I did it!!

I did it!! I set out on this trip to conquer Mont Ventoux, Col de la Bonette and Alpe d'Huez (climbed for the 2nd time but the summit was closed the 1st time for the Tour de France) and I achieved all those things and enjoyed plenty more on this fabulous cycle-camping tour :-))

And I am now part way through the adventure of the journey home.

Firstly though, I enjoyed another thoroughly relaxing morning at Mary's. Chatting, building all sorts of creative things out of lego-type blocks with Max (helicopters, water-towers, coffee machines), strolling around their local village and eating even more fabulous food were the order of the day.

It then became rapidly less relaxing as it became apparent that the meeting place for the bike bus was quite a way out of the centre of Lyon, contrary to what I'd thought and understood from the map on their website. This learning occurred just as I was about to leave!

A rapid change of clothing was required - back into cycle kit as the cycle was around 1.5 hours from Lyon. A mon dieu! (OMG in English!!)

Mary went into super-speed mode, printed me some maps across Lyon and found another railway station that would get me closer to my pick-up point. Thank you always Mary :-))

Max gave me a lovely big kiss and a fabulous cuddle as well as his usual cheeky grin (and probably said something about "Madame Moussa", his current favourite saying) and Rene accompanied me by bike to their local station to ensure I didn't get lost and in case of catastrophic mechanical breakdown.

And then I was on the first of three trains, wondering what would come next and missing Mary, Max and Rene already :-(

The first train was simple enough. A lady sat behind me had a lot of questions about my tour, what I did for a living and the migrant situation in the UK (!), all in French of course. She was actually Hungarian. I had quite a headache by the end of it after searching the corners of my brain for French vocab I haven't used for over 20 years.

The second train was absolutely packed and, in my friendliest French, I had to ask some people to budge off their seats as that's where the bikes needed to go. Another guy with a bike was behind me who had been on my first train as well. He seemed to spend both train trips helping damsels in distress who were incapable of lifting their bikes on and off the bike hooks provided on the train. What a hero!

I then needed to cycle a few kilometres across Lyon, a major city, to find another train station. I wasn't unduly concerned as everything in France is superbly well signposted.

Not this time!! And I suddenly became incapable of following a map, despite 2 weeks of successfully doing so. I was on the right road, just heading in the wrong direction (little change there then). Thankfully, the pedestrians of Lyon were enormously helpful at getting me back on track. I was literally asking people at every street corner and pedalling to each point step by step. They were all so friendly, I was very grateful.

After a bit of an adventure attempting to catch a train on the metro (underground) system where bikes are not permitted, I found the actual train station I was heading for with literally minutes to spare to fathom out an automated ticket machine as no human beings seem to work on Sunday in France. A-ha! An English translation facility! This slowed the machine down to snail speeds whilst the clock was ticking, the train was approaching and my heart rate was rapidly increasing to palpitation levels. Agh!! The reason? This was the last train of the day!!

I did catch it and all was well. And then I followed the next map correctly to my bike bus pick-up point. Phew!

And now that I've indulged in a large glass of wine, all is well with the world again. And I've had yet more food despite Mary completely filling me up over the last couple of days!

The bike bus is running late but I don't know by how much. At least they responded to my text this time. Fortunately it's well-lit outside given it's dark and, as usual with the bike bus pick-up points, there is no shelter whatsoever. It has been raining on and off today so I have my full set of waterproofs with me just in case. Luckily, it is warm as heck so I won't freeze :-))

Here's to a night of almost no sleep!!

Xxx

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone on O2