To London and beyond

Andrew parked the bike near the Rochester Cathedral War Memorial, and set about repairing the headlight mount.

Nick decided to walk around, then listen to music for a while, enjoying the fresh air.

Since Rochester Cathedral was close at hand, I went exploring.

The place was a feast of texture and color. At some point I assume I’ll get tired of wandering around these. It hasn’t happened yet.

Exploring the cathedral took up the rest of our time in Rochester, and we boarded the train for the relatively short hop to London. It would have been great to stay on the official Eurovelo route into the city, but it would have cost another two days we didn’t have.

Emerging into London was exciting. Andrew and I had been here before, but Nick hadn’t. He was trying to look everywhere at once and we nearly lost him in crowds a few times. I asked him how it compared to emerging from the train station in Paris, and he said, “not as scary.”

While we lounged in Parliament Square Garden we saw a crowd of modern penny-farthing riders, standing around in a big group getting photos from other tourists. They were all embarked on a cross-Europe tour, and made much better time than we did. … Not because of the bike design, but because a fellow with a very large van was carrying all their luggage ahead of them.

Still, from one rider of weird bikes to another, me and Nick and the various French and English riders gave each other a lot of curious looks and stoic manly nods.

Andrew only had a few more days in the country, and we needed to decide between exploring London or Edinburgh with his remaining time. We could potentially get a room here, then head to Edinburgh in a few days…

A consultation with the ticket office made the decision for us. They had three spots for bicycles on the train leaving today, but it would be almost impossible to get them when the weekend started, partly due to crowding, and partly due to the train strike that was still ongoing.

The departure time was vague. The office couldn’t tell us what platform to wait on, either. So we sat around reading phones in the station, which was a bit of a waste of international vacation time.

On the other hand, this travel was already so seat-of-the-pants that it was a miracle things worked out as well as they did.

The ride would take the rest of the day, so we organized luggage and sorted photos. Nick decided on a new favorite “road food”.

I chatted with a local about the Scotland route, and he insisted we try to reach the Isle of Skye. I chatted with Rachel and we looked at narrowing the schedule we’d booked for the Outer Hebrides so we could get a few days there. We found a very useful site that helped us rebuild our itinerary.

Unloading was a lot less stressful than loading, because the train was being decommissioned for the night. By the time we had everything roped back onto the bikes we were alone on the platform.

Now all we had to do was cruise out of Edinburgh to the west, where the first hotel room was.