Days 3-6 – Fliuch go craiceann: Cherbourg Port to Rouen

Days 3-6 – Fliuch go craiceann: Cherbourg Port to Rouen

Wednesday January 7, 2015, 287 km (178 miles) – Total so far: 493 km (306 miles)

Day 3: Cherbourg Port to Toureville – 4.5km

The ferry trip passed fairly uneventfully. I didn’t have a cabin so instead was given a reclining seat for the night. My night’s sleep involved falling asleep in one position for an hour or so until something went numb, switching position and sleeping for another hour until something else went numb and repeating this for 7-8 hours!

By 4:30pm we had reached Cherbourg and I was soon on my way. I had booked a night in one of the budget F1 hotels in Toureville on the edge of Cherbourg. As it was getting dark when I got off the ferry I didn’t have any other choice. It meant I was able to get a good sleep anyway for the first big day on the continent.

Day 4: Toureville to Les Veys – 77.6km

I slept quite well, a little too well infact and that meant I didn’t get going until after 10. The weather outside was doing nothing to quicken up my pace either. When I had looked out the window upon waking up I was greeted with torrential rain and gusting winds, what a lovely first morning in France!

Eventually I worked up the motivation to get out in it, I wasn’t going to let a little bit of rain stop me. It wasn’t too bad at the start but within a few minutes I was already soaked to the skin and freezing as the cold wind and rain blasted against me. I was taking the main road out of town towards Caen. What I hadn’t expected was for it to be a dual lane road with no hard shoulder with countless trucks thundering by. This road would be tough going at the best of times but with torrential rain and a strong wind that was blowing me all over the place it was pretty dangerous.

I couldn’t keep the bike in a straight line no matter how hard I tried so I had to minimise the movement as much as possible. I kept going in the hope that the rain or the wind would die down but it didn’t. I struggled on for 4km along this road. There was no shelter and there was no way off it except back the way I came so I stuck with it. The best shelter I could find were the signs which popped up every 500 metres or so, these sheltered the top half of my body at least. I used these signs at resting points and kept pushing on from one to the next. Finally the end was in sight as I joined the main dual carriageway to Caen. I hoped that this at least would have a hard shoulder but unfortunately not. I had already had enough of trucks flying by far too close so I bailed onto the first country road I could find. Here I was finally able to find some shelter so I could put another layer on. I had only done 6km and an hour was already gone, this was a far tougher start than I had imagined.

The country roads provided a break from the traffic but the rain and wind remained relentless throughout the morning. Some of the roads were even starting to flood in places. I kept with it though and slowly meandered my way through the villages running parallel to the main road.

The rain finally stopped at around 2pm when I stopped for lunch in Montebourg. Like most of the towns and villages I had passed through Montebourg was completely dead. It seems like all of the towns in this part of France shut up shop come winter time. Most of the houses were shuttered and most of the shops were closed and also there were barely any residents to be seen. The whole place was very empty of life.

I went for a “Panini Poulet” (France’s answer to the good old Irish chicken roll!) here in one of the few open establishments and got going again. It was 2:30pm and I had only done 30ish kilometres, I really needed to get moving. The sun finally came out upon leaving Montebourg and I had some pleasant cycling through various French villages all the way to Carentan. The road there passed nearby the various beaches that were part of the D Day landings in World War 2. I didn’t have time for a detour to visit any of the beaches but I did pass a couple of war memorials alongside the road. As well as this the various sections of the road were named after different soldiers who lost their lives in the battles here.

Soon enough I was in Carentan where I stocked up on some food before heading out of town to look for a camping spot before it got dark. For a tour like this to work you can’t spend every night in a hotel/hostel when you are in the expensive parts of the world. If you did this your funds would be drained very quickly. Therefore it is vital to wild camp as much as possible when you’re in the first world. In Northern France where hostels/cheap hotels are very hard to come by this was especially important.

I’ll admit, wild camping solo (i.e pitching up your tent not too far from the road and spending the night there) does strike a bit of fear in me. But now that I had undertaken this trip it was something I would have to face head on. The idea behind wild camping is to try and find a location which is hidden from the road where you are unlikely to be disturbed and setting up camp there for the night before moving on the next morning. With this in mind I began looking out for locations an hour before it got dark. After a few false starts I found a laneway leading off the country road I was on down towards a river. Following this I came to a wide open field that was well hidden from the road and any nearby houses. There were no fences so I rolled the bike straight into the field and started to set up camp.

I knew I would be spending quite a bit of time camping on this trip so I opted for a freestanding 2 man tent rather than the solo one I had previously. This would give me enough room to store my gear in the tent and also meant that it wouldn’t feel like I was in a cocoon with the tent roof mere millimetres from my face. This was a good choice it turned out and the space I had inside was just about right.

With the camp all set up all I had to do now was to try and get a good night’s sleep. When you’re alone in a tent in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night every little sound is amplified so it took a while for me to get comfortable and finally drift off.

Day 5: Les Veys to Villers-Sur-Mer – 107.1km

I had woke up to the sound of rain hitting the tent. It had been 6 or 7 degrees that night but I was very warm in my winter sleeping bag so I really didn’t want to get up and out into that rain. Eventually I worked up the motivation and began packing up all my gear and the tent in the wet and the cold. All good to go I set off following country roads once more. Avoiding the main roads was adding some serious extra mileage to my route but I didn’t have an option here, the main road was a dual carriageway with no hard shoulder, pretty lethal.

I had bought no maps for this region as I thought it would all be relatively straightforward. With my change of plan to now follow country roads the local signage wouldn’t do so I started relying on the GPS on my phone. I’m a big fan of using a map and compass rather than a GPS but seeing as I didn’t have any local maps and hadn’t come across many in any shops here I decided to fall back on it. It did the job perfectly and I was able to avoid the main roads wherever possible.

The rain continued for most of the morning as I wound my way through the French countryside. Like yesterday most of the towns and villages I passed through were completely dead, the whole area just seemed devoid of people and life now that it was winter.

I took a break from the rain in Bayeux midway through the day. The only place I could find advertising Wifi was McDonalds so I gave in and headed inside. I know, I know, I should be sampling the food of the country I’m passing through but none of the French spots I see could offer me Wifi so that sealed their fate! My plan was to wild camp again tonight so I checked the hotels in Rouen for the night after as most of my clothes would probably be soaked through by that stage. I got some good luck and found a cheap room in an F1 hotel and went for that.

The rain finally stopped later on in the day and I was able to enjoy the cycling for a short while! I had a good tailwind behind me as well so I was able to pedal away at a good pace.

After crossing the Orne river north of Caen I turned onto cycle paths which in turn deposited me beside the tourist beaches along the north coast.

I continued cycling on in the fading light hoping to come across a wild camping spot. Most land was covered by houses though or campsites which were closed for the winter so I was having a tough time finding any suitable locations. I wasn’t expecting this area to be so heavily populated. I started the harsh climb out of Harbourg in the dark hoping to come across something in the hills outside it but it was all too heavily populated. As it was getting fully dark now I had to call defeat and limp into Villers-Sur-Mer to try and find a hotel there. I ended up finding one okay but it was way outside the budget.

It was a costly mistake and showed up my inexperience. I had passed a couple of spots that would have been good for wild camping at around the 85-90km mark. If I had checked the maps on my phone I would have seen that the next 20km were all heavily populated. With this knowledge I should have called it a day there rather than cycling on into the heavily populated coast in the fading light. It was all a learning experience at this stage though so I just had to make sure to take all this into account in future.

The town just like every other town in this part of France was completely empty. Being a Friday night I thought there would be a bit of life but I could only find 3 food places open in the entire town. There was another day of rain and high winds ahead so I decided to fuel up and went for a full pizza. The one I chose had an egg cracked over the top of it which seems to be a French thing, it tastes surprisingly good, it’s strange that it has never caught on back home.

I retired back to the hotel where I set about drying out my clothes which were now mostly soaked through after the two days of rain.

Day 6: Villers-Sur-Mer to Rouen – 98km

The day started off grand with dry weather and a tailwind meaning I flew out of Villers-Sur-Mer into the surrounding hills. I stopped in one of the villages and stocked up with 3 Mars Bars and 3 Pain Au Chocolates which I hoped would fuel me through the day. Due to a late start I wouldn’t have time to stop for any lunch so this would have to do as my fuel for the day!

From this village I was able to use a nice cycle path to cut through the countryside followed by more country roads. Along this cycle path is where I had one of my many embarrassing attempts at speaking French. I was even messing up the most simple of French conversations! The short conversation went like

Me: Bonjour

French dude walking his dogs: Bonjour *tips cap*

All going well, I thought I had made it away without embarrassing myself, a huge achievement for me with my complete lack of French! He then shouts something after me, thinking it was something like “Allez” I shouted back “Merci” to him. He looked confused, he had only called the dogs name so he would come back to him. Now I looked very stupid so I cycled onwards fast.

I somehow topped this later on that evening in a supermarket in Rouen. I had made it through the greetings this time without making any mistakes. I then realised I needed a bag. There was an empty one sitting behind the cashier. I thought I knew the word for bag so I pointed at the bag and asked for “Une carrière se il vous plaît” The cashier behind me cracked up, I had obviously got it very wrong. When I looked it up when I got back to the hotel I found out “carrière” means career in French. If I was looking for a career I most definitely wasn’t going to find one at the bottom of an empty bag in a random French supermarket!

I already had a track record of messing up French. I had dislocated my shoulder on a mountain bike holiday in the French Alps several years ago and I thanked everyone who helped me out in the trip to the hospital with enthusiastic “Merci Bouquets”! I think it was time I either brushed up on some French or got out of this country…fast, before I had any more embarrassing encounters like this!

Once I was off the cycle path the rain was starting to fall heavily and again some of the roads were starting to flood slightly.

The rest of the day passed pretty uneventfully. With 30km to go the rain really started coming down. Again I was soaked through and the cold wind meant the cold clothes were sticking to my skin. The wet gloves meant my hands were going numb as well which wasn’t ideal. I was out on a wide open plain with no shelter from the wind and the rain, I had no option but the keep going through it all. While I was making my way across this plain I was really glad I had booked a hotel for the end of the day.

The rain continued pelting it down as I slowly limped my way into Rouen. As the light was fading I finally made it to the hotel where I could get out of the wet clothes and take a well earned shower. These first three days in North France were a lot tougher than I had envisaged. The constant downpours and high winds meant it was tough going. This combined with the fact I had to take a longer route via country roads meant I was making very slow progress along the map which was quite demotivating. I just had to try and keep the spirit up and keep going and hopefully things would improve.