Je Suis Prêt
Day 4: 15th May, to Plymouth 29 miles, total 131 miles.
It’s a gorgeous morning. The dandelions and buttercups are loving life, and we are too. This evening, we catch the ferry! Nicky has made it a shortish day, so that there is absolutely no dash for the boat, even if we have a puncture or other issue. No need to rush with the packing; we allow the dew on the tent to fully dry in the bright sunshine, before pushing off mid-morning.
Our legs are stiff and heavy; they are not loving life quite so much, at least they take our minds off our tender bums! Hopefully this start-of-trip training phase will end in a few days, and we will start to feel fit. Not yet though.
One of the other games we can play as we cycle along is “Injury snap”. The rules are simple; mention an area of your body that is aching, and if theirs is aching too shout, “Snap”. Knees offer a wealth of opportunities: Left, right, and all the different parts of the knee. Other popular aches come from lower backs, between shoulders, and Achilles tendon. Hours of fun.
We pootle along country roads, scanning the horizon for that first glimpse of the shimmering sea, each time we reach a high point. Near Buckfastleigh, I pull up sharply. Nicky wonders if everything is OK. I point and say, “Dean Forge the stove maker.” She is still none the wiser. I install wood burners with my son Matt, and we have just fitted a Dean Forge stove. They kindly give me an impromptu tour of the factory. If I could weld, they say I could have a job. Nicky, still a bit non-plussed, stays with Edith.
What’s going on? Are we on an adventure or a training course for stove fitters? Keep turning my pedals, I want to see the sea!
Next on our to-do-list of Devon villages is South Brent at the seven miles mark. As 20-year-old students, Dec, Wellie and I, rented a holiday cottage here as our student digs. It may have been 17 miles from Plymouth, but it had a swimming pool, with a diving board! We thought it was very cool, so cool the pool froze over. It was about this time that Nicky and I first met. She remembers me bragging about the first surfboard I shaped, and how I tested its buoyancy in this pool. Apparently, she was impressed!
We go hunting down memory lane for a glimpse of this cottage, but a lot obviously changes in 40 years, and we can’t find it. Never mind; it reminds us of happy times, and we have fun reminiscing about our first dates, as we pedal along.
14 miles further on and our fuel tanks are feeling empty, so we stop in Ivybridge for carbs. A bakery window displays a massive Scotch egg, more Scotch football really. We must buy it. Fuelled by this behemoth, we fire up another hill from where we can’t miss the telltale shimmer on the horizon.
Not surprisingly, it’s downhill from here to sea level on the Plym estuary. Signs tell us to look out for the exotic sounding Little Egrets. I get the bino’s out, and blow me, the elegant looking white wading birds are right there, they are moving too, so they can’t be plastic either! A little light Googling disappointingly tells us they are about as exotic as pigeons now; shouldn’t have looked it up.
After stocking up on camping gas, sunglasses and a ½ price down jacket to help me with the surprisingly cold evenings right now, we wiggle our way past the fish market and on to The Barbican in Plymouth harbour. Memories flood back from days out sailing on Edith the Hooker, and from a decade earlier than that, as the backdrop to a thousand student nights out. We’ve made it to the coast! Someone else is going to get us to France from here.
Our food obsession continues with bacon sarnies and a mug of tea at Captain Jaspers before following the shoreline up to the Hoe. A retired chap called Eddie comes over to say hi while we look out to sea. Eddie comes here every afternoon. He lost his wife eight months ago, and he says, “He’s getting on with it.” He likes to watch the boats in Plymouth Sound. “There is always something interesting to see.”
They park me against a bench so I can look out to sea. This is brilliant, a full 40 days of adventure ahead of us. I feel like shouting, “Je suis prêt and raring to go!” They sit on the bench next to me with another cup of tea and soak up the sun. We are just killing time, but it’s excellent people watching weather, and The Hoe is packed with excellent material.
Plymouth has been in his blood since he arrived here covered in acne to start an engineering degree four decades ago. Later as a family of six they sailed Edith the Hooker all over Plymouth Sound; they tell stories of running aground, picnics, swimming while at anchor, and watching dolphins pop up alongside to say hello. I wonder if Eddie and his wife ever saw them.
We are stupidly early, but we don’t mind at all. It’s a warm, encouraging sort of afternoon; there’s a sea breeze, and white clouds like the ones in The Simpsons scud cross the sky. Sitting on this bench feels like one of those pivotal moments. Plymouth is woven into so many of our stories, going back 2/3rds of our lives. It’s also the jumping off point for our new, and unwritten story. Beyond the horizon dead ahead is our new life within a life, and hundreds of miles of safe adventure. Hopefully.
“Je suis prêt and raring to go!”
To celebrate this new chapter, my brother Paul and his wife Sam have come up from Falmouth to send us off. They are meeting us in the repurposed old naval buildings in King William Yard. What was once used to store gunpowder and ship’s biscuits has been turned into expensive apartments, artists workshops and trendy restaurants.
The four of us spend a very happy evening together; lots of laughs, a few beers, and bowls full of noodley things. Sam is fighting an unwinnable war with cancer, but she is fighting, and she is living. She continually reminds us to enjoy the moment and our time together. To make room to laugh and to make memories.
They leave the restaurant and unlock me from the railings. I hope he has gone easy on the beer, I’m very close to the dock edge.
Smiles and hugs all round. They all know how poignant these goodbyes are now, no need to say anything, they just hug for a fraction of a second longer than usual. We wobble alarmingly on the cobbles as the Wrinklies pedal me off, trying to wave at the same time. Thankfully we avoid an early bath. Next, it’s ferry time.
We are put in a holding area with all the other touring cyclists before boarding. Nervous conversations bubble up from people, in the way they do before a marathon or cold-water swim, comparing notes on bikes, panniers, routes, and previous trips. There is a big group on a long weekend tour, another couple are heading for Biarritz and catching the train back. Apparently, someone even knows a neighbour of ours back home. Most people are on electric bikes, and no one is camping. We are the only ones heading down as far as Spain and Edith is the only tandem. We’re quietly smug to be going further than anyone else.
A vintage car rally is loaded before us and then we are ushered on. “Helmets on, and no cycling,” a staff member barks at us. The logic escapes us, but we nod obediently—no point arguing with a man in high-vis. Edith is tied to a wall on the car deck.
Don’t mind me, I’ll be fine here, tied up with string to this steel hulk. You two go and have a lovely evening.
We take anything we think we will need for the crossing in the day bag and go searching for our cabin. We dump our stuff on the bed, put on more warm clothes, including new 50% off jacket, and climb up to an outside deck to watch the last cars and lorries clunking over the loading bridge.
Alarms sound to say that the doors are closing. The ferry shudders, and the engines blast dark smoke into the sky as they are throttled up. Slowly the ribbon of dark water between us and the dock widens. The familiar lights of Plymouth shrink as we pass Smeaton’s tower on the Hoe, then Drake’s Island, before the Breakwater and the open sea. A little while later, after spotting the blinking Eddystone Lighthouse, the chilly sea breeze ushers us back inside. We lie on our beds slurping the complimentary hot chocolate and watching ‘Have I got News for You’. Next stop Roscoff. In France!
