Where did you pack the…?

After 426 miles we’ve reached the Moselle, still in France at a town called Thionville. It’s our first major landmark so it feels like an achievement. The cycling hasn’t been particularly interesting, the first part was flat alongside canals with a headwind, then short ups and downs all day throughout the Ardennes, still with the wind against us. But it has been an opportunity to get a bit fitter and to get used to the routine.

The first couple of weeks is all about working out where everything is. We’ve lost everything at least once and found most things again – the only confirmed loss so far is the frying pan. Everything small now has string attached to it. A world without string is chaos!

At the moment we are cycling 25 – 30 miles a day and are pretty knackered by the evenings. We’ve started to meet other travellers including walkers and cyclists doing the pilgramage route from Belgium to Santiago de Compostella. Two young Belgian boys were walking to Portugal which they estimated would take six months. They had 600 Euros between them and they were smoking, so they may have truoble making the money last, but they were confident and had already met with much kindness. We have also met very kind people including a woman who charged us just 5 Euros to camp in her garden, brought us towels and soap, gave us the use of a kitchen and shower, and later brought us a huge plate of homemade pates and sausage with bread and pickles,

We’ve had our first mechanical problem with Graham’s front wheel and are having some difficulty finding the right sized parts – we may have to replace the entire wheel.

We cross into Germany in a couple of days on a cycle path running alongside the Moselle. The weather is sunny and the wind finally behind us, perfect for cycling.

Have just spent a frustrating hour trying to upload some photos and videos and completely failed. We’ll work on it for the future.

And in the meantime, where did I pack the bottle opener?