Here’s the map of the day, it takes a moment to load, for some reason starting in Nova Scotia. You can scroll and zoom it to get more detail.
Funny thinking back on it exactly ten years on. I had had my leaving do from last NHS post, in East London, a few days earlier. I had had a fantasy of starting by cycling up to Westminster Cathedral and then down perhaps to Winchester and then across to Canterbury and when in France to go to the necklace of glorious medieval cathedrals that are dotted around Paris. They would have brought back memories of childhood and student holiday visits but I had already realised that I would have my work cut out out to make it back for a Carlyle family wedding in September so those dreams went out the window and I headed toward Canterbury.
Curiously, next weekend I will be at another Carlyle family wedding, almost certainly the first and last such (if I classify J and I marrying as Carlyle-Evans, not Carlyle). That may add some current resonance to this reminiscence.
I remember another Carlyle connection was that I was seeing road signs to places that I knew had been J’s mother’s childhood homes. Three and a half years now since Doreen died. Another memory is of my frustration as I started to discover what a terrible guide Gurgle maps could be. I think, I hope, it has improved but you can see some of the fun and games on the map.
I had a nice pub lunch somewhere in South East London, sorry pub: I forget exactly where and what pub. Then I finally emerged from suburbia and got onto the Becket, Canterbury or Pilgrims’ way and discovered that parts of it, or at least, parts that Gurgle was suggesting, were not at all bike friendly. Clicking on the images should get them full size.
And this was looking behind me!
I remember that another challenge was a few styles on the route: fine if you were able bodied and walking but, even much fitter as I was back then, quite a challenge to climb over with a fairly heavily laden bike. I think I did manage them without taking the panniers off. Could I now? I am not sure.
Another memory is of passing my first pilgrim. A woman I would say in her late teens or very early twenties in what when I was that age would have been very common “hippy” garb: Indian cottons. She had a long wooden stick and a moderately large rucksack with the scallop shell of the keen pilgrim. It was the last I would see on a walker or cyclist until I was way down France. I remember admiring her independence and envying her youth and I regret that I didn’t stop but I know I was puffing up a moderate gradient and already starting to worry a little about making it to Canterbury.
In the end I realised that I wouldn’t make it, I think as much because I’d run out of daylight as real exhaustion but both were issues and I did some internet searching and ended up in a camp site a bit off my direct route. The header image shows my bike (not yet named “Toto”) and this was my first night in the tent. Before settling down I walked down to the local pub, had a pint or two and probably a pub supper. I half remember a good conversation with young woman behind the bar who was savvy about running pubs, I think it was her second and I remember an invasion of rather posh and smug students who were working in the local falconry place!
The adventure had begun!
[Created 2.viii.2026]