Their story, in their words…
For our Mark Evison challenge we cycled from London to the Netherlands and back in 5 days cycling through 4 countries and 340 miles. We stayed the nights in the homes of fellow cyclists who we contacted though a charity called warm showers, where cyclists offer accommodation to other cyclists knowing that they will one day do the same for someone else.
We began by meeting up and cycling to Hythe, at first our journey went as intended but after we passed Maidstone the paths became rocky, hilly, and narrow. They were also hard to find, and we got lost several times. After about an hour we had made awfully little progress and we realised we would have to change route. We travelled the rest of the journey on larger roads which was less scenic and more dangerous, but it was fast, and we made up lost time. All the warm showers host were all incredibly kind and generous, and provided us with comfortable sleeping accommodations each night.
We took a car ferry from Dover to Dunkirk and then cycled up the north coast of France, Belgium and the Netherlands, there were abundant well pathed cycle paths and virtually no hills, this made cycling and navigation much easier, and we had a much more enjoyable time. Much of our journey was along the numerous canals in Belgium. We passed along an abandoned railway in France and several windmills near Bruges. Our endpoint was Breskens as we had reached the sea and could go no further without taking a boat, so we turned back and headed home.
We had prepared for our bikes breaking down but fortunately there were no major issues. Cycling in the heat was sometimes difficult but our water bottle holders where very useful as we could drink water without stopping. We all had a great experience and look forward to our next adventure.
