Day 7 - 1,000 miles cycling across France 🇫🇷 + Spain 🇪🇸

I cannot believe it’s already been one week. Before I started this journey I had anxiety about what to take when I was packing. Eventually I ended up filling my panniers at the very last minute with whatever I could see I thought might come in useful.

Now after one week each one of my panniers has a place for something and I know where everything that I’ve packed is. I am very organised.

Yesterday was cool meeting Leila from London at the campsite. We shared a picnic table and whilst I cooked and prepared my dinner we chatted and then I drank some red wine and we chatted some more.

While I was in bed that night I could hear footsteps going past my tent in the direction of the toilets. I thought they Lelia was some kind of insomniac but when I spoke to her the next day she said she had been vomiting all night and had food poisoning

Today I went to the town of La Rochelle and had an ice cream. It’s somewhere one of my athletes who I coach recommended I go. It was a bustling seafront town full of yachts in the harbour.

I brought some gas from a yachting shop and carried on my journey. Then I found a fig tree next to the ocean and climbed it and picked figs until I had fig syrup dripping down my chin and onto my T-shirt.

Two French ladies walked by and said something in French which I think translated too… “”are they sweet?” so I picked one and passed it down the French lady, she reached up and took it from me. Then they carried on walking laughing.

I’m now on a campsite run by the council. I can hear motorbikes in the distance I’m kind of in a town and it’s mostly Campervan’s here but I just had a great conversation with my father and he made me laugh immensely.

I have such a great relationship with my father… he is the funniest person I know, more funny than Richard Pryor, Steve Martin, or any of the other comedy giants. I would’ve loved to see him follow comedy as a career he really is an expert at making you laugh.

Today I cycled almost 50 miles on the bike my Garmin watch froze on me at more 35 which was pretty annoying but I just started using Strava on my watch and counted up the miles that way.

I’m pretty close to Bordeaux so I think I’m gonna go through and just drink red wine and eat cheese for a few days.