This time a year ago I was cycling in the Netherlands and it looked like this:

An unusual happening: I recently carted off Gary (the builder/husband) to the Isle of Wight by bike – our first child-free time together for nearly 13 years for heavens sakes. The last time Gary and I camped together sans offspring was cycling around New Zealand in 2004. The last time Gary went on a bike before our recent jaunt around the Isle of Wight was… ummm, I don’t think my memory stretches back that far. Let’s just say cycling isn’t his favourite cup of tea in life. But where there’s a bike wheel there’s a way so off we went.

Gary’s only had one night in a tent since 2012 when, against his better judgment, he agreed to cycle with me and Molly and baby Daisy 1000-odd miles from Holland to Denmark. This spring/early summer it didn’t rain for months. Everything was bone dry. The sun shone and shone. Until the morning Gary and I left home to cycle to the station. Result: we arrived for our train to Portsmouth looking as wet as if we had just swum the Channel. Never mind, we had a tent on board. In fact we had Jack’s tent on board. Jack, who’s now 5, loves army camo things so Gary had bought him a £40 ex-French army tent (with sniper panels!) off E-bay. Despite the fact that Gary scarce fitted into this sparse shelter we took it with us to act as our fancy abode for 3 nights.  After a day or two, the rain stopped and even the sun showed its face and, against all odds and Gary’s reticent thigh muscles, we got 101 island miles under our belts. The odd thing, apart from Gary managing to cycle up most of the hills (albeit in quite a vocally huffing-puffing manner), was not having children attached. Everything was so easy. And quiet. And simple. It was all very lovely. Mind you, Gary hasn’t cycled since.

 

For more updates and bits on bikes see: www.facebook.com/itsjosiedew/

 

In Easter school holidays I embarked upon the High Weald Way which is more officially called the High Weald Way Landscape Trail. It’s a 100-odd mile long-distance path that stretches from Horsham to Rye linking the area’s ridge-top villages through the High Weald of West Sussex, East Sussex and Kent. I was with Jack (5) and Daisy (8) (12-year-old Molly was busying herself elsewhere as long-winded slogs like this aren’t quite her cup of tea). Jack and Daisy rode their Islabikes and, as I can’t fit my bike and trailer on the train, I trotted along pushing/pulling an old pram loaded with kit/food/children’s clobber.

By the time we reached Horsham hours had passed and seasons had changed. Leaving home it had been sunny and warm. Horsham, in contrast, was very cold and very wet. We donned balaclavas and full waterproof regalia and headed off through the muddy wooded tracks and quagmires of St Leonard’s Forest (apparently St Leonard once slew a local dragon here). The sun did eventually show its face, though not until the next day. In fact we had rather peculiar weather as the first week was particularly cold with nights down to below freezing. The second week was a heatwave and involved buying shorts in charity shops, slapping on the sun cream and sweating up hills wondering how the heck we ever wore mittens and multiple layers a mere few hours before. But such are the joys and vagaries of the British weather.

Over 12 days we walked/ cycled/pram-pushed/staggered/dragged/clambered (some off-road gradients were nigh-on vertical and spectacularly slippery) 127 miles averaging about 10-11 miles a day. One of  the trickiest parts was negotiating the scores of styles and kissing gates that we came across. This involved not kissing anyone (apart from my own offspring), removing a total of eleven hefty bags of kit off the pram and carrying them (and the bikes and pram) back and forth, back and forth over said obstacles, while often being chased by frisky cows and bullocks at the same time. The whole operation to move a mere handful of feet would take not much short of half an hour. And so the days passed.

Our route took us from Horsham to Rye via Cuckfield, East Grinstead, Groombridge, Tunbridge Wells, Cranbrook, Rolvenden and Wittersham. We slept on floors in houses or in cramped pubs where we shared the toilets and showers with chefs and in-house dogs called things like Juno and Dulux. The scenery was a delight in so many places: wooded tracks bordered by carpets of wild flowers (bluebells, daffodils, stitchwort, anemones, wild garlic), sweeping views of hills and valleys and Downs. Accompanying us on our way were birds like red kite and lapwings and larks. I think it must be impossible to hear the song of a lark and not feel happy. The only unpleasant thing was rare encounters with motor traffic. For hours we would travel in beautiful quiet countryside with just the accompaniment of bird song. Then, shock to the system, we would encounter a swathe of noisy dangerous road and have to run the gauntlet to cross the tarmac before being hit by the torpedo speeds and menace of modern vehicles.

 

 

 

 

February half term came around so quick this year that our week away mission was all very last minute. I opened up my Ordnance Survey map to look for the nearest bit of road/track that goes somewhere and is safe for children to ride their bikes without the roaring fast swish of cars charging past their elbows. Within seconds I had plotted a rough route: West Dean to Saltdean. It looked like fun (plus it rhymed)and went via Chichester, Bognor, Littehampton, Worthing, Brighton and Rottingdean.

Gary and Molly had opted to stay home (Gary to work, Molly to see friends) so I arrived with my game duo (Daisy 8 and Jack 5) late afternoon in West Dean at the the start of the Centurion Way – a bike path that follows part of the old dismantled Chichester to Midhurst railway line. Because of a major 3-hour delay earlier in the day it was nearly dark by the time we set off from West Dean. For all our previous biking voyages Jack had always ridden his pedal-less balance bike as he liked doing tricks on it. But this time, just as I was packing the last of the bags up at home, I decided, and Jack decided, he was too big for his little bike now so his pedal bike it had to be even though he had hardly ridden it. Ideally, Jack’s first go on his bike away from home would have happened in daylight hours along flat smooth surfaces. But sometimes life doesn’t always work out as ideal as you’d like hence Jack’s initiation into off-road cycling occurred in the near-pitch black across muddy flooded fields. No complaints though from Jack. After an initial uncertainty with his balance he speedily got the hang of it and charged by bright bike light across the River Lavant until we joined the dark path busy with the kew-wick and ter-whit-ter-whoos of tawny owls towards Lavant and Chichester passing Devil’s Ditch and Brandy Hole Copse along the way. Although it only takes about 10 minutes to drive from West Dean to Chichester it took us nearly 3 hours and 7 miles (the Centurion Way, as we discovered, doesn’t go direct). Bikes and travelling with children really does make a magnificent meal of things.

One of the highlights of this little stretch was meeting an elderly man who got out of an elderly Jag and wavered about on his unsteady legs in a very drunkenly way. We were in the multiple residential back streets of Chichester and I was trying to cut through to come out behind the hospital. He said, ‘Down the end here me darling turn right and follow the twitten through to the main road.’  What a very marvellous word twitten is. It’s Sussex dialect for a narrow path between walls or hedges but I think it would work just as well for drivers who pass cyclists too close.

After a night in  Chichester  I was hoping we could walk/cycle the 10 miles to and around Pagham Harbour before taking the bus back to Chichester. When I had checked at the bus station whether it was permitted to put 2 children’s bikes on the bus the bus station woman said confusingly, ‘We don’t allow that.  Though it’s at the bus driver’s discretion.’ Which translates as: If you get a chirpy chappy (or chappess) driver then all is fine and dandy and you can pile on board with your wheels. But if you get a miserable sod then you get left at the wayside.

Anyway, instead of Pagham, we had a very fun 13-mile round-trip jaunt in the pouring rain and mud following the path beside Chichester Canal (busy with remarkably tame coots and moorhens) all the way to Chichester-mostly-rich-and-fancy-boats-Marina. We then followed a fantastic path which from Dell Quay followed the edge of Chichester Harbour where the saltmarsh and mudflats were alive with the beautiful bird sounds and sights of waders and curlew and shelducks and geese.

Over the next few days we cycled and pram-ran 66 miles and made it along the lovely high white chalk cliff underpath to Saltdean. In Brighton we had the good fortune to come across a slightly bonkers tennis coach on her way to London who, despite not knowing us from Adam, said, ‘I have a boat in the marina. Here’re the keys. Help yourself and enjoy a night or two on there!’ So we did. Jack and Daisy found this very exciting. Jack adopted the role of Captain Pirate Jack while Daisy, getting caught up in the seafaring moment said, ‘Hey, mum! We could escape school and sail to France!’ Which actually sounded like a very good idea indeed and I was sorely tempted. The only thing stopping me was a lack of nautical knowledge. Also, I didn’t think Jack and Daisy’s head teacher would take to kindly to me ringing up to say that they wouldn’t be at school for a bit because I had just rammed a super-tanker in the middle of the Channel.

That night, asleep in our gently swaying bunks, I was awoken by the rotor-whirring racket of a helicopter hovering for half- an-hour directly over our buoyant vessel. There was a long strong blinding beam of a searchlight shining from the helicopter into the deep dark waters of the marina so I knew something was up. In the morning we found out. Shortly before 12.45am police and coastguard teams were alerted that someone had fallen into the marina. The next day divers recovered the body of a man.

Our most exciting day occurred between Bognor and Littlehampton. After following the seafront promenade until it ran  out we then encountered a beautiful and rare bit of undeveloped coast for this part of the busy south-east – a shingle beach with sand at low tide backed by fields. The only way we could do this stretch with bikes and a heavy unwieldy pram was at low tide as the sea goes out far enough to walk around the end of the groynes. Low tide was 16.28. We were on the beach before this time and hurrying along as I knew when the tide would turn. I’d been told that the beach part was only a relatively short stretch before you could climb back up across the shingle to join a seawall that met the River Arun to take us to Littlehampton. But as darkness started to fall we kept going on and on while all the time the sea crept closer and closer. But still there was no sign of any seawall. The sun set behind us turning the sky into a spectacular explosion of pinks and oranges and reds. Up ahead, a Supermoon, the biggest and brightest of 2019, rose dazzlingly into the darkening sky. It was so big it looked like it had slipped its moorings and was on course to crash into Earth. It was a tremendous sight and added to the perilous excitement of the whole occasion. By this stage we could have been on Namibia’s Skeleton Coast for all I could tell. The beach was deserted, the sea was closing in. And in the twilight, all was wild and lovely. But still there was no sea wall. In these sorts of situations all senses come alive. You are aware of every little nano-second that passes. I had to keep Jack and Daisy safe and happy and alive. They were loving this whole beach shenanigans, careering across the sand on their bikes, splashing at speed through rock pools like racing horses through a water jump.  But every so often they would call, ‘How much further, mum?’

‘Not far,’ I’d reply, ‘We should be there before too long. ‘Look, you can see the lights of Littlehampton over there.’

‘But that looks like miles away!’ they said.

‘It might look like miles away in the dark, but it’s much closer than it looks!’ I said even though I thought: ‘they’re right – it looks bloody miles away!’ But you’ve got to keep up morale somehow. Best to keep positive even in un-positive situations because the moment you stop being positive, un-positive things start to happen.  Actually, a slightly un-positive thing did happen. It was now near-dark and Jack rode into a rock pool thinking it was a shallow one when it was actually very deep. Result: his bike came to a sudden halt and he fell off into cold water. But children are amazingly resilient. I had spare kit and clothes but Jack said ‘I’m fine mum, I’m not cold. Full steam ahead!’

If either Jack or Daisy had given up the ghost we would have been doomed. But they both seemed to sense the urgency of the situation and rallied all supplies of diminishing energy determined to keep on going. The beach turned rocky, the sea not far away and I knew we would have to drag ourselves up above the bank of shingle to safer ground and somehow head inland. By lucky chance, having seen no one for nearly 2 hours, I spotted a man in the moonlight standing up on the bank surveying the sea. I made a bee-line for him and when I got up close he told us that the sea wall  we had been hoping to follow had been washed away in a storm last summer. So that was that, there was only one way to get to Littlehampton now: head up towards Climping to join the footpath-cyclepath alongside the horribly noisy and traffic-rushing A259. This we did, in pitch blackness, lit by the brightness of our headtorches and bike lights. Finally, we darted across a busy roundabout and followed a grassy muddy verge into the centre of Littlehampton. We had hit civilisation and survived. We felt euphoric. ‘We’re alive!’ we shouted and burst into laughter as a posse of passers-by gave us strange looks. After 14 miles of slightly hair-raising perambulations never have Daisy and Jack deserved and enjoyed a takeaway of pizza and chips quite as much.

 

 

 

 

Post Boxing Day I felt it was high time to head off on a mini adventure with Daisy and Jack to try and give them a good burst of fresh air before school started again the following week (Molly, being on the brink of teenage-hood opted to see friends and go shopping and visit Nanny Val in Dorset with Gary). The plan was to catch a train to Guildford but then engineering works scuppered that idea as the bus service that South West trains laid on didn’t allow bikes, which meant that any cyclist catching the train from Portsmouth to London got usefully kicked out at Haslemere and left to their own devices. Anyway, had the bus allowed bikes, it would have taken a hefty hour and a half to get to Guildford (usually 20 minutes on the train) as I think it was going via Boggy Bottom or Nether Wallop or Upton Snodsbury (yes, all real places) or somewhere like that.

So, action stations Gary! With bikes and prams we piled into the army camper and tallyho’ed up the A3 where, to avoid getting caught in the gridlock of Guildford, he jettisoned us into the grey, late December murk near Shalford, which roughly was the start of the Downs Link.

The Downs Link is a 40-odd mile bridleway following the old railway and connects the North Downs Way and the South Downs Way before continuing to the coast at Shoreham-by-Sea. The northern part of the railway line ran from Guildford to Christ’s Hospital and opened in 1865, and the southern part went from Itchingfield Junction (near Christ’s Hospital) to Shoreham-by-Sea and opened in 1861. Trains took 50 minutes to traverse the route, with 6-8 trains a day stopping at Bramley & Wonersh, Cranleigh, Baynards, Rudgwick, Slinfold, Christ’s Hospital, and Horsham, among other stations. Thanks to the Beeching rail cuts both of these useful and lovely routes were closed in the 1960s. As a result this old route is commonly known as the Hundred Years Railway.

My plan of action was to follow this old railway all the way to the sea. Although Jack can ride a bike he wanted to take his hobby horse-like balance bike as he likes doing tricks on it. Daisy rode her bike while I walked and ran and pushed a fourth-hand pram loaded with essential clobber – most of it edible. It also provided a seat for Jack should his 5-year-old legs give up the ghost, though in the event he only used it once for a quick sleepy flop mid-afternoon south of Southwater.

With the added excitement of old railways and canals (the Wey and Arun) the whole route was incredibly interesting and very fun. Slowly, we passed from the North Downs through the High Weald, Low Weald, the Greensand Ridge, Clay Vale, the South Downs before emerging through the Shoreham Gap to reach the sea. We then sped along the lovely seaside bike paths from Brighton to Worthing.

Old railway path near Rudgwick.

We were away a week and with multiple diversions to find food and places to sleep we did 73 miles altogether. The longest day was 14 miles and 2 days were 13 miles but surprisingly Jack didn’t once ask for a rest in the pram on any one of those days. Strangely for us we had no storms or floods or record-breaking awful weather. For 5 days of leaden-grey skies it was oddly dry and strangely unseasonably warm.  Near Shoreham we had our first and only rain – about five-and-a-half drops. And then it stopped. The last 2 days were sunny but very cold and Daisy in particular suffered from frozen toes and fingers despite multiple socks and thick gloves. To combat this we had to keep stopping so I could blow on her extremities and to join her with an assortment of star jumps to get the circulation circulating.

The worst bits of the route were on the small occasions we had to encounter motorized traffic (the trail disappears around Christ’s Hospital so we had to join some country lanes for a bit where vehicles passed too fast too close) and cross a handful of busy A-roads with drivers charging along, many on their mobile phones. The only way get across the road safely was to wait at the side of the road long enough for a considerate driver to notice us and stop and flash their lights for us to cross which would then stop a vehicle in the opposite direction.

The only other problem was darkness falling at four. This meant that I had to keep the pace up so we could find lodgings before we were cocooned in blackness. Twice we failed in this but we had good bike lights and head torches which only added to the excitement and uncertainty of the whole event. Anway, we got to stay with some interesting people: an artistic vet, a musical director and an 89-year-old squash coach to name a few.

Progress though was often precariously slow. We had multiple stops for food (they were constantly hungry), wees, stone-collecting, mud-stamping, puddle-stomping, river-damming, stick-throwing and tree-climbing (my health and safety rules were particularly thin on the ground) – they climbed trees as high as houses. To keep morale high we had good sing-songs as we wound our way along. As we were only just fresh out of Christmas firm favourites were festive carols with slight revamping of some words: ‘The Angel Gabriel from Heaven Came….Most highly flavoured gravy. Glor-or-or-or-ria!’

Jack came out with some thought-provoking thoughts too. One day, near Rudwick, Jack said, ‘Mummy?’

‘Yes, Jack’.

‘Mummy?’ (He usually says ‘mummy’ a few times to make sure I’m paying attention). ‘Mummy? Mum? Do you not either know what I was thinking about then?’

‘No. No idea Jack. I was a bit busy dragging this load up the hill. What were you thinking about young laddie?’

‘I was thinking I was that I would like to be borned a giraffe coz then my head would be as high as a house tall and I could see ages.’

‘What? Like the Middle Ages?’ I said to confuse matters. And then our deep and historical and exotic African animal-based conversation was interrupted by a dog walker who looked like he had his head on upside down (he had a big beard and a bald head). He looked us grubby muddy threesome up and down and then said, ‘By golly! You got enough bags on there?’

To which I always say, ‘You can never have enough bags on board – especially when half of them contain food!’

He then wanted to know what we were doing so I told him we were spending several days walking and cycling the Downs Link. It turned out that although he had lived here for 12 years he had never realised the Downs Link linked the Downs so it was nice to give him a little bit of historical background chit-chat so that he could better appreciate the railway relevance of his daily dog-walking hot-spot. ‘Well I never!’ he said before giving me a hearty pat on my back and then we continued on our separate ways.

 

 

 

A few hours before school reopened for the Autumn term I was floating across the North Sea with Molly and Daisy and Jack. We were on our way home from the Netherlands where we had just spent 5 weeks cycling 410 miles around this lovely land of dykes and bikes.  Holland was the first foreign country I ever cycled in (back in 1985 on my way to Africa) and since then I have ridden over 4000 miles across this beautiful wind-raked flat low land as my wheels keep returning there again and again.

Earlier this year mum’s Geordie friend from Newcastle (who is very into family histories) delved into mum’s past and found out that she has Dutch ancestors who in 1656 emigrated from Texel (a little wind-blasted island that lies just north of Den Helder) to the equally flat land of the American prairies (I have 5 generations of dead relatives lying in a cemetery in Normal, Illinois). These Dutch relations had the surname ‘van der Hoff’ which is good to know as I like vans (camper vans, transit vans, Dutch vans – my best Dutch friend is a van der Leest). So with my van der Hoff ancestry maybe it’s no wonder I love cycling so much – I’ve got Dutch clogs and windmills wedged in my blood.

This year’s cycling line-up was 11-year-old Molly (who turned 12 in Noordwijkerhout) riding her own bike, while 8-year-old Daisy and 4-year-old Jack (who turned 5 in Egmond aan Zee) and the-wrong-side-of-50-me rode the triple-whammy 14-foot-long school-run mount. Loaded down with full camping regalia the weight of this unsteady behemoth bike-contraption was a bit silly and cycling it felt on the verge of impossible. But not impossible enough not to do it. Even if I did have a large inflatable crocodile strapped on my rear. Essential travel kit (according to the younger pedalling party) for bouncing over the breaking waves of the cold jellyfish-riddled North Sea. On a beach near De Koog on the island of Texel I regally launched our large reptile into the sea and thereby declared it named Gary – our 5^th member of our Dutch-land cycling team (the real Gary we’d left back at base camp in England as he had been a bit busy with work – and engine-tinkering – to join us).

As for weather, we had everything hurled at us. First it was too hot (mid-30s heatwave) then it was too wet – storm after explosive storm with biblical rain that drummed on the tent so loud we had to shout to each other to be heard. Then we got caught in a hail storm that resulted in hail-drifts and floods. It was barmy – after sweating away in the tent for two weeks dreaming of cold we were suddenly freezing and dreaming of heat. Didn’t put us off wanting to live there though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

School classrooms are hot places to sit in a summer heatwave and last summer it was the hottest summer ever for England. So as often as possible I packed the panniers, oiled the chains and took off to the sea with offspring in tow. Here are the pictures of one short jaunt I went on with Molly (11), Daisy (8) and Jack (4). Following the mostly off-road Salterns Way we cycled around Bosham Harbour, crammed ourselves on the small Itchenor ferry and rode to the Witterings and on to Bracklesham Bay, Pagham Harbour and Chichester.

 

 

Here, not before time, is the where, when, why, who with and what happened on Devon’s Sea to Sea cycling and pram-pushing mission that I went pram-pushing on last Easter.

 

WHERE?

The Devon Coast to Coast. Created by Sustrans (the sustainable transport charity). It?s a beautiful and often very hilly route that runs from Ilfracombe on the north Devon coast to Plymouth in the south. The direct route is about 100 miles long but with diversions for lodgings, food and daily veering off to look at interesting things we did 138 miles. Over half the route is along disused railway lines and includes the Tarka Trail, the Granite Way and Drake?s (Francis!)Trail. The rest of the way uses generally quiet country lanes and bridleways.

 

WHO PUSHED, WALKED, OR RODE WHAT?

Molly (11) walked, Daisy (7) rode her bike and Jack (4) scooted along on his bike (we had to take the pedals off his pedal bike as he wanted to scoot (as opposed to pedal) along on two wheels from coast to coast). ?I pushed a 4^th-hand pram loaded to the gunwales with kit and which provided a handy seat for Jack when he needed his afternoon siesta. To prevent the pram collapsing under the sheer weight of the bags and bodies that flopped across it Gary ?reinforced the pram with welded bits of metal. At my request he has also attached one of my old kitchen chopping boards to the pram which acts as a handy footplate for Jack to rest his feet and to attach an extra bag.

HOW LONG?

We walked/cycled/scooted/pushed/pulled and heaved our way from north to south Devon for 12.5 days averaging 11 miles a day.

WEATHER?

Highly unpredictable! Snow was forecast for Easter so I packed my survival shelter lest we got caught out in a wayward snowdrift on the barren ruggedness of Dartmoor. A survival shelter is a big bright orange lightweight waterproof bag-thing (with a porthole!) that can fit 4 people and kit in and, when held to the ground with body weight and bags, forms a microclimate ? useful if you feel hypothermia setting in. Luckily the snow never materialized but we had storms, torrential rain, heavy rain, medium rain and spitty-spotty rain. We had high winds, low winds, gusty winds and trying-to-push-us-over winds. We had high cloud, low cloud and very low cloud (fog!). On top of all this we amazingly found some sun. And very welcome it was too.

HOW DID WE GET TO THE START (ILFRACOMBE)?

On Easter Eve I crammed all bikes, bags, pram and offspring into the camper van and then Gary gave us a lift to Blandford in Dorset where his mum lives in a sheltered housing complex where we were to sleep for Night No.1 on the floor of a cramped room in the nurses? quarters. This was not a good night for two reasons. Firstly Nanny Val had failed to tell us that a serious diarrhoea and vomiting had broken out among the inmates of this complex (on arrival we discovered a big sign at the door advising all visitors to keep away due to the stomach/bottom-churning bug. By then it was too late so we had to stay). Then just as Jack and the girls had gone off to sleep a police helicopter hovered outside our window which of course awakened my brood. There then followed an air ambulance flying low and loud past our window to land at the hospital next door. Half an hour later it took off and racketed past. Result: a good night for excitement levels, but not for sleep.

From Blandford, Gary gave us a lift 40 minutes west-north-west to Yeovil Junction where we crammed all our wheels and clobber onto a train to Exeter St. Davids. There we changed onto a little bumpy train to Barnstaple. The bus that should have transported us to Ilfracombe was able to take the bulging pram and Jack?s mini bike but refused to take Daisy?s bike because although it?s not a fully grown bike it still looked too much like a bike for the bus company so we were refused entry ?(the joys of Britain?s integrated transport!). So a money-eating taxi it had to be. Being Easter Sunday most taxi firms in this neck of the woods had shut up shop to eat Easter lunch. But I did strike lucky and find a taxi company run by three men called Gary, Stumpy and Chunky. Stumpy turned up with a well-used and small (for our amount of prams, bikes and bags) VW Touran but by way of some ingenious dissection of wheels and steeds I managed to pack the whole lot in with not a millimetre to spare. Jack and the girls found a small space to huddle in the back in a slightly illegal fashion while I sat in the front with garrulous and strong-Devon accented Stumpy who gave me a taster of his colourful life story (which includes being hurled into a Spanish jail).

Still raining! Woolacombe and Morte Bay – looking south.

Woolacombe’s lovely whatever the weather (it’s raining) – looking north.

WHERE DID WE SLEEP?

Mostly in bed-and-breakfasts. Some were good. Some were not so good. In one we had to share the toileting facilities with a very rotund ship-builder who never put the seat down. Aaaaghhh! His snoring was phenomenal too.

WHAT DID THE LOCALS MAKE OF OUR OVER-LOADED PRAM-PUSHING ROAD-TRAIN?

Some were intrigued, some were dumb-founded, some were amazed. And all were incredibly friendly. Some were so generous they would walk or drive past us, head off to their home or a shop to stock up on food and drinks before backtracking to find us and shower us with their goods.

Hmmm. Jack seems to be asleep again. Path alongside River Taw.

 

Jack and the girls emerging from an old railway tunnel south of Great Torrington.

Snooze time for Jack south of East Yarde.

Sunny warmish moment between the wet near Sheepwash.

 

HOW DID JACK AND THE GIRLS COPE WITH THE ARDUOUSNESS OF THE TERRAIN?

Daisy flew along on her bike on the flat bits but struggled with the copious hills (many were near-vertical). Jack bounced and crashed his way through and up everything in his path with boyish enthusiasm and energy before flopping for an afternoon siesta in the pram. The biggest surprise was Molly. Back home, sometimes just trying to get her outside to sniff the air is a battle beyond belief but here she managed to walk 12 miles in wellies up and down dale in the rain without complaint. Mind you, it did help having a constant fuel supply of Fox Glacier Mints, twisted helix marshmallow Flumps and stale donuts on tap.

 

 

 

 

High up looking out over Dartmoor.

 

Daisy getting a fine swinging view of the impressive multi-million pound traffic-free Gem Bridge south of Tavistock.

Top spot for picnic stop.

Plymouth! And the not-so-lovely A38 careering over our heads.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In February half term I set off on another wet and windy cycling and pram-pushing mission with Jack and Daisy (Molly saw sense and opted to see her friends and stay the week with gran; Gary made sure he was working to save being dragged along for the ride). This was Part 2 of The Solent Way (a long-distance coastal walking route that stretches from Milford-on-Sea to Emsworth Harbour). On New Year?s Day our cycling and pram-pushing threesome had set out on Part 1 of the Solent Way. Jack and Daisy rode their trusty steeds while I pushed and pulled and dragged and carried our 4^th-hand pram which acted as a glorified shopping trolley to carry food and clobber and sleeping bags and, when his legs got tired, Jack. We had four very fun and very wet days (Storm Eleanor struck us with torrential rain and flooding and impressively lively 70mph winds) but we managed to splash and aqua-plane our way 38 miles from Farlington Marshes to Southampton.

This time, after walking and cycling 89 miles we finished off The Solent Way (averaging 11 miles a day over 8 days) making it home just in time for school ? which was a bit of a revelation as normally we don?t. The Solent Way is about 60 miles long if you don?t divert off course or 127 miles if you?re us and you do (we did a few sections twice, went sightseeing plus diverged off route to find food and lodgings).

From New Milton we cycled (Daisy) scooted (Jack) and pram-pushed (me) to Milford-on-Sea, Hurst Castle, Keyhaven, Lymington, Bucklers Hard, Beaulieu, Hythe, Southampton, Portsmouth, Hayling Island, Emsworth. We wound our way around and across a multitude of estuaries, harbours, shingle spits, marshes, beaches, creeks, lagoons, castles and forts all steeped in seafaring and maritime history.

The Keyhaven to Lymington nature reserve was a particularly amazing area of salt marsh and mudflats and a haven for busy birdlife. Everywhere were gulls, terns, egrets, cormorants, oystercatchers, ringed plover, redshank, Brent geese and little grebe, also known amusingly as dabchick (always a good thing to strive to be). We spotted some fine wildfowl too ? teal, wigeon, shovelers and eiderdown ducks as Daisy calls the eider duck.

Another unusual species to hover over my head was not quite such a welcome sight. With no one around I had taken the opportunity to climb down the sea wall to have an al fresco pee. I ?whipped down me trollies? (as Jack calls it) and was in position on my haunches admiring the view (bird-teeming mud-flats, the wind-whipped Solent, the hump-backed mound of the Isle of Wight, the-out-on-a-limp-lump of wave-lapped Hurst Castle — 5-star hotel toilets are never this good) when blow me, what should appear above my head but a flashing blinking buzzing drone. My trollies were whipped up faster than you could say dainty dabchick and I clambered back up the seawall to see who was flying this airborne Peeping Tom. Ah ha. Up ahoy, further along the seawall, were two figures of high-viz-coated men. As we approached I saw one of them had a control panel in his hands. We got chatting and it turned out they were from the Environment Agency and in the midst of surveying not just toileting pram-pushers but the whole of the nature reserve?s sea wall to watch for flooding weaknesses and breaches in the sea wall etc. Their former method was with tripods and levels. Now it?s by UFO-like flying camera which means it?s a much faster process that can also give them a 3-D image of the whole area. It was all very interesting stuff but a bit concerning that they might have a few snapshots of me tending to the call of nature. The upshot was it made Jack and Daisy?s day, such was their height of amusement, so I suppose being caught with my pants down was worth it in the end. The lengths we go to in order to make our offspring happy.

And so onward we went. We had sunny moments, freezing cold moments (a strong easterly blew throughout), wet moments (it rained for 3 solid days) muddy moments, swampy moments, plentiful funny moments, slightly lost moments, brake-exploding moments (Daisy?s) and wild cattle and pony-jam moments (we crossed the New Forest off piste).

 

 

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On New Year?s Eve eve I suddenly fancied heading off on a cycling and pram-pushing mission on New Year?s Day with any offspring game to come with me. Molly wanted to go and stay with gran for the week so that left Jack and Daisy keen to mount up. Last New Year us threesome left to circumnavigate (by bike and pram) the coast path of the Isle of Wight. So the conundrum was: where to go this year? It had to be somewhere that Jack (4) and Daisy (7) could ride their bikes without being flattened by thundering traffic; somewhere that was scenic and fun and that we could get to quite quickly from home; somewhere that preferably involved boats and the sea.

After a quick bit of pondering I hit upon The Solent Way ? a 60-mile long-distance coastal walking route that stretches from Milford-on-Sea (near Lymington) to Emsworth Harbour. It sounded lovely: estuaries, harbours, shingle spits, marshes, beaches, creeks, lagoons, castles and forts all steeped in seafaring and maritime history. Then there was the odd little passenger ferry to catch across the watery parts which would add a bit of excitement for the younger members of the crew. The only thing that didn?t sound so lovely was the weather. The first storm of the year (Storm Eleanor) was due to come crashing in off the Atlantic with 100mph winds forecast to blow more away than just cobwebs. Oh well, never mind, I thought. ?Storm Doris had hit us on the Isle of Wight with 90mph winds and we survived that one. And anyway, like the well-worn adage: There?s no such thing as bad weather, just inadvisable clothing. Though saying that, despite advisable clothing, Doris did throw some impressive clothes soaking rain and wind at us.

So on the morning of New Year?s Day Jack, Daisy and I battened down the hatches of our Velcro and storm zips, donned balaclavas and galoshes and sallied forth to do battle with Eleanor. As we didn?t have enough time before school started on the 4^th to do the whole length of The Solent Way in one fell swoop I decided it best to do the first part of it backwards. We would start at Emsworth and finish Leg 1 at Southampton from where we could easily catch a train home.

Gary gave us a lift down the A3 in the camper. When we left home it was raining hard. By the time we hit the A3 it was raining even harder. Arriving at our set off point the weather was so bad (gales and sheeting rain) it had become almost laughable.? ?Just a clearing-up shower!? said Gary gaily as he sat in the heated cab of the van while I bailed out of the door into the cold wind-battering maelstrom to sort out packing up the bikes and pram. The good thing about starting an expedition in awful weather is that even though it may get even worse it will get better. So clinging to that catch-a-glimpse-of-the-sun-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel-hope I set out into the floods and hood-flapping wind with a surprisingly enthusiastic Jack and Daisy.

Jack was riding his little Islabikes balance bike (he doesn?t like pedals) while Daisy was riding her trusty off-road mount. By trotting along and pushing a pram instead of riding a bike it meant that I could travel at the same speed as my young outriders. Also, should Jack?s little legs get tired, he had a comfy reclining seat to sit and rest and eat and sleep.

Amazingly the weather did improve that first day (this awful bout of wind and rain was just a prelude to Storm Eleanor which was due to hit the next day) and as we skirted Farlington Marshes and headed down the east coast of Portsea Island the sun did actually try to show its face. We forged floods into a continuous headwind of a gale, sustained a puncture on the pram on Southsea seafront (a big roofer?s felt tack) and after 10 miles found a place to bed us down in Portsmouth.

Over the next 3 days we walked and rode through everything the weather threw at us (which was a lot and consisted mostly of wind and rain) averaging 10 miles a day until we reached Southampton. The trials of the weather added to the fun of it all (it wouldn?t have been so exciting in windless tepid conditions) and Jack and Daisy remained amazingly buoyant throughout ? Jack scarcely paused for breath and only climbed into the pram for one short afternoon siesta. When we reached Southampton we were all keen to keep heading onwards and eastwards to Milford-on-Sea but unfortunately school was calling (we had already missed the first day back on the Thursday due to the blowy conditions).

The plan is to embark upon Part 2 of The Solent Way during February half term (starting next week). No doubt we will attract some other ferocious Atlantic storm so if you want good weather you are advised to steer clear from the south coast west of Southampton.

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