Hi TTA fans!

Here is our first update on the road to Africa. Apologies for the brevity, but the French keyboard is doing our sundrenched nuts in!

So it's day 8 of the voyage (note use of stolen french word) and all is going well. We are on course to cross the spanish border later today and begin our assault proper on the perrinium-busting Pyrenees tommorow. 

 

Lessons learnt so far are:

•  The early bird catches the worm as temperatures in the sun escalate pretty quickly.  Valencia is curently 40°C so we are pretty apprehensive about cycling at all in that kind of heat.  Bet hey, the show must go on!

• Joe should not really be allowed to ride a bike in England as attempts to do so thus far have been disastrous.

• The range of foods sold in cans is surprisingly disappointing for a continent as large and "advanced" as Europe. Beef raviolli anyone?

Check out our photos for more on our day to day experiences, but in the meantime, here are some of our highs and lows:

Highs

• Being fed and watered (read "wined") by a man resembling Obelix and his amazing family near Bordeaux
• Camping on the shores of pituresque French lakes
• Downhills
• Achieving max speed of 68 kph
• Conquering France in a mere 8 days
• Moules Frites + aperitifs + digestifs + nightcap
• The Atlantic Ocean

Lows

• Headwinds
• Blow out punctures requiring immediate new tyre. 10kms from the nearest town. 
• French campsites resembling something from Eurotrash meets Eurovision;
• French toilets
• Having to ask for servietteswith every drink to avoid having to buy loo roll
• Thunderstorms

We will hope to update again from Spain!

A bientot...