Day 1. Chatham Historic Docks to Gosport – 240ish miles.

The day started at 7:30am with loading all of our gear onto the bikes – seems like a lot of gear! My tangle of bungees and bags looked quite amateur compared to Steve and Rupert's Givi panniers, but everything seemed secure enough!

We set off on a rather dull 80-mile motorway trip from High Wycombe to Chatham Docks – it did give us the opportunity to shake-down our loads and scrub-in our new tyres – thanks again to Gary at GS Tyres! At the docks, we met up with Chris who rode the first day with us – he was going to do the whole trip with us, but he managed to secure a place on the movers course which took higher priority! In his place, we have replaced him with a Hero bear. It was good to ride with him again actually, as we did a round Ireland trip last year.



I re-set my bike trip as we set off so as to keep a good record of the miles we cover. Heading east, we hugged the coast of Kent passing through Margate and Deal. We had a lunch stop on the sea front at Deal, giving bottoms a well-needed rest. Next came Dover, and we managed to resist the urge to ride onto a ferry. As we were in the area, we decided to make an impromptu stop at the Battle of Britain memorial at Folkestone. Rupert found the names of 2 of his relatives on the memorial, and we had a picture with taken with an RAF Ensign.














We then headed for our first target point – Dungeness – a lighthouse in the shadow of a nuclear power station. Another photo, and we continued on onwards Hastings, Rye, and Brighton before we got too irradiated.



After a brief moment of geographical confusion we arrived at HMS Sultan in Gosport. The wardroom kindly arranged accommodation and breakfast for us at no charge. All that was left was a walk to the pub and typing up this blog.

Tomorrow will get us onto Torpoint in Cornwall.