I have stayed in Sans Sebastian for much longer than I intended, I don’t have any regrets though, this place has been fantastic, people have welcomed me with open arms and extended to me friendships that I think will last me a lifetime.

So the 1,200km bike ride to Gibraltar seems even harder, for me because I feel I’m leaving something special here. But I have decided tomorrow morning I start off again, heading south with little in the way of a plan, just a direction, a map, compass and my bike. I hope the future holds other Houses-on-the-hill, I know for a fact there will be more life-changing experiences, different but hopefully ulitmately as rewarding.

On another note I have a couchsurfer saying he’ll host me if arrive when I plan too in Gibraltar so that’s a massive plus, I need to really motor down there, I’ll be meeting a friend in the south of Spain when I get there so it’s a bit of a rush. Then I slingshot back round to Portugal to meet a friends family then speed up to Andorra.

Hopefully this break wont have damaged my cycling strength too much. But I’ll get it back soon enough, I have some tough terrain ahead of me but I’m confident I’ll cope. So until I next get internet then.

So finally I dragged myself to Bordeaux it’s taken forever, not because of difficult biking but because I’ve been busy having fun. So I’m restricting myself to 2 days here leaving on the Sunday (maybe monday morning). Then I cross the green desert, seriously there’s nothing there but forest I think for freaking miles! I AM going to be in Spain by may. Then I’m going to put some serious miles in per day.

The trip though is going great, I have got sunburned but it’s not so severe I’m unable to move. Hopefully with a bit of luck I’ll be able to survive the Spanish heat when I get there. Today I’m searching for a cap to wear to keep the sun of my rudolph style nose .

I’ve met some fantastic people through Couchsurfing, through youth hostels, at bars and on the road. From people walking to Spain, to two English guys who biked around Europe in the 70’s and another bike tourist on his way to Madrid.

Everyone of them has been positive about my trip and envious, I feel I can’t ever stop now, as if I’d be letting them down along with myself. I have been slowed up and now it’s time to pull out the stops I feel when I see the Pyrénées things will change, I’ve set that as an end date to wasting my free moments and getting everything in gear.

Today I’m also sending my first batch of stuff back to home, excess stuff that’s completely useless. This hasn’t been all that informative as a blog update apart from where I am but I’m on a french keyboard in a hostel (no wifi) so I’ll have to wait until I get that before writing more. Hopefully I’ll find a couchsurfer for Saturday/Sunday night.

Wow well, this is a late arrival for sure, I need to try and update this blog more often. I have travelled all the way into central Paris. So far the biking has been easy to difficult (depending on the wind). The first day was the hardest yet. I found myself pedalling downhill because the headwind was so strong I stopped otherwise.

Calais was great I stayed with Benoit and Patrick who have a wonderful house pretty central to Calais. They were happy to have me stay and I got a nice bed to sleep in before setting of to Le Touquet, where friends of Benoit had heard about my journey and happily agreed to have me stay.

The bike ride to Le Touquet was fairly good, got lost a few times and ended up doing nearly 15km more than expected. Stayed with Julian and Stephan who cooked me a meal fit for a king! No surprise then I wish I had stayed longer than an evening but I resolutely biked down to Amiens where I’d arranged with a Couchsurfer Anne to stay.

The bike ride to Amiens was over 114km in all pushing me to a new limit. The wind at my back made progress a breeze, I easily got there with time to spare and saw the Somme in all it’s glory as I ventured on. Once there I got a good nights rest and managed to have a few great days meeting other Couchsurfers Anna, Gion, Simon, Sofie, Somie? (the spelling of her name always eludes me) and Julie. Who took it upon themselves to help my awful French (thank you so much!).

After some self reflection in a globe trotters and a bit of French study it occured that I am travelling for 3 months through French speaking countries and this is my best opportunity to get a grounding in another language. So I’ve taken it upon myself to try and study, study, study. To be able to do more than say “I would like” and “I’m sorry” is almost a dream of mine, I hate being the tourist who doesn’t attempt to speak the language of the country I’m in.

Anyhow from Amiens I biked to Beauvais and then after a single night there I travelled on to Paris. Biking into a major city wasn’t as bad as expected. But was a little unnerving at times. Cars don’t obey the road rules at all, other cyclists seem to be colour blind (red means stop you morons!) and the Arc de Triumph is a free for all where there are no rules… Period.

So the biking is going really well, the people with the exception of one crazy guy and one snotty waiter who wanted us to buy food rather than just coffee, everything is going fine. I am staying with Pascale in the heart of Paris and have a good amount of time to explore the city in glorious sunshine before heading of to Orleans for a few days.

Hopefully I’ll write more and more often on this blog but for now, I have to upload more images. I am lagging waaay behind (still uploading my trip to Devon in December :-/). I hope to have caught up by the end of the month at least. Paris is so photogenic that I may use up a months worth of uploads just here.

On a final note couchsurfing and youth hostels may have dominated the first weeks of my trip but soon all the campsites will have opened (April the 1st seems a constant here) so I will soon be travelling and camping 90% of the journey but with people offering me homes to sleep in and arrange things for me, I know that the rest of this trip will be just as enjoyable. This trip has already rewarded me more than I could imagine, and there’s still nearly 2 years left to go .