The North of England

They say, "It's grim up north". I disagree. I was lucky enough to stay with Aggs in Long Preston, who has a fabulous place and makes an equally fabulous chicken pie! Mmmm, chicken pie...

Check out the bedroom where I slept! Now, this is more like Rivendell!

There is, however, a little rain occasionally...

BIG THANKS!!!

According to my JustGiving page, I've officially made my sponsorship target of £500!!! In fact I'm quite a way over it, since I've also got £65 collected from people along the way and there's an additional £100 from other sources.

So I'd just like to say a huge THANKS to everyone who has been so generous and donated to Orchid.

Stats

A few quick stats on the journey so far:

Days so far: 11
Distance so far: 1289 km (805 miles)
Spokes broken: 4 (now fixed with a new wheel - BIG thanks to Matt and Kate)
Punctures: 1
Max speed: 85 km/h (53 mph), coming down off Dartmoor
No. items left behind in random places: ___ (I'm too embarassed to say!)

The Midlands

The Midlands is all about canals - it's where they started. Along with the industrial revolution.

Tight squeeze! Don't try taking these too quickly...

Who knew that Rivendell is in the English Midlands, just outside Warrington!

The South East

After spending time visiting family and old friends in London, I headed for Essex to catch up with Vicky and Jonny, who are ace musicians and all round great people. First I had to go through London one more time...

Then I cycled up the Lea Navigation, which is a surprisingly nice corridor along a canal. Better than your average London commute:

Then I went through a field, which didn't go so well...

There sure are some damn fine looking houses in the S.E. of England.

London

Hi folks,
Sat 21st. I'm in London, E. Sheen to be precise. I'm staying with my old school buddie, Pete, his lovely wife Mary-Clare and their one year old. Many apologies for the lack of blogging so far on this trip. This is due to me not being tech-savy enough to own anything like a mobile internet. Also, I've been dealing with some bike issues (broken spokes) and have had to put in some fairly long days to cover the distance up from Cornwall, so there's been a lack of time for things like blog updates.

Anyway, what can I say about London. London has really amazing people, that's what I can say about London. And London also now has a new bike hire scheme like the ones they have in the other cool cities in Europe like Paris.

Plugged in, hoping for a bit of extra charge.

London also has some surprising wildlife. Aside from the doormouse I saw at my Grandma's house in central London, and the Pidgeons around Trafalgar Square, there's the amazing Richmond Park, complete with herds of deer:

With a Cape...

So... My darling wife and my flatmate Scherie put me up to this: if I was to do Cape to Cape it had to be with a cape. So here's yours truly, appropriately caped and exploring the wilds of Britain.

The start of the adventure. I met two lovely families in Cornwall who were holidaying together and they invited my for BBQ supper and wine. They snapped this picture of me as I left...

Cape Cornwall, learning to fly.

Our intrepid superhero suspects some evil creature is at work. A giant alien bee is building hexagonal domes and is intent on taking over the south of England (it's the Eden Project and the domes are biospheres).

Clearly our superhero's powers are still very much alive. Stonehenge pales into insignificance beneath the mighty warrior's giant stature (it's there somewhere; better photo below.)