Saturday 24 April Plymouth to Roscoff

Saturday 24 April Plymouth to Roscoff (ferry ride)

I woke up this morning at about 5am and quickly got dressed and went out to the deck to have a look at the sun coming up over the ocean.  Stunning morning and the view from the ferry quite moving, I love being at sea.

We ran around yesterday getting some last minute supplies.  I love the planning we are doing; the day before we leave the UK we buy a map of Europe and one of Brittany (France).  Sandy and I then start to think about what general direction we'd like to head and then surf the Net looking for routes that are cycle friendly (flat).  So far we know we land in Roscoff and then we're going to try to get onto the Eurovelo Route 6 which goes east all the way to Romania.  After about of hour with the maps and the laptop we have a sort of plan and feel confident.

I also lashed out and bought some descent walking shoes as we actually do a fair amount of walking around when we are not on the bikes.

Once we had a map and knew (sort of) where we were going we booked ferry tickets.  Then we settled into more research and then packing ready to ride to the ferry.  We set of for the ferry with plenty of time and were herded through the lanes with all the cars and buses and waited in line.  After a little while another cycling couple arrived all loaded up like us.  They are on the 3rd day of their trip and are heading to New Zealand.  They were surprised that they had met other international cyclists so soon into their journey.  It was refreshing to see some other poor buggers carrying the same amount of crap equipment as us.  We were told to walk our bikes into the wide mouth of the ship (with the cars) and then lean them up against a wall and a very nice man then tied them to a railing so they dont fall over.  After that we took our boarding passes and found our cabin and dropped off our gear.

A familiarisation walk was next and we found the cinema, restaurant, bar, games room, lifts, decks....this ship has it all.  Then we bought what I think may be our last English Ale for a while and sat down to enjoy the moment.  This is a very nice way to travel, sure airlines are fast but this is comfortable.  Not long after that as I think this may have been the latest night we've had for weeks (gasp 11pm) we returned to our cabin and went to sleep.  At this stage the ship had only just left the dock.

I woke up in the night and could feel the movement of the ship on the sea, a very gentle rocking as there is fine weather outside (not that I could see that from our cabin with no porthole).