Poole to London

It’s been a wet few days in the UK so far, but I’ve ridden 250km and made it to London..

I arrived in Poole in the middle of the afternoon, and rode around the waterfront to a ferry across the mouth of the harbour.

There’s not a lot of accommodation in Poole, so I was heading to the town of Swanage to the southwest on the Jurassic Coast. As I was heading over the hill to Swanage I came across a couple of women on the side of the road with bikes, one of whom had a flat. It was a slow leak so I pumped it up for them and sent them on their way. It felt good to be so prepared, but I wish I wasn’t so well practiced in dealing with flat tires!

Swanage is a nice little town on the sea-side. I stayed at a hostel in town and had fish and chips down by the seaside. Fish and chips here aren’t as good as in NZ- they’re pre-cooked and sitting there, unlike in NZ where they cook them after you order them!
Anyway, here’s the view of the waterfront. There was some rowing event on at the time, but you can’t really see it in the photos.

I quite enjoyed this sign the next morning. To me it implies that women need to watch the road instead of looking out for Studs.

I took the ferry back across towards Poole, at the area called Sandbanks. I met a few interesting people whilst waiting for the ferry. One was a roadie who was really interested in the trip. Another was a Kiwi guy called Dave from Hokitika who lives in Cambridge and was doing a 5 week ride around Wales and SW of England. His was quite a different planning process to mine- he decided one day he should go for a bikeride (having no real touring equipment) and started the next day!

After brunch with a friend from my old tramping club, I rode on towards Southampton. The country was flat moorland (I think), and I went through the New Forest which was nice.
Here’s a shot showing the sort of landscape I was riding through.

I took another ferry across the river/harbour at Southampton- which saved a lot of riding. I stayed in Southampton for a couple of nights with a nice host who was a huge cycling advocate/activist. In Southampton I visited the equivalent of my old employer from NZ- Ordnance Survey. I had a great day there, although it was pouring with rain so I got pretty wet riding there and back.

Another long wet day of riding saw me push on to London. It was a lot of riding on busy roads, and I got a flat, but overall it wasn’t terrible. Riding through London was pretty good too, and it was great to arrive at my friends house and get out of the rain!

Riding through town I passed Hampton Court which was interesting.

Then I rode through Bushy Gardens where there were real deer roaming through the gardens!

So now I’m staying in London for a couple of weeks- so much to see here.. I’ve got new tires, tubes and rim-tape arriving soon, which should last me through Asia, and hopefully no more flats!