Today we cycle in three countries!

We had a great sleep last night despite our English neighbours at the campsite only starting to cook their meal at 11pm, and yacking away in loud voices as if other people weren’t trying to sleep in their tents until past midnight. I’ve somehow managed to switch off to noises and sleep through them, possibly due to being so frikken tired after cycling all day.

We were away before 10am this morning and started our ride to Dunkirk. There was a vicious head wind today, the worst we have had, and it was really hard going. Usually we’re doing about 20 kms/hr, today it was as lower than 10 kms/hr in the gustiest of winds.

It was another day of cycling alongside high rises on the beach and through crowds of people. Neither of us enjoyed it very much. We had tossed around the idea of continuing to Cherbourg, but the headwinds have definitely put us off that idea.

We arrived in Dunkirk around 2pm and headed straight for MacDonalds (well, we saw it and decided to stop). It was yuck, nowhere near as good as Germany’s Maccas. So our first meal in France was pizza from a vending machine, and our final meal was MacDonalds. We should be ashamed of ourselves!

After MacDonalds we wondered what we should do. We were both really tired after struggling into the headwind, but the thought of hanging around in a campground for the afternoon didn’t appeal. So we decided to make a run for the ferry and see if we could get on one today.

It was another 20 kms to ride to the ferry and it was a hard slog, that headwind relentless. I had a burst of energy from the MacDonalds, but Mike was struggling. We got lost a couple of times on the cycle paths, and in the end just decided to follow the road. It was a Sunday and hardly any traffic.

We made it to the ferry with plenty of time to spare and they had space! Heaps of space in fact, the ferry was near empty.

I was a bit worried about the wind, but the people on board the boat said it would be a smooth crossing so I didn’t bother with a seasick tablet. It was pretty choppy, but the big boat with its stabilisers made for a smooth crossing.

We are now sat in our hotel, wondering what to do tomorrow. We’ll make that decision in the morning.