6AM, the alarm went off!
Plenty of time to pack the last view things, loading the bikes, making some sandwiches for on route, having breakfast, cleaning up, and, as planned, setting off at 8.30.
We knew, some friends of ours had planned to give us a wave-off before starting the 20'000km ride to UK to Sydney!
All went to plan!
Despite the misty, foggy and pretty fresh morning, we both, were ready to get going!
To be honest, once we had either sold, given away and put in storage all of our belongings apart from the ones which had to go into the panniers, there wasn't much reason to hang about as the only things left were two bikes, four panniers and lots of miles beckoning us!
...So long...
What a lovely send off it was! About a dozen friends made their way on this misty morning to the house to bring us their good wishes for the trip! Thank you very much!
With the sound of a honking horn and some pot banging they made suitably sure that we got scared out of the village!
We made our way towards Milcombe, Aynho to Bicester, where we made a detour to the 'The Menu Partners' to say good-bye to my friend Steve who has been the Fruit & Vegetable supplier to LMH for longer than I was working there.
When I say 'my friend Steve', he might disagree with that as he blames me for his bold head, caused by my early morning phone calls, ranting about something - usually micro herbs...
Sorry Steve!
After a lovely coffee in the town center of Bicester we picked up the National Cycle Route 51 which took us towards Launton where we missed the turn off which added a few kilometers to what we thought will be a pretty short and easy 68km ride to 'break us in'.
Once back on track, we followed the picturesque villages of Twyford, Middle Claydon to Winslow from where Route 51 took us on farm tracks, away from motorised traffic, towards Milton Keynes, with HS2 running alongside much of our route. A strange feeling to see the juxtaposition of this high speed rail track and the national cycle route!
And here we are, 78km later, having ridden through the morning mist, with some blue sky in the distance, some rain & mud, we arrived at our b&b for the night, almost raring already to start day two of our trip! Heavy rain is the forecast...
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