Rose early (well, 0800, which is early by our admittedly less-than-eager-in-the-morning standards - that will have to change before we get to Spain, as we'll have to get going well in advance of the midday heat) to catch the ferry from Saint-Malo to Portsmouth. What we had originally expected would take two or three hours took nine instead; we didn't make landfall in the UK until 1830, and were queued in Customs until roughly 1930. As a result, our plans to reach Brighton today had to be nixed - instead, we ended up riding in the dark (yes, with lights!) and following progressively more useful directions from various petrol station owners until we finally came upon a campground just out of Chichester. At least we knocked 30 km off our ride for tomorrow; it's only about another 50 km into Brighton, which we should be able to easily complete before the World Naked Bike Ride starts at noon.
The ferry itself was this ten-story monstrosity with cafés and bars and arcades and such. That said, we didn't really get a chance to partake in the onboard entertainment much - we were busy writing these blog posts so that you could know exactly what we've been doing over the last two weeks! (Yeah, I think we mentioned this before...it's not always easy to find a reliable Internet connection, and some of these days have been long enough that we barely feel like setting up the tent afterwards, let alone blogging. Oh well. We'll try to get better at this whole thing.)
Two things of random importance:
- We did manage to find a detailed map of the Camino de Santiago, which we'll be following through the north of Spain; it lists elevation changes (like the 1200m climb over the first 18 km - zounds!) and pilgrims' inns and other things of general utility.
- We have boat entry stamps in our passports! Yay. They have cute boat icons in the top-right.
Anyways, that's it for today; I expect tomorrow will be a good deal more exciting, what with all the nudity and such.