rain – Brakes and Cakes

Back to reality: I miss my spork!

Posted on November 19, 2017 by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

This post, like most, is long overdue. Spoiler alert: we made it back home. I (Jo) have just completed my second week back at work; Debs has been back almost two months. Life is very much back to “normal”, although we’re still not entirely sure what “normal life” is. For almost two years “normal” was not knowing where we might be at the end of the day, sitting on a bike seat for most of our waking hours and regularly eating sandwiches with crisps in. “Normal” is now knowing exactly where we will be every night this week (and month), sitting at a desk for most of my waking hours and trying to keep our calorie consumption within the recommended daily allowance. Sadly this means a serious reduction in the number of cakes in our new “normal” life.

DSCF5612 — Enjoying a final slice of Dutch apple cake on the ferry

It’s actually more than three months now since we rolled off the ferry in Harwich and started riding our final week of the trip on English soil to get us back to Measham, Leicestershire where we first pedalled away from on 27^th September 2015. Because of events of the last few months this was not the homecoming we had imagined for a long time – as we had only been in England two months earlier, this return didn’t really feel special or momentous at all, despite being the culmination of over 31,000kms riding and almost two years on (and off) the road in 30 countries on 4 continents. We can only imagine what it might have been like had things gone to plan. We didn’t expect our families to be particularly excited about seeing us after only a couple of months away. So without a grand homecoming planned, we were looking forward to finally completing what we had started and arriving home “properly” this time – by bike rather than plane. And enjoying some quiet English roads and scenery (and cake) along the way.

DSCF5613 — There was no “welcome to the UK” sign so this had to do

We’ve done the ferry journey between England and the Netherlands a few times before, but always in the opposite direction – which is an absolute delight. As soon as you step off the ferry in Hook van Holland, you are bombarded with cycling signs and paths that present a myriad of options to ride wherever you might fancy in the country. Going to Den Haag? Well there’s two options straight away, a scenic ride along the coast through the dunes or a slightly more direct route a bit inland. Both as flat as a pancake, on dedicated cycle paths and signposted the whole way, of course. You’ll pass a Lidl at the start where you can stock up on cheap pastries and sit in a pleasant square. The arrival from the Netherlands into Harwich is pretty horrific in comparison. There’s a decent cycle path to take you from the port into town, but after that, you’re on your own. The road then climbs uphill out of town through a particularly unattractive estate, we were shouted at by at least three separate groups of alcopop-fuelled youngsters wandering around, a car sped past us and then cut us up on a roundabout…. The whole experience does not scream “come and cycle in beautiful England”. It actually screams “What? You left the Netherlands? *Sigh*! PS watch out for the potholes!” Dutch cyclists, used to their flat car-free paths and easy to follow routes, must feel like turning back after a few miles this side of the water. On the plus side, there are a few decent options for fish and chips, so it’s not all terrible. We celebrated being back on English soil in one of them.

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Cycling in England can be a pleasure. Our first full day back started with small quiet country lanes and blackberry picking. It became less of a pleasure when the rain started at about 10am and continued for 24 hours. We stopped early on under a shelter on the edge of a village green (a nice welcome back to England). This only increased the severity of the rain (a not-so-nice welcome back to England). At one point an elderly lady came out of the pub opposite and told us that the forecast was for heavy rain for the rest of the day. We smiled, thanked her, and said it was ok, we didn’t have far to go, only about 25 miles. We forget that to elderly ladies in villages that this is actually quite far, even without the rain. “You’ll never make it,” she said, deadly serious. You’d think we had just suggested doing backward rolls the whole way. “Go around the corner and catch a bus”. We didn’t feel like an in-depth discussion about the difficulty (impossibility) of taking bikes on buses in the UK, so agreed to give it some thought. Our survival was at stake after all. Ten minutes later we had eaten all of our allocated morning snacks. Sadly we had also eaten our lunch (it was still well before midday) and drunk our flasks of tea so there was nothing else to do other than put our waterproof trousers on and ride off. The next few hours were some of the worst in the whole trip. The rain bounced off the roads, our helmets, our hands, and flooded the cycle paths. We had two route options – a scenic, quiet and lengthy route on small roads, or the direct and easily fastest route which was a cycle path alongside the A12 dual carriageway. The weather made the decision for us – no more than the minimum mileage today – so we rode alongside one of the busiest arterial roads into London whilst the sky fell in around us. The cycle path/small stream that we had to ride on/through was on the right hand side of the road so we had huge trucks riding towards us and soaking us with their spray. Always a pleasure to be soaked from the side and above at the same time. Eventually we arrived at Debs’ aunts house, dripping everywhere, as excited about dry clothes, a cup of tea and a roof for the afternoon as I think I have ever been about anything, ever. The fact that she had made cake for us was… the icing on it I guess.

The rest of the final week passed fairly uneventfully. We visited friends in Peterborough, Hinckley and Market Harborough, and stayed with some lovely warm showers hosts. The very impressive Scott (as in Captain) polar museum in Cambridge made an interesting diversion one afternoon. I think we ate a cooked breakfast five days running. We rode less than 40 miles each day and had lots of tea and cake. I suspect we put weight on in this last week. It was all very enjoyable. We woke up in Hinckley on the final morning knowing that we had less than twenty miles to ride to Measham, and then the trip would be over. It was a strange feeling. The ride itself felt like nothing special, but something in my head knew it was, and willed my legs to slow down, savour it, enjoy the repetitiveness of turning the pedals that had become more familiar than walking over the past two years. Debs was riding in front, as usual, and as I stared at the back of her head and panniers I wondered how many thousands of hours I had looked at this exact view, and that tomorrow I wouldn’t have it, or the next day or the next day. Then my stomach rumbled and told me to man up, crack on and get there in time for lunch. Again, a familiar feeling.

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Before we knew it we were sat eating lunch with Debs’ parents, trip over. The bikes were unceremoniously dumped in the garage. In the interest of symmetry we took a trip (in the car, treat) to Cattows Farm for cake, where we had a final meal before we left in September 2015. It seemed an appropriate end for brakes and cakes that we spent our first couple of post-trip hours at one of our favourite places for cake ever, just a few miles from our start and end point.

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On the ferry back to England, in an attempt to get over the sadness of the trip coming to an end, we wrote a list of things we were looking forward to. We would miss many aspects of this lifestyle – not knowing or caring what time it is, being so physically tired at the end of each day that we would often fall asleep mid conversation once we laid down, being outside for most of the day and night, eating as many cakes and pastries as we liked guilt-free, to name just a few – but it’s not all glamour. We might make it sound it, but life on the road has its downs as well as its ups and some aspects, particularly those relating to hygiene, we would not miss at all. Yet eating cereal out of a bowl rather than a cup, sleeping in a bed, cooking on a hob, eating cheese sandwiches that aren’t sweaty, were all laughed off the list, as they were things I felt we would definitely miss. So here it is. Three months after writing it, I can genuinely say that although I now have these things back in my life on a daily basis, it’s hard not to get a bit misty eyed at (most of) this list.

Things we were looking forward to coming home for:

Knowing that the spoon you are about to use has been washed rather than licked clean (and not necessarily by yourself)
Drinking water from a glass rather than a dubiously clean water bottle that has definitely had algae growth at some point in its life
Not having to squirrel away extra toilet paper every time you go to the toilet for fear of not seeing any for the rest of the day
Opening panniers/unrolling clothes/unwrapping food and being confident that an earwig won’t crawl out
Not having to wash underwear by hand every evening
Wearing clean socks every day
(Usually) knowing where the toilet is
Real milk in tea rather than powdered milk, or worse, coffee creamer (or worse, powdered milk or coffee creamer that an earwig has crawled out of)
Having my own plate to eat off rather than sharing a pan full of food
Using a full set of cutlery for meals
Not having to spend what feels like an hour every evening trying to get into a sleeping bag liner that is now more hole than material
Not having to blow my bed up
Chopping vegetables with a real knife rather than a Swiss Army knife which has previously been used for every other food item that needs chopping/slicing and also….
Washing greasy pans etc with warm water and washing up liquid every time
Putting a dry pair of shoes on in the morning rather than the ones that are still wet from the day before
Understanding whether supermarket checkout workers are asking us whether we want a receipt, a bag, have a reward card, or something totally different
Being inside when it rains, rather than trying to shelter from a downpour under a tree and not knowing if this is keeping you drier or making you wetter
Always being able to wash our hands with soap before eating
Boiling water by flicking the switch of a kettle
Eating lunch somewhere that isn’t a bus shelter.

Yes, life back home has a greater level of hygiene and far fewer earwigs. These are good things. We are enjoying many things about being back home, particularly spending time with family and friends. I’m even looking forward to our first British winter since 2014 (mostly for Christmas, but I don’t mind the dark and cold yet so far). But there’s definitely a part of me that would happily trade the electric kettle for a tepid cup of tea made with powdered milk, drunk out of a flask that has not been washed for a week, sitting in a bus shelter listening to the rain, because the next moment we could be enjoying the thrill of a great descent, some amazing fresh food or the enthusiastic conversation of a stranger. We’re not done yet, that’s for sure.

DSCF5654 — Quiet English roads, rolling countryside and sunshine. Yes please.

Thanks to Carol and Martin; Stephen, Debs and neighbours; Charlie; Tracey; Curry, Lisa and friends; Lucy and Kirsty; Chessie and Sarah; and our families for being excited at us being back despite only seeing us two months earlier.

Riding NZ’s west coast: There is such a thing as a free lunch

Posted on January 19, 2017January 19, 2017 by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

Last time we cycled in New Zealand we didn’t make it to the west coast of the South Island. Everything you hear makes it sound a must-see – glaciers, rainforests, beaches, quiet scenic roads – apart from the one fact that it rains there. A lot. The Southern Alps that run down the spine of the island do a great job in trapping all of the rain and cloud, depositing it on the west coast and keeping the other side of the mountains nice and dry. We thought back to Oregon in September when we had a stretch of a week or so where it rained every day. Not only does this make everything in our current way of life (cycling, cooking, camping, stopping to pee) harder but it also pretty much ruins the good views that are supposed to be the reward for the effort put into cycling. But hey, it can’t always rain. We crossed our fingers and rode towards the rainy coast, determined to see a glacier or two.

To get to the west coast from our rest stop in Queenstown we first had to get to Wanaka by riding the highest paved through road in New Zealand, crown range road (that’s now two countries we have ridden the highest paved through road). It is crazy steep, the start involves switchback after switchback up the side of the hill, and then it snakes up to the top of the pass so steeply it was almost impossible to push the pedals round.

The scenery is pretty barren up to the top, though the gradual descent down the other side follows a pretty cool gorge for a while and passes through Cardrona, famous for its old hotel. But the gradual descent was totally ruined by a vicious headwind. We arrived in Wanaka at 6pm shattered and out of the three campgrounds in town, chose the pricey one with a hot tub to soak our weary muscles.

dscf9581 — It doesn’t even look that steep…

From Wanaka it was two days riding to Haast on the west coast. We were tired from the previous climb and it was pretty miserable so on the first day we stopped and put the tent up at 3pm by a lake and sheltered from the rain and the sand flies for the afternoon. The following day we had Haast pass to climb, but it wasn’t too bad, much helped by passing an organised cycle ride and being invited into their lunch tent. We were told to take as much as we wanted as they were throwing the rest away; loving food and hating waste like we do we ate a huge lunch and carried as much as we could for dinner that day. Then sadly watched the rest be thrown in the bin. If anyone ever says there’s no such thing as a free lunch, remember this story. Keep the faith. Luckily it was mostly downhill from there as we were so full we could hardly pedal, the sun came out and we caught a rare glimpse of the mountains surrounding us. There were loads of waterfalls just by the side of the road and we were reminded of the beauty of travelling by bike as we could hear them roar before we saw them. We arrived in Haast under blue skies, ate our free dinner and went to sleep hopeful that we had hit some decent weather.

dscf9606 — Lake Wanaka. I’m sure it can look better than this…

It was not to be. The next morning there was low cloud all around us. The mountains that we had seen in existence the day before had disappeared. The road was seriously steep; this section of road is over difficult terrain and wasn’t completed until the mid 1960s. It’s nice to get reminders like these of how young the infrastructure of this country is. It’s easy to take for granted the amount of really old stuff we have in Europe. There’s old stuff to see in New Zealand too but it’s all natural – the oldest buildings are 19th century. In contrast, there’s a church in our small Leicestershire village from the 14th century; this is quite normal. Anyway, the cloud made everything quite dreary, the road was mostly inland with no views of anything and as we arrived at a motel/campground and asked about pitching the tent, the owner said “you know it’s going to p*** it down?” We did know that, we camped anyway, and yes it p***ed it down all night. And all the next morning. In preparation we had booked a room in a hostel in Fox, a tiny tourist town that has little apart from hotels and companies offering helicopter rides to the glacier. Not on that day. We rode through the rain and checked in to the hostel bang on 1pm, the earliest check in time, dripping all over reception. I don’t think the staff were that excited to see us, especially when we handed over an armful of damp cycling clothing for them to hang up in their laundry. The afternoon was spent getting everything dry, making tea in a tea pot, and laying down. It was great. Later I ventured out to buy an ice cream each, though for the same price as two individual ones, I could buy a 2 litre tub – no brainer. (This is not uncommon across the world and only encourages over consumption, which is fine for cyclists (ok, debatable) but not for anyone else.) Luckily there was a freezer at hand so we didn’t have to eat it all that day.

dscf9703 — Scenic lunch shelter. You see these by the road, i think they are for kids to stay dry waiting for the school bus.

There are two glaciers that are (semi) accessible from the west coast road, Fox and Franz Josef. We didn’t see any reason going to see both (they are detours from the road), so as the weather was bad as we rode past the turning to Fox Glacier we put all our eggs in the Franz Josef Glacier basket and hoped for a bit more visibility as we rode north. The next morning it was a bit brighter, so we pedalled hopefully out to Lake Matheson, where on a clear day there is a picture perfect reflection of Mount Cook (the opposite side of the mountain to where we had hung out in perfect sunshine the week before). Unfortunately by the time we got there the clouds had swooped in again and the mountains were nowhere to be seen.

matheson — Lake Matheson. The brochure view on the left; our view on the right.

After calling back to the hostel for our stuff and to finish off the rest of the ice cream it was a twisty, hilly road to Franz Josef and it rained the whole time. Undeterred we rode the 5km detour out to the car park, locked our bikes and joined the hoards of other people in waterproofs to walk grimly out towards the glacier. Since 2008 the glacier has retreated around 800m so you can’t really get that close anyway now. We could hardly see anything so took a few terrible photos and walked back as fast as we could. Disappointing indeed. The best thing was that there was an undercover bike storage area where we could eat our sandwiches out of the rain. That night we camped at a lake near a couple of Aussies who gave us a beer and despite the cloud there was even a nice sunset.

dscf9727 — Franz Josef Glacier. Behind there somewhere. I think.

Blue skies returned the next morning so we had some decent views and a good ride up the coast, though again the road is mostly inland so there’s not really much to see other than trees. It’s not that I don’t like trees. They just get a bit repetitive after a while. There wasn’t much to see, and we were even refused drinking water for the first time on the trip. In Harihari we stopped to read about the first person to fly solo across the Tasman sea (from Sydney, Australia). He didn’t think he’d get aviation permission for the flight so told everyone he was flying to Perth but flew over to New Zealand instead, half-crashing in a peat bog near Harihari and becoming a local hero. The scenery picked up a little as we crossed a couple of sparkly rivers before camping in Ross, a former gold rush town that once had 2500 inhabitants and now has 300. The old pub is quite quirky and has a camping/campervan area with a kitchen where every single other backpacker was making some variation of spaghetti bolognese. I think we saw five different spag bol meals prepared. We turned a few heads with our rice dinner. Debs even taught a German couple how to open a tin with her Swiss Army Knife. Revolutionary. The town occupied our interests for an hour or so the next morning as there are a few old gold-rush era buildings remaining.

There’s a new bike route on this section of coast starting in Ross but we only lasted 100m or so on it as the gravel was so loose it was hard to stay upright. Back on the road the wind blew us to Hokitika, as this was the first time we had seen the sea for four days we had fish and chips on the beach. It felt a bit like being in England – it was grey and freezing cold. Hokitika obviously has someone good working in marketing as they have done two impressive things – a driftwood sign on the beach (selfie central) and registered the domain name http://www.coollittletown.com. It was nice to see the sea again but we wanted to get a bit further so we carried on pedalling inland to Goldsborough, another former gold rush town that once had 7000 inhabitants but now nothing remains. We went for a walk from the campground and it’s strange to be wandering around in the bush imagining a decent sized town with shops, banks, a church and a school once existing there. The next couple of days were spent riding back towards Christchurch over the infamous Arthur’s Pass that we had detoured away from over two weeks previously. Doing this to avoid the worst of the weather didn’t quite go to plan…. as described in a previous post…

All in all I’m sure the west coast can be a spectacular drive/ride if the weather is right but I’m not sure we’d recommend it to cyclists. Although the road was pretty quiet, the grades are crazy steep at times, there’s not much to see on the way, you’re rarely near the ocean and the people weren’t super friendly. It’s good if you like trees and hills and don’t mind riding in the rain I guess. Or sharing the road with houses.

An Extreme 24 Hours in New Zealand

Posted on December 23, 2016January 4, 2017 by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

Extreme is probably a good word to describe New Zealand. It’s well known for its extreme tourist activities. There are innumerable opportunities to jump off something high tied to a thin piece of elastic. Swing bridges are not just for walking across but for zip wiring over, preferably face first. I’ve never seen so many adverts for sky diving, rafting, etc. We managed to resist the temptation to bungee – cycling exposed us to all kinds of extreme without swapping a huge pile of dollars for a few seconds free fall and a t shirt.

The wind is crazy strong – it can smash you in the face to the point you have to get off and walk, get behind you and blow you uphill, or hit you from the side in gusts that push you off the road. Hills are so steep that your legs are at the burning limit after 100m going up hill and down isn’t much better as it’s easy to go out of control fast. People are either really friendly or incredibly rude (the latter are usually found behind the wheel of a large vehicle, or occasionally working in customer service). It’s either been amazing or awful. There’ll be a full catch up on our time here soon, but for now, here’s an amazing/awful 24-hour period last week.

5.00pm. After riding uphill all day, the highway turns into something that seems too steep to be an actual road. Three leg-burning lengthy 16% grade sections are separated by mere 5-6% grades that feel flat in comparison. We have to stop every 100m or so as the legs just won’t go any longer at a time. It’s cold but my t-shirt is drenched in sweat. Chocolate supplies are running low.

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dscf9825 — It doesn’t even look that steep. It nearly broke us.

6.00pm. We make it to the top of Arthur’s Pass (920m). Plans to eat our remaining chocolate in celebration are shelved as it’s freezing cold, the rain has picked up and the wind is blowing it into our faces. We quickly each put on two jackets, waterproof trousers, buffs and extra gloves for the steep descent into the village.

dscf9831 — There’s not even a decent sign at the top as a reward. Re-layering for the rainy ride down. Pretty awful all round.

6.05pm. I haven’t put my sunglasses on (it’s dull) and the rain feels so sharp in my eyes I have to part close them. Not a wise idea when riding down a steep hill in cloud.

6.10pm. 4 steep kilometres later we make it to the village. The shop is closed. A bar is open so I go in to get water. It’s so warm inside I don’t want to leave. We swing by the youth hostel ‘just to see’… and it’s full. Time for another 8km downhill to a free campground.

6.30pm. It’s still raining when we get to the campground so we ride straight into the picnic shelter to dry off. Three Aussie girls are eating their dinner. The first thing they say is “do you want some pasta? We can’t finish it…” If you ever see a cold cycle tourist, this is probably the best thing you can say. You could always follow it up with “I’ve also got this huge cake going spare, and a flask of tea, oh and I’ll be making bacon sandwiches in the morning….” (we actually dream of these conversations happening.)

7.30pm. Our pasta starter is followed by a huge pasta main. Appetites are not affected by eating an extra meal. It is still raining.

8.30pm. It’s time, we have to go and put up the tent. It is still raining. We consider putting it up in the picnic shelter but it doesn’t fit properly and we decide it can’t possibly keep raining all night. We choose a nice grassy patch behind a tree to give some wind protection.

9.30pm. The tent is up. We are warm and content. It is still raining, but we have faith in our tent.

2.06am. After about four hours sleep the wind and heavy rain outside wakes us up. It is so loud we have to shout to have a conversation. Debs decides to go to the toilet.

2.07am. Debs steps out of the tent straight into water deeper than her shoe. Turns out one end of our tent is in deep water. It is still raining.

2.30am. After a full assessment of the new swimming pool in the tent porch we decide to pack up and get under the shelter whilst our sleeping stuff is still dry. I’ve never heard of anyone drowning in a tent but you don’t want to be the first. Debs is bitten on the chin by a sandfly whilst packing up and swears a lot. It is still raining.

3.48am. It’s been a slow and wet process but us and all of our possessions are now under shelter. We get the stove out and make porridge and hot chocolate. We are wearing most of our dry clothes, including long johns, puffa jackets, woolly hats, gloves, and all available dry socks. Our trainers are soaking so we are rocking the socks and sandals combo. We are still cold. This is pretty awful.

5.00am. It starts getting light, and finally stops raining. We have read two Agatha Christie short stories, and finished our chocolate supplies.

6.00am. The sky is clear, the sun is just up and it’s light enough to ride so we set off, our earliest start since we were trying to avoid the Wyoming wind. There’s not much traffic and it’s nice riding. We can even see the snowy mountains behind us.

dscf9849 — The mountains that were hidden behind thick cloud the day before

8.00am. It feels like it should be lunchtime so we eat breakfast number 2, lemon curd sandwiches. They are awesome.

9.00am. The sun is super strong and it’s time for the second application of factor 50. The morning layers are off and we are down to shorts and t-shirts. Maybe all the rain was a bad dream. Our wet feet and the number of clothing items drying on the back of the bikes says otherwise.

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9:25am. We stop and eat the last of our biscuits. These were supposed to last all day.

9:45am. There’s nowhere to stop for drinking water on this road, so we pull in to a camping area with a few campervans who can usually spare some. The first van we knock on has two French girls and their families. They fill our bottles, then say the second best thing you could ever ask a cycle tourist (ok, maybe only a British one): “would you like a cup of tea?” Five minutes later we are drinking tea from real mugs with handles (why does this taste so much better than from a flask?) and eating more biscuits. After an awful night, we are having an awesome morning.

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10:30am. It’s time to say goodbye to our new friends and get riding. The scenery is spectacular.

11:20am. The road gets super steep – this isn’t the pass, it’s too soon, so why is it so hard? It’s so hot we are dripping with sweat but still have rain-damp trainers.

12.00pm. We are over the pointless hill and the scenery is amazing. It’s rocky, pointy, and there are strange boulders everywhere. This is awesome.

dscf9895 — Spot tiny Debs. Awesome, awesome and more awesome

12.30pm. It’s definitely lunchtime now. As we ate our sandwiches for breakfast #2 we need to get the stove out and crack open our emergency instant noodles. We spot a perfect picnic area with 360 degree views, hardly any people and a bench. A DoC (Dept of Conservation) lady comes over and tells us she is about to mow the grass so it will be a bit noisy, and enthusiastically suggests another similar place a few kms down the road with big boulders. We heed her warning and ride on.

12.45pm. Arriving at the suggested spot we have been seriously misled. It is a busy car park with no picnic tables, a naff view and hardly any grass. This is disappointing, so we sit on the grass and cook noodles. Five minutes later the same DoC lady drives in with her mower and starts mowing around us. In true British politeness we smile and move out of her way whilst quietly grumbling to each other. The sun is out and it’s baking hot. Our trainers dry.

1.10pm. The sun goes behind a cloud and it’s cold.

1.11pm. The sun is out and it’s baking hot.

1.12pm. The sun goes behind a cloud and it’s cold. We decide to ride on to warm up.

1.30pm. It starts raining. It’s freezing cold all of a sudden. The road gets steep. The wind is trying to blow us over. The horizontal rain stings our cheeks. It has become hail.This is not fun any more.

2.00pm. We are getting closer to the top of today’s pass, and it’s all downhill after that. The road gets steeper. A car beeps and pulls over. It’s Greg, who we first met on the road in California and who is now cycling/driving around NZ. As we hardly ever see people we know, this is awesome. He gives us some bananas and we chat for a while, trying desperately hard to stay standing up in the wind.

2.30pm. We get to the top of the pass. It’s so windy my gloves blow away (Debs heroically chases them and stops them just before the edge) and putting arms in sleeves of jackets is a more difficult task than it ever should be for adults. We put all of our layers back on (eventually).

dscf9911 — The difficulties of getting dressed in high winds

2.35pm. A scary five minutes riding steeply down hill in the wind. The road then turns into a gradual descent and we hardly have to turn the pedals for the next couple of hours as the wind is pushing us along nicely. We are back down to shorts and t-shirts. The scenery has opened out and we have mountains in one direction and the Canterbury Plains in the other. It is beautiful and we can just sit back and enjoy. This is cycling at its best.

4.00pm. We arrive in a town and are confused momentarily by a huge plastic pink donut in the middle of the park until we remember we are in Springfield. We go against Simpsons tradition and buy a couple of pies. The factor 50 is back out. Our eyes want to close. Were we really wearing all of our clothes and eating porridge to warm up in the middle of a rainstorm 12 hours ago?

We(s)t coast blues

Posted on September 18, 2016January 4, 2017 by Debs and Jo (brakesandcakes.org)

After weeks of endless sunshine and blue sky, our weather fortune finally changed in Oregon. It rained. A lot. When it wasn’t raining there was usually a heavy sea fog that blocked any chance of ocean views. We spent a week camping every night in state parks, and waking up to and packing up in the rain was slow, tiring and annoying. People had been telling us for ages that the Oregon coast was the best bit, with great scenery and camping, and the weather was making this the least enjoyable stretch for us. It reminded us of miserable days in England where it stays grey all day. This was Orengland. We weren’t finding the people as openly friendly either – there are so many cyclists on this route we are just two of many. The towns we rode through were mostly drab, unappealing strips of stores. Add to this an increasingly busy road full of large trucks towing even larger trailers and the cycling blues started to hit a bit.

The Oregon coastline is over 350 miles long and quite unique in the USA in that most of it is state owned and therefore publicly accessible. The coastline is dotted with state parks, wide beaches, lighthouses and cliff walks. All state parks with camping have specific sites for hikers and bikers at a cheap rate. Again people had raved about how great these are – maybe (likely) the weather impacted our perspective but we weren’t that excited by them as mostly the hiker/biker site is a small and not particularly flat area stuck at the back of the campground furthest from the ocean, the showers and anything else you might need. One exception to this was Cape Lookout state park, where we could fall to sleep to the sound of the waves and walk from the back of our biker site to the sea in less than a minute. That evening we cooked dinner on the beach on a rare clear evening as the sun set and Oregon was starting to impress us. Unfortunately the next morning Orengland was back – the rain was heavy until lunchtime so we hid under a shelter and ate porridge until it slowed enough to pack away and hit the rainy road.

Some days the cloud would break mid- or late-afternoon and treat us to some blue skies, but even this just seemed to be a tease – “hey look how great Oregon looks in the sunshine! Bad luck that you don’t get to see it often! Ha!” At least we got to see bits of the famous coastline, and it is pretty nice indeed. Rocky bluffs, steep cliffs, big waves, and we even saw some grey whales splashing about off the coast. We also rode past the supposedly “world’s shortest river” and “world’s smallest harbour”. I say supposedly because there is a habit of assuming that if they are the smallest (or biggest, tallest, etc) in the USA then by default they must also be the smallest in the world…

After a week of us and all our kit being soggy – it was impossible to get anything properly dry as even when there’s no rain overnight the air is damp – we decided to detour inland for Labor Day weekend to Eugene, 70 miles from the coast but home of Bill who we met a few times cycling across Montana and Washington and then camped with on the San Juan Islands. The lure of seeing a friendly face, sleeping in a bed, sitting inside on a sofa AND washing and drying everything we currently own outweighed the extra miles. It was well worth it. As well as those benefits noted above, the detour was memorable for a number of reasons:

1. There were no campgrounds on our route inland so for the first time we camped in the woods by the side of the road. Unsurprisingly it rained a lot, and we were also woken by a car driving very close to our tent at 2am. It was not the best nights sleep.

2. We ate the best piece of pie in the whole of the USA. Homemade rhubarb pie at Donna’s Low Pass Cafe, if you are ever passing by on Highway 36 in Oregon, comes highly recommended.

3. The total trip computer ticked past 17,000kms. Ace.

4. We spent most of the Saturday watching football (of the American variety) as it was the first day of the college season. By the end of the day we had watched parts of least five matches, and I had probably learnt at least 25% of the rules.

5. It was finally time for a Changing of the Flags. Our Union Jacks from Boston were looking more tired than we were, which is quite something, so got replaced.

6. Bill cooked us amazing food. Salmon, ribs, waffles for breakfast, you name it…. We ate it. It was very hard to leave.

7. We finally booked our flights out of Los Angeles. Next stop Japan!

Back on the coast we had another miserable, wet day to Bandon. The highlight was finding a community cafe to dry off in that served a hot lunch with a hot drink for $2 per person. Thankfully we had a host that night so wouldn’t be in the tent, and we kept being told that better weather was coming. Bandon was one of the few appealing towns we rode through on the Oregon coast, and had a nice beachside area and boardwalk. It also had one of the coolest art projects we have seen – a collection of sculptures made using waste washed up on local beaches. Visitors to the gallery can help to make future creations, but unfortunately we didn’t have time to contribute our artistic talent. We also rode past the storage area where waste is kept before being used, and seeing the huge amounts of plastic was very sobering. It was good to see the waste being collected and used but sad to see it existing in such volumes.

Our last day and a half in Oregon was by far the best riding. The skies cleared just at the right time, as Highway 101 passes through empty, rugged coastline with amazing views of sea stacks, natural arches and coves. Reflecting the bright sunlight, the sea was finally that azure colour that it always seems to be on tourist brochures. We stopped every few miles to sit and watch the crashing waves. The kids were now back at school so the traffic was much lighter. Oregon pretty much redeemed itself in the last 70 or so miles. To add a bit of icing on the cake, on our last night we were down by the marina marvelling at the size of the salmon that had been caught that day. One of the ladies who caught it offered us a piece for dinner – all we had to do was find someone to cook it. As we had already discovered, Americans are not light campers so it wasn’t difficult to find someone with a grill at the campground. Thirty minutes later we were sat eating salmon that had been swimming around in the river just that afternoon. Amazing. Though probably not if you’re vegetarian.

Thanks to Bill; John and Kathy; Suzy and Ed; Andrew and Tracy; and the salmon fishers of Gold Beach.

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