Canada. I was imagining gentle rides around the edge of the sun-kissed Great Lakes, rolling farmland and meeting some friendly Canadians. And I got all of these (lucky boy!) until this afternoon, when the sky decided to drop two-plus inches of rain on my head (and everywhere else).
It didn’t begin that well. I arrived pretty much on time (good), to discover the bike box in the state below (bad). After a bit of frantic checking, it looked like the box had taken all the beating, and the bike was intact – result!
After a day’s jet-lag recovery, reassuring the bike that nothing so traumatic will ever happen to it again (a bit of a fib, if I’m honest), and some map checking / semi-planning, it was back on the road. A gentle run along the shore of Lake Ontario to Hamilton in the morning, and then the old railway line (now a nicely-surfaced bike path) towards Brantford. I met Terry, who was out on a long ride with some friends. Terry was built like a rugby hooker because that’s exactly what he used to be. And once he heard roughly where I was heading, he invited me back to his place to stay the night, where I was treated to bed and breakfast and many cups of tea by him and his wife Barb. A first taste of the generosity which has characterised all the Canadians I’ve met so far. Even the drivers give you half the road when overtaking – compare and contrast with my comments on Portugal…
Anyway, after breakfast in Brantford, Terry rode out with me to the start of another ex-railway line path which took me all the way to Port Dover on Lake Erie. And I’ve been within a mile or so of the lake ever since. It’s a really big lake.
The next night’s camp was a double-whammy; Long Point provincial park is now both best camping location and most expensive campsite of the trip so far. If Ontario could sort the pricing out, it would be properly brilliant. I ran into a nice family who lent me a hammer (an inexplicable omission from my kit), and then insisted on filling me with (very delicious) chicken wings. I think I might have repaid them by setting their son on the path to bike-touring lunacy, but them’s the breaks…
And it was all sunshine and easy riding from then on; I’ve met a couple of guys from Chicago who are ‘circumventing’ the lake in a clockwise direction, and a Chilean who’s most of the way across Canada from Vancouver to St John’s (that’s an impressively long jog, by the way). And not a single bear to worry about to date.
Today started much the same. I stopped at the tiny town of Palmyra for some coffee and muffins (very good and cycling-friendly place – a little cafe and shop called the Crazy 8 Barn, who gave me a really good map as well as a bit of a caffeine and sugar rush). As I was leaving, there was a little comment about hoping I’d beat the rain. I’d not seen the forecast, as I was pretty convinced the sun would last forever. Uh-oh.
Made it to Blenheim dry, but with black clouds building. Finished lunch to discover rain bouncing enthusiastically off the pavement and the poor bike. A couple of (Harley-type) bikers showed me the weather forecast, as they finished zipping themselves into their rain gear and chuckling about how wet I was going to get. Not good at all.
I had another cup of coffee. I waited. The rain stopped, but the road was still soaking. Decision time. Go on, or give up for the day and find somewhere for the night. I thought about it. I dithered. I procrastinated (one of my more obvious character flaws). I was brave (read ‘stupid’). I went. I got very, very wet indeed all afternoon. Doh!
Still, all in all, it’s been great here in Southern Ontario so far. Fantastic cycling country, and top people. Hopefully, I can dodge the showers tomorrow, and then it should clear up as I approach the US.
Incidentally, the observant among you may have noticed that I’m heading in entirely the opposite direction from that stipulated in the so-called plan which I started with. After the rush through Europe, I reckon it’s time to slow down a little and meander a bit more. This way gives me a bit more time in Canada, and a shorter (in miles) stretch across the US; the theory is that there will be more people to meet and places to see, and I don’t want to miss them in a blur as I whiz past. So the plan’s in the bin already. I think that’s the way it should be.
The Unknown Around The Corner 