Geoff Jones

Inveterate dabbler in business, travel, gadgets & life

Category: Personal

Trip Day 4 – Weymouth to St. Lawrence (Jersey). Life Day 25,252

A very grey & damp Jersey
A very grey; damp Jersey

After yesterdays faux pas of riding to Weymouth to find the ferry had moved to Poole.  I escaped by taking the 7.23 train from Weymouth back to Poole, by the time the train arrived in Poole there were 15 bikes squeezed into our compartment!

Gmaps once again came up trumps to navigate the maze of cycleways from the station to the port in 15 minutes. I had a bit of a long wait for the ferry but chatted to a couple from CTC Nottingham on their flash bikes who are also touring around. The ferry itself was very efficient and we made the 150 mile crossing in just under 5 hours including stopping at Guernsey it clags along very smoothly at 40mph.

I had an awful night’s sleep at Seaspray, soft beds and sea sounds don’t suit me, the landlady was very helpful though, making me toast and coffee before I left. The triathletes were already bombing up and down the bay.

The weather in Jersey was pretty bad, overcast and drizzly. To get to The Village B&B it was uphill all the way to St Lawrence. The place itself is very organised but my poor bike has to stay outside 🙁  in the drizzle.

Tonight I met up with Peter at the neighbouring Saint Laurent  pub which has only two beer taps, lager & ale! I met Peter from my luxury stay in Les Gets earlier in the year. Tomorrow he is taking me on a bit of a tour of the island on his bike.

Today’s exciting Strava shows 2.3 miles and 166 feet of climbing.

Day 1 of bike ride at 25,249 days old

First tea stop at Ware
First tea stop at Ware

I finally set off from home at 12.34, according to Moves, on my latest bike ride heading towards Weymouth to get the ferry to Jersey and then St Malo. Hopefully getting to Ibiza and Morocco.

Todays ride ended at 18.10 at my daughter’s flat in London after a pretty exhausting 52 miles at 10.9mph. Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to do the 600 yard swim first 🙁 plus the SW headwind didn’t help. The front gears on the Dawes Galaxy also aren’t shifting properly, apparently the mechanism isn’t suited to click shifts 🙁

Tomorrow it’s a ride through Central London emerging at Farnham, probably better than riding through Hertfordshire lanes with Chelsea Tractors being driven at high speed by mums collecting their little dears.

My Strava for the day is here

 

 

The next little ride.

Last time as Miss Jones

With Emily’s wedding, even though I say it myself, successfully completed last Saturday I’m now free to do a decent autumn ride  in this brilliant weather.

I’ve never been to Ibiza, which is very surprising given my love of trance music and equally I’ve never done the Channel Islands especially Jersey.

So I’m thinking of biking down to Weymouth catching the ferry to Jersey, circumnavigating the island then getting the ferry to St Malo. followed by biking down the West coast of France to the Pyrenees and over to Spain. Once in Spain I intend to cross over to the Mediterranean coast and  bike down to Denia to get the ferry to Ibiza. Sam reckons the clubs are still open so I could do an all nighter or two followed by a bike around the island.

If I’m still fit and have time I would love to bike onto Tarifa and get the ferry to Morocco and do a bit of biking along the Moroccan coast 🙂 returning on a flight to Stansted.

Nothing booked, of cause, except for staying with Emily on my way down to Weymouth.

The Dawes Galaxy is getting an overall at Kingsway bikes with the obligatory new cassette and chain before any ride.

Simon has welded up my accessory bracket that cunningly attaches to the Rixen Kaul bar bag.

To follow the links below befriend me on https://ridewithgps.com

The first part to Weymouth is here just over 200 miles and just over a mile of ascent.

From St Malo to the port of Denia the route is here just under a 1000 miles and well over 5 miles of climbing 🙂

Denia to the port of Tarifa for Morocco is another 500 miles and 4 miles of climbing.

Will be interesting to see how far I get especially as some days I struggle to get over Elizabeth Way bridge 🙁

25090 A walking day at Victoria Falls

Wednesday 6th April

I didn’t sleep at all well, maybe it was the excitement of visiting the Victoria Falls a childhood dream or maybe it was the bed!  The previous evening had been pretty awful with all the locals dossing about watching football 🙁 plus a silly ticketing system at the bar. Unfortunately for me  I  had already booked and paid for 4 nights.

For breakfast  I took myself of to The Shearwater Cafe followed by a stream of the usual touts :-(, Interestingly Shearwater seem to own everything in Victoria Falls.

Small section of the falls
Small section of the falls

I wandered down to The Falls and paid my $30 entrance fee. The falls are totally spectacular and didn’t disappoint at all far better than I ever imagined just so wide, nearly a mile, the volume of water is totally immense making me wonder why so much of Africa is desert and that Zimbabwe is importing food from South Africa.

I took loads of photos until the inevitable happened and the camera became waterlogged with the spray 🙁 🙁  fortunately the iPhone kept working.

I went to the internal cafe, Shearwater again, and tried to dry it out. I was not alone 🙁 a lady had an identical D550 that had suffered the same fate, she was in a much worse position than me as her travelling was only just beginning. She is off to China via the ‘stans. It’s a small world – she recognised me from the border post!

In the afternoon we did another quick tour of the falls the wind must have changed direction as you could see the falls much clearer than in the morning so I was able to get a nice header pic in front of the main fall 🙂

Then it was back through the touts to the town

true_size_of_africaApart from the camera a great ending to my first African trip 🙂 So pleased that I made it to the falls by using the train and safari vehicle. I wouldn’t have had time to bike the additional 1000 miles. Africa is just so vast it’s hard to imagine as you can see from the diagram.

So although I’ve biked 2000 miles it barely registers on the African scene 🙂

Once home I guess it will be time to send the Canon back to Colchester Cameras yet again! My next camera I think will be a Nikon which apparently are a lot more water resistant.