It is beautiful to start on a downhill!
From Cassel you go down towards the sea which is still more than 40 kilometers far, there is no wind, there are cyclists training, I had not seen so many from Moncenisio, arrived in Bourbourg a lady on a bicycle with two lateral panniers slightly smaller than mine shows me where to get the road to Calais … the directions are only for the highway … even though Calais is only about twenty kilometers from here when I ask for directions it seems to be part of another world all together … it made me laugh that the lady, maybe aware of that, made a sprint through a shortcut and all red in the face came out from a lateral road to make sure I had taken the right direction … arrived almost to the sea with Dunkerque in the West and Calais East … I take a wrong road … a cyclist … annoyed because I overtook him … and a jogging guy later … give me completely wrong directions … so I pass by a nuclear plant … yes I am heading towards Calais, but since I cannot fly I have to stop when the road ends and I find two sort of basins formed by a canal … full of fishes and fishermen … one of these leads me back to the right path on his Renault 4 …
I risk not to arrive in time to the ferry, I wasted time and I did 15 kilometers extra between going and back … the ferry leaves at 13,30 … I push like crazy with the adverse wind … at one I am in the office of DFDS to collect my boarding pass … ‘Too late, you have to get the one of 15,30, go to the check in immediately!’ …
The check in is done at some ‘stations’, like in the highways, the English officer, a slim man of 55 years who speaks Italian, causes a line because he wants to know about my journey, he asks for information, if I had mechanical and non mechanical problems, the blog and tells me that he too goes on bicycle journeys but never longer than 10 days … behind they wait patiently …
Inevitably it comes back to my mind my last journey by ferry from Wadi Halfa to Aswan, with the same boat you can find on Lago Magiore, and the barge for cars travelling separately, the second class split between men and women, the difficulty to move because of the incredible number of passengers, the Nile, … on this boat, for this short stretch of sea, there are play areas, perfumes shops, many bars and restaurants, there is space in abundance for all … the journey is fun not a suffering …
Dover’s sea cliffs I was expecting them to be taller, in any case they are spectacular, as I take pictures with my camera with chicken pox, there are some sea gulls stationing on top of us, seems to be saying we too are beautiful do not snap just the cliffs!
The journey is short, the duration is practically nullified from the time change difference, the hour and half is reduced to half an hour, I can start off again with the goal to get as much ahead as possible towards London … to be there tomorrow in the early afternoon …
The A2 at the beginning looks like a highway I need to pay a lot of attention, do not get distracted by the hares greeting me from the side of the road, then it becomes a beautiful road in the English countryside, I stop in Rainham, before the last sprint …
We are almost there … the road mistakes of the last days … for one who has rarely taken a wrong road and has a good sense of orientation … make me think that maybe I am not ready to arrive or simply I would want to stay around longer …
Cassel N 50° 80.006’ E 2° 48.623’ – Calais N 50° 96.558’ E 1° 85.308’
73 km
Dover N 51° 12.370’ E 1° 33.231’ – Rainham N 51° 36.433 E 0° 60.514’
63 km