Days 1-2: May 11-12 

The plane lands in Schipol and after a few formalities, it’s on! This bike tour par excellence will be set in the United Kingdom. Great things have happened there so I have heard. What is there really to say? Rolling green hills and sheep are all the better if set against some stone Abbey ruins or Roman relics for contrast. Gothic scenes scattered amongst the fells, sipping on tea and scones. The Wild Moorlands are the destination, and if there was ever an original seed for the trip it was the desire to witness the landscape so enlivened by the Bronte sisters and the endless BBC adaptations of their works. I imagine myself among the sheep under the same grey sky, sinking into the earth. It starts to rain.…

The first two days are a mere prelude to the main occasion. We move our way through the lowlands, bypass most of Holland and Zeeland by taking a train to Vlissingen, and soon we are in Belgium. It all blurs and registers in fragments. Pass seaside towns with a little tram line that runs along a concrete multiuse path, views of the North Sea and the continuous commercial front during the off season avail our senses for most of the day. It is tedious riding at times. I can hardly remember it all clearly, what with the time zone adjustment and the monotony of the flatness. The seaside gradually shifts to forested surrounds as we follow a canal for several hours, one flat path exchanged for another. Images of still water, green mossy film, locks and tree-lined on either side. Pastoral scenes are gleaned in the distance between the boughs. I like riding in such a setting, it has a softness and painterly beauty. In the middle of it all, we stop in Bruges and sit on a bench in the medieval square, admire the 13th century bell clock tower (‘the belfry’) before moving along into Normandy on the second day.

In the evening of the second day we take a late ferry from Dunkirk over to Dover. It’s cold outside but even in darkness one can still see some of the white cliffs on approach. 

Day 3: May 13

Leaving Dover from our compact hotel room we adjust to the weekday morning bustle of town. Fine lilts and accents are heard all around and confusion ensues looking right or left before turning onto narrow roadways. Dodge the double decker speeding by, make it to an old fashioned diner for breakfast. Afterwards, we make our way faithfully in a northeasterly direction and quickly emerge in the Kent Downs National Landscape, a large designated area, though the towns and hamlets look about the same as anywhere else. The only difference from what I can see seems to be the relative sparseness of the land and lack of motorways. We ride along through it and into the High Weald. 

In Tenterden, in the early afternoon we stop for a rest in the park. Stylish schoolchildren walk past on their way home in distinctive British uniforms. It’s happening! Confrontation with British culture. Then continuing on to the grounds of Bodiom castle where we stop and have a look in the early evening. 

Gradual slopes and hedge lined single lane roads dot the landscape, narrowed and maze like with only an occasional view of the expanse as you can see. A great first day’s ride. 

Day 4: May 14

We camp in a forest of green and set off in the morning under blue skies. Well wishes for good weather seem to be the default response whenever the UK and bicycle touring are mentioned together.

The riding across the High Weald is pleasant because the roads are quiet, though the towns are somewhat forgettable. It’s sparsely populated and we see few inhabitants save for the occasional journeymen or person dashing in and out of a shop. Novelty is all around for us though in these British middle-class townhomes and streetscapes. Royal mail trucks in their bright red insignia pull over to the side, red telephone booths are haphazardly encountered in the hedge forest, and old fashioned wayfinding signs are placed at random crossroads to indicate the names of hamlets too small to be recognizable on any map. It all seems like something from another era. But it is difficult to get a sense of how old these places are as we pass them by. There are no features of central planning here nor relics and living effigies. The road network through the National Landscape is dense and odd, suggesting some degree of inheritance. The single lane paths or roads seem to wind and intersect at strange angles like a web and we find ourselves wayfinding at frequent intersections with the aim of heading in a general Westerly direction which proves to be more difficult than one would have imagined. 

By the mid-afternoon we pass the threshold of the National Landscape and take a break in Uckfield, ostensibly the first town of the day. In British pubs there is always tea or coffee, or maybe it’s the other way around and in any cafe-restaurant at the counter there is also a bar. Either way, and since we are good sports, we ask for Tea, in the High Afternoon, and we are served it in due course seated on a pair of leather Chestfield sofas, complete with a tray, tea pot, saucers, and milk in a petite pitcher. This will be the first of many such breaks for tea and the white ceramic tea set will become a cherished visual staple. 

We ride some more into the evening and have dinner in the town of Horsham, on traffic-free ‘Middle St’, which is lined with restaurants. More immersion into British culture for me as I have a serving of Steak Pie with Peas and Mash. It’s a nice hearty meal (I don’t really know what that means but it seems to be a descriptor one often encounters to describe British food). At the very least it gets me going the last few kilometers out of town. It’s always a dangerous prospect to find oneself in a larger town with sunset encroaching, having had a cooked restaurant meal, civilized and all. One is at risk of giving over to the temptation to stop and find accommodation for the night rather than ride on. But we encourage each other, our bodies not so used to being back on the saddle full time as of yet, so it goes at the beginning of every trip emerging from a sedentary working life. We make our humble camp along a forest path next to a creek, and as you can see it’s not such a  bad life either. 

Day 5: May 15

And how marvellous it is to wake up to green all around with the light of dawn. Reinier is always up and out of the tent before me (it’s chilly in the morning) but somehow I am faster with my camp chores and am usually ready before him to get going. It is an overcast day and I am wearing all of my layers to fend off the cold. It is sometime before we encounter a place which can sell us our morning coffees and at the first opportunity we stop at a tiny hamlet where there is supposed to be a store. We ask a cheerful looking lady wearing thick rimmed glasses and short grey hair where the convenience store is (the waypoint on our map labels it as such) and she promptly corrects us and points the way to the Village Shop in a friendly accented manner. Cheerio! What an embarrassing Americanism, convenience! It is a cute little thing, we have multiple coffees to warm ourselves up. For its size it is busy and multiple villagers ‘drop by’ in a steady stream to post mail or pick up small grocery items, linger, exchange pleasantries with one another, stand with their dogs, chat with the personable lady of the shop (who also takes an interest in our trip, she was incredulous we rode all the way from Dover). 

It’s all so quaint I could die. 

We ride on past green fields under a smooth grey sky, the surrounding land all the more lovely for the contrast. It’s a long and full day on the saddle as we have booked an Airbnb in the town of King’s Sombourne, with our sights on Salisbury and a visit to Stonehenge the next day. Before long we find ourselves across the South Downs National Park on its western edge, and by the time we arrive in King’s Sombourne for the night we can hardly muster the appropriate enthusiasm to greet and chat with our hosts, who are a very nice old British couple, for all the physical exhaustion of the day.  

They have a sign in their front yard and they refer to their place in the listing as “The Virginia”. I wonder if it is a nod to Virginia Woolf with perhaps some distant relation to the town but I forget to ask. The room is secluded on the top floor under a steeply pitched roof. I get the best night of sleep on the pillowy mattress with the cool air. Such is the art of British hosting and hospitality, even the towels seemed to be top notch in absorbency. We devour the offerings of the complementary breakfast in our room which include fresh strawberries yogurt muesli hot cross buns from the supermarket and coffee made with a french press. Before we depart, Reinier makes small talk in the morning with them about their vintage stove which also functions as a heater and hot water tank. I do not contribute to this exchange. 

Day 6: May 16

We set off in the morning for Stonehenge which to approach on a bicycle in order to avoid the large and busy A303 highway that otherwise services the site is not a trivial task. Some creative route finding and riding on overgrown tracks is necessary. Progress is slow going such that it is not until the early afternoon before we arrive. There is a small cafe and museum separated from the stones themselves where we have our obligatory visit, but otherwise there is little to do but visit the stones themselves. I have nothing to say about it that has probably not been said before. Standing there they look like things outside of time. It is quite a moving experience to go and look at them and all the mystery they invoke, to imagine life on the plains two thousand years ago. Their origins are a matter of debate and speculation, as much as their engineering feat. I remember two distinct facts from the exhibit precisely because they came as a surprise. Experts now believe that the purpose of Stonehenge for the prehistoric people was one of celebration or ritual, to mark a sacred place that they would regularly return to, rather than any astronomical or time keeping function as had been believed in the past. The stones were also carved by these prehistoric people with ball and socket type joints where a horizontal stone abuts two vertical slabs. Neat!

It’s easy riding in the late afternoon heading West. In Tytherington we take a short break on a park bench facing a small stone chapel whose doors are open before turning off a small gravel road into a densely seeded conifer forest to find a campsite. Rhododendrons abound!

Day 7: May 17

Today we head on the tourist trail into the city of Bath. I have vague notions of this place mostly because it is the setting of Jane Austen’s Persuasion and is referenced in passing in some of her other works. Indeed there is a Jane Austen Centre in the town in addition to the famous Roman Baths. In the morning I look at the map and make a rudimentary plan for the day. Sometimes it is nice to ride for half a day and stop early if one anticipates spending time in town to sightsee. Bath is evidently an overtouristed place with extortionist prices to stay in the city proper. No matter, we decide to spend the night in Bristol instead in the private room of someone’s apartment, called “the Red Room” on lodging sites.

Sustrans has built bike paths leading into Bath then connecting it to Bristol using old railway and tunnels. Residents of the city enjoy the spoils and so do we. The hours pass by enjoying these simple pleasures and soon enough we are in Bristol where arrangements have been made to see a play at the local theatre. It was rather moving and it would be too difficult to describe here, but it was about climate change, a tripartite of three narratives set hundreds of years apart in an imagined future present and past which intersect at the end. Why it was moving I cannot say for sure, that is how it is with these things generally. It had little to do with climate change itself, more so the inherent dignity of the characters as they simply went on in the face of struggles both big and small.

Our “Red Room” is fairly nice in the end, painted a crimson red and furnished tastefully, nothing weird. 

Day 8: May 18

From Bristol it’s across the Severn bridge over the Bristol channel into Wales. Before that we make a stop over at a local bike shop to purchase a new helmet for me. Somewhere along the way yesterday, before Bath, someone stole my white helmet off my bike while we were having breakfast in a pub. There was a homeless man panhandling nearby who told us as much when it was obvious we were looking for it to no avail. My poor defenseless head for the rest of the day! It’s a Sunday morning in Bristol and there are even a few local bike shops open, where they have a limited stock of helmets. I end up with the same boring black model as Reinier, and the loss feels even more pronounced.

We make a morning stop over in Chepstow before continuing on over the undulating foothills on our approach towards the Brecon Beacon. The Welsh language barely registers for me and despite its prevalence around us. My inability to process the strange letter combinations make it so that I cannot recall any thing of Welsh, save for the fact that consonants cluster in ungodly proportions with excessive use of ‘y’ and ‘w’. 

It feels like a short day. Already the landscape seems more remote in contrast to the bustling corridor between Bath and Bristol in the days before. In short succession we go from the coast to the River Wye, over to Usk, then finally in the evening light in search of nourishment we stop at a town called Blaenavon, which has a World Hertiage Centre for its historic setting of the early Industrial Revolution. There is a blast furnace building perched on its hillside as these things go.

Today it is rather all non-descript. The world has moved on and the town looks at once frozen in time and neglected. We manage to find ourselves an Indian Restaurant where we buy some “take away” and eat it sitting on a nearby bench. Such are the operations in the era of food delivery apps and tiny take away restaurants in the UK. We are even unable to pay at the counter and have to purchase our selections on Reinier’s phone using his data bundle. I watch the bikes while he waits inside. 

Day 9: May 19

What strange foreign land have I stumbled upon? The earth opens up. Combinations of vivid colour along the rising expanse and the strange tongue that is spoken give it the appearance of a place borne out of ancient fairy tales where mythical creatures rule. From Brynmawr to Merthyr Tydfil and over the Brecon Beacon in the course of the day, taking the road that passes the Pontsticill reservoir. 

It’s a slow day of meandering. Hardly any people around and only minimal signs of civilization to encounter. Weaving in and out of the forest with expansive views around the corner. Sheep abound in the distance in their God given pastureland. We take our enjoyment and leisurely pace as far as to ride along some gravel paths, where Reinier gets a flat tire, to add to the lack of urgency about the day. It’s not a big geographical area for a National Park, and there are no towering cliffs nor snow peaks, nor a sense of true remoteness at stake, but the pastoral quality is nice all the same. We make it beyond its borders shortly and rejoin at the upper extent of the River Wye. In the evening we stay overnight at a pub and inn in the old market town of Bulith Wells. 

Day 10: May 20

The next morning we happen to be present for the Wednesday weekly market, a tradition that has carried on since Medieval times. Indeed it is vibrant and lively to rival any as I have seen. It is hard to believe in this kind of continuity for such a small community. One has to admire the will and stubbornness. It’s a slow start out of Builth Wells as Reinier has made some tasty purchases from a stand run by a stout and large bellied fellow. We supplement the baked goods with fine coffee from the Coop. 

We cross the Welsh expanse heading towards Snowdonia. From Rhayader we branch off the main road and go forth on a single lane track cut through the rolling hills. Fenced off sheep meadows and patches of forest line the Way which continues for some time at elevation before dropping into small clusters of homes, villages along this B road. Hours pass by in such a way and I am delirious with exhaustion and joy. The road intersects with the main fare in the town of Llanidloes, and eventually we end up somewhere here in the highlands towards the evening, past Dylife. Where we camp I do not now remember. 

Day 11: May 21

A fine descent awaits in the morning into Machynellth where we have breakfast and coffee at an old coaching inn, the White Lion Hotel, next to the clock tower in the town centre.

Then it really is a monumental day as we cross the expanse of Snowdonia, or Eryri in Welsh. Truly so much climbing on steeper grades than I can comfortably sustain on narrow paved paths. We gain our vantage point little by little. The exhaustion of the day renders it all a piecemeal blur. Perhaps the photos will make up for it. 

It all ends near the Cwm Cynfal viewpoint towards the evening. If one looks out into the distance a thin sliver of blue distinct from the outline of hill ridges is visible - it’s the sea looking west down the valley where the streams and trickles of the surround drain as the Afon Dwyryd. 

The day is not over yet despite the faded light on these highlands. It is frost cold and we want to descend a bit into the valley in lieu of camping on the plateau. I am wearing all of my layers. It’s getting dark by the time we near the rapid drop off, and for a while we ride on like this in the open vista; the hues of the landscape unreal and unyielding. Every now and then an oncoming car becomes visible in the far distance growing ever larger as it heads straight on towards us/ I resist the absurd automatic thought that they might intentionally swerve at the last moment and run us over, there would be not a single witness.

We drop precipitously into the green valley. It’s a fast and cold descent in the dusk and we find ourselves riding easily along for some time as it narrows, and familiar sights of forest cover, gently sloping hillside, creek beds and signs of land management return. 

It’s difficult to find a suitable camping place tonight. Sheep are around and the surrounding land is fenced off with animal gates. Eventually there is a sharp turn off onto a forested track that leads into the local woods which features a mountain biking trail network. By the entrance there is a lean-to with a bench, a display board and a rudimentary map. We pitch our tent next to the lean-to, very conspicuous! 

Day 12: May 22


The day starts without any particular fanfare but I seem to be nagged by some mental inertia that just gets worse as we ride on. In the morning we pass through the small village of Penmacho where the unassuming shop there has a selection of fat bike tires and other cycling gear, a nod to our place of rest last night.

We descend further and reach the River Conwy, which we follow as we leave Snowdonia proper and head towards Conwy along the North Coast of Wales and the Irish Sea. To my surprise and confusion I am not enjoying myself. There is nothing wrong with our route and the riding is mostly flat and non-strenuous with light traffic. I am increasingly irritable as the day goes on, apathetic, sluggish, almost ridiculously so, like this is my first bike tour and I had no choice in the matter, wanting neither to ride nor to stop and rest for long. I am not craving or wanting for anything exactly. Physically there are no areas of discomfort nor a desire to eat copious amounts of food. And maybe therein lies the problem. I am just overcome with a sense of malaise on that day, a fatigue that never really lifts, past the point where I can reliably tell what is the problem and into early shutdown. By midday I have enough observational awareness of my self-pitying state that I can comment on it with some strange bemusement, but towards the afternoon, despite generous breaks for lunch in Conwy, where there is a towering medieval castle and flocks of tourists, and a nap on the beach, my mood is worse and inseparable from my embodied state. I am snappy and I think we get into a little fight about nothing, or something, about how the trip is “over” in my mind, because it “sucks now”. I think it’s because we are now out of Snowdonia and we have re-emerged in a corridor of endless commercial seaside development, which is not enjoyable. It does not occur to me entirely that I am probably just physically exhausted by the climbing and need a break physically. 

We stay overnight at the Travelodge in Colwyn Bay. Ever learning lessons about one’s bodily rhythms on a bike tour no matter how many trips have come to pass. 

Day 13: May 23

We are in the Midlands now, seat of the Industrial Revolution. Several hundred years ago this place would have had all kinds of hazardous and cramped living and working conditions on display. I picture a waifish and soot covered child, winding spools and crawling into tight fitting spaces to adjust a piece of machinery in some factory in one of these towns. Our general plan is to head directly east towards York and the North York moors, which necessitates passing through this highly developed area. Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, Leeds, and Birmingham are all clustered closely together, and the surrounding towns and villages feel like one continuous residential corridor. 

I do not know where we are all day, it all looks vaguely the same with no obvious physical demarcation for any of it to easily register. We ride along a bike path of sorts next to a highway joining the commuters. There is a sense of let’s just hurry up already, to cover ground, especially with the poor results yesterday on account of me and our premature stop. There is no sense of place nor of progress here, no scenery to immerse oneself in and witness its gradual evolution with time and distance elapsing. In other words my mood remains so bad that we stay overnight again in a hotel in Warrington for no reason other than convenience in this densely populated area and the need for a morale boost. The only memorable part of the day was the traditional fish & chips shop we ordered from for dinner. 

Day 14-15: May 24-25

All of it comes to a head on this day of utmost stupidity. We effectively spent the day meandering and trying to make our way through the outer ring of Manchester in the most unenjoyable way possible, with constant route finding along our piecemeal track, negotiating with residents out on their local recreational paths. Psychologically there is little sense of any progress and it may physically also be true as we remain in Manchester by mid-afternoon still trapped in its suburban vortex. I find myself incensed at the stupidity of the day. It would be better spent sight seeing in Manchester proper or on a road somewhere where one can get into the flow of riding but it is constant commotion and divided attention today. At some point we have a little eruption, Reinier is not enjoying himself either but is determined to see his plan for the day through. We have a small argument at the entrance of a grocery store, we look very out of place as shoppers entering and exiting the automatic doors with their bags and trolleys, as we intensely speak to one another and consult our phones to come up with a way to salvage the remainder of the day. My tolerance has eroded and I essentially take over the planning. 

After some resistance we are on a train, heading from some distant peripheral suburban platform, effectively reversing direction to Manchester central. It’s actually neat to see the city centre; there is a distinct look with the British red brick, and the locals have an interesting sense of fashion. In Manchester Central we take an intercity train bound for Bradford, and stay overnight again in another hotel. I am resolved to have a day which feels meaningful tomorrow. Sometimes these trips are about tradeoffs. Had we continued we would have skipped the regional attraction here that I was hoping to see. Bradford used to be an important centre for the textile industry and therein lies a museum about the Industrial Revolution showcasing the old steam powered machinery for the textile making, all matter of old things, from early steam powered engines and locomotives and automobiles, to printing presses with manual type faces adapted from lithographs. It is truly an overwhelming experience and we spend most of the next day there before riding over to York. 

Day 16-17: May 26-27

It is a day of more sightseeing and we spend the remainder of the afternoon by the time we get to York at the British Railway Museum. I am not a railway or train enthusiast by any means and am only a casual appreciator of this mode of transportation. I can understand and recognize a certain nostalgic appeal. Seeing the land transform from high above, overgrown tracks weaving in and out along the wild untrodden horizon, where roads are not to be found. All the stature and mechanical workings of a train car or engine up close are certainly a sight to behold. The British Railway Museum lives up to its reputation. It achieves something beyond itself, and is full of surprises, despite the simple and modest setup with a bunch of old train cars in a garage. What did I learn exactly? I am not entirely sure, I do not know much more about trains, and only small fragments of the visit remain. The experience is one that can only be appreciated by being there, in the presence of the train cars stored in the roundhouse, each one a beacon for the ages, entering them, feeling their size and weight and physicality, looking upon the slight shifts in design across the ages, and weaving it all into the broader social context from which they came. The appeal is undoubtedly tied to a sense of progress that one attains as one moves chronologically about the room, not only in technological or aesthetic terms, but in simple human terms. A sliver of history has been witnessed! How very nice and expansive!

Tourists abound in the old medieval city centre, old York, and it is an unpleasant experience attempting to walk with our bicycles around the narrow stone alleyways. It’s also raining. It does not seem a good idea to lock them with the crowds and professional thievery. So we are unable to enjoy ourselves much. We end up spending most of the rest of the day first in a small cafe drinking tea and then at a restaurant on the outskirts of the old town. Initially the plan is to ride out of York, and camp somewhere as the daylight fades. But my mood does not cooperate. By now we are hardly on a bike tour anyway! It has been multiple days riding in residential areas, consecutive hotel stays, even a train ride in order to make way for museum-going. Why wouldn’t we simply stay in York at this point, and tomorrow morning continue the sightseeing that was not done today? I convince Reinier that my reasoning is sound. He agrees, since leaving Wales the bike tour ended in a way; we are merely city hopping with our bicycles in tow. Ridding ourselves of any purist notions about what a bicycle tour should be, including ideal ratios of camping and hotel staying (3:1), we spend another night in paid accommodation. The options are plentiful. 

Riding away in the early afternoon it’s a grey sky with intermittent light rain. The North York Moors are not far away now at all. We leave the tourist trail soon enough. Only visual splendor awaits, made all the more beautiful from the fallen rain, the air itself infused with a fragrant earthliness that can only be felt when it is drenched and more porous. We ride for hours on end, no person in sight, the undulating hills have us work up a sweat. We are so back! On a descent I wipe out on a bend, slowly and definitively sliding sideways then crashing into the cut-away hillside. Heather fields, all kinds of colourful undergrowth, forests, sheep abound (so sweet the sound)… Old abbey ruins by the roadside with no fanfare in sight. Reinier explains why Heather exists in these lands in relation to the composition of the soil. I have forgotten the explanation. To say more I feel would spoil the penetrating directness of the beauty of the landscape… Here are some photos…. 

Day 18: May 28

The last full day of riding towards our scheduled ferry from Newcastle Upon Tyne, which departs at 6 pm. It is a day of flat riding at a leisurely pace. We emerge from our tent. It’s always bittersweet on the last day of riding. The beauty and serene emptiness of the Moors will carry us through. Hooray for one last true bike touring day!

Our pace is too leisurely and by the early afternoon we have taken too long of a lunch break, waiting for our sandwiches at a small restaurant where they also serve cream scones and tea. As it turns out we are more pressed for time to make it to the ferry than we had anticipated, as the way into Newcastle requires a small ferry crossing on the Tyne which only operates every 30 minutes. So we need to make that and by the time we leave the lunch restaurant time is tight but still manageable. We are riding in the vicinity of the built up area along the coast, leading to Newcastle now, and it still remains easy and pleasant riding with recreational bike paths. Very soon after leaving town Reinier unfortunately gets a flat tire and there are issues with changing it and then suddenly we are in a rush to make the ferry. It’s a frantic scene! A failed attempt or two, tire levers and bags strewn about near a park bench on the coastal boulevard. 

We do not relent for the next hour of riding and maintain a steady pace to the ferry crossing on the Tyne. We are both very stressed. For a while it is not clear if we are going to make it. We are very lucky, extremely so. The automated barrier gate that goes down before the loading platform lifts up and separates the ferry from the dock, is actively closing on us when we roll onto the loading dock. When the operator sees us there he reverses the gate to allow us through onto the ferry. I think we startled people with how out of breath and ecstatic we appeared. The operator indifferently tells us where to put the bikes and indicates the fare. The ferry is already moving across the River before we are able to sit down. 

On the other side now, giddy and too pleased with ourselves, a short ride to where the overnight ship to Amsterdam is loading. We head over in due course, pass several check points in succession where we are asked for our tickets and our passports. After all of this the large lot where cars typically wait and line up before allowed passage into the cargo ferry is surprisingly empty. The attendant tells us that we are late and that they have been waiting for us, apparently it was necessary to check in 1 hour before departure time, and it is by now perhaps 20 minutes after the hour. No matter, we are allowed on board, everyone is already there. Our bicycles do not take up much space anyway. 

Goodbye!