We stayed in a crappy hotel last night in Eastbourne but they did a great breakfast. We were up and off early with plans to catch the train back to Bournemouth.

We arrived at the station and bought our tickets which involved catching a number of trains. First one was Eastbourne to Brighton. Brighton to Southampton, then Southampton to Bournemouth.

I always get a bit nervous when travelling by train with our bikes as a lot of train stations have stairs to push our bikes up when changing platforms, and it’s impossible with our loaded bikes.

The first stretch to Brighton went well, but our train to Southampton was cancelled due to signalling problems. So we caught the train to Barnham and then had to change for Southampton. Thankfully it was all on the same platform so we didn’t have to take the stairs.

Barnham to Southampton was a bit more crowded and it was a struggle to get our bikes on without blocking the aisles. But a bit of mucking around we got them sorted.

Then at Southampton I was pleasantly surprised that the Bournemouth train left from the same platform as well so no steps involved. Although they did say a faster train would leave from the other platform, but the thought of getting our bikes over there was too much. So we stayed put. So rather than a 15 minutes journey to Bournemouth, we stopped every station and it took an hour. But it was no problem. I had a little nap.

We arrived back in Bournemouth about 3.30pm and fell asleep. So that’s it, cycle tour over. Now we just need to get our bikes back to storage