53 Miles in 5 hours
Ear muff, that is, and banging heads on the drop beds in the ferry, what did you think we meant? Thankfully, the ear muff was found with the soaking wet shoe covers and there was no permanent damage to our heads...we think.
But before this whilst still in Portsmouth, the Kellys decided to go for a walk after our bags exploded in a pub to allow our sodden belongings to dry (probably the pub will introduce a new policy to chuck out anyone whose bags explode and those who use the hand dryers to dry every article of clothing they were wearing, which takes hours). Is it still flattering if you get wolf-whistled at by teeny bopper girls who mistake you for boys? The Kellys would like to think so! The girls sped off after one look in the rear view mirror displayed two grinning bois 😉
Back on the ferry: had a shaky start this morning as we firstly were woken up by the alarm that the pervious occupants had bloody set for 4:45am! We then were woken up by the captain at 6:00am. Bags packed and off the ferry by 7:40am, leaving the Port of Caen and peddling toward the city of Caen.
The first stop was for Taitoko to pose in front of graffiti saying 'New Zealand - hobbit for life'! Sukhi asked how a hobbit is different from those other little gremlins in all the other movies. We concluded that they're not. After that we found a cool cycle route that got us most of the way to Flers. The Kellys, handful that they are, finally conceded that they should lather up their butts with chamois cream so down came their shorts in a not so secluded picnic area in the pissing rain! They declined the photo op, sadly.
So, France is known for food and we learned two facts: french slugs are massive and orange, and wild snails are enormous! Shells bigger than ping pong balls and people tramp around picking them after a rain fall - free escargot en route, yum.
Not soon after Jassar and Shiambi sneak past the Guard Ducks - yes, that's right Guard DUCKS not dogs - Taitoko gets hunted down by them for trying to take a photo of their friend the donkey! The owner of this random house in the middle of nowhere had to come running out with a big stick to herd the gigantic ducks and their 1.5 meter wingspan away while they rushed at Taitoko cowering behind her bike!
The cycle route lulled us into a false sense of security as we were then faced with monster hills! Yet again Taitoko was her usual impressive self. Gradient on one of the never ending hills was 6.6% and she just powered up like nobody's business. Sukhi is just not interested in the hills, lol!! She refused to do them but finally relented when it appeared the hills would not flatten after she turned the air blue and glared at them a lot.
At the top of one of the hills was a Canadian war memorial which made her silent for a minute.
Stopped for a coffee in Conde-sur-Noireau where a lovely woman brought us our first French cafes. They are tiny. And the hot chocolate also was served in an espresso cup/thimble, wtf?
We then had our last leg to Flers and were kindly greeted by more hills. Now about to conk out in our hotel beds. Good night!
