We're on our way across the Channel!
While the cycle challenge doesn't officially start for another two days, James and I have the job of getting the support vehicle to the start line. Sorrento is about 1,500 miles from Sidmouth, and we've got only two days to get there.
We were up at 5am this morning, to catch the 1020 Eurotunnel. Annoyingly, we will lose an hour, and will arrive at Calais at 1200 French time.
The plan for the rest of the day is to get as far south as we can, ideally just across the border in to Italy. I have a cheap hotel room booked in a small French town called Chambery, which is about an hour before the border. It was a lot of logistics trying to think how far we can get today, in order to make tomorrow not as horrid. Chambery is about 550 miles from Calais.
I'm hoping we can get a little further though, and push a couple hours further to Turin. This would mean losing the non refundable hotel room in Chambery though and booking another one. The plan is to reassess later this evening and decide how much further we want to go. If we can make real progress and get meaningfully further than Chambery, I will get on booking.com and book somewhere else. I've had a little look this morning and there are plenty of rooms available.
Just for context - In total today we would have driven almost the equivalent of going from Exeter to Edinburgh and back again!! Tomorrow's drive will take just as long through almost the whole of Italy.
Where are Jake and Steve?
Hopefully planning an early night, as they are flying to Naples very early tomorrow morning and meeting us in Sorrento. The should hopefully be able to enjoy a day of sight seeing - visiting Pompeii and having a pizza in Naples where they were invented. I'll be giving them a shopping list though and getting them to check us in to our accommodation. Every hour will be precious to james and me tomorrow.
For everyone who has been saying how lovely Sorrento is, and giving us recommendations for restaurants and things to do - optimistically we will arrive at 10pm tomorrow and will be up at 6am on Thursday to start this challenge off properly!!!
So what's changed from last year?
Free EU roaming. This will completely revolutionise the trip, if not for the boys then most definitely for me. In the past I would arrive at the lunch stop and have a vague sense of how long the boys would take to get to me, within a couple of hours or so. This meant I was very limited on what I could do. Now, I can text them, call them, watsapp them, and generally pester them by whatever means I like, for free!
We have all downloaded this app called Life360 so we can each see where the other three are. I think it's aimed at parents so they can track their children - perfect!
In the past I wrote these blogs as staying in touch with home was tricky, intermittent and costly. It enabled everyone we care about to have just one point of contact for updates, instead of us contacting people individually. Now that we're better connected though I'm not sure what place this blog has, but I will start with good intentions and see how I go.
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