A break from the wind!

Today was a typical rest day, with pretty much all the features that we have come to expect. We slept like babies and had a great lie in; we talked about what we needed to do during our rest day; we talked some more about the route and accommodation over the next few days, and generally chilled out. Then we suddenly realised that it was mid-afternoon and we had better start actually doing all of the things that we thought we had loads of time to do. Unsurprisingly, we then ran around like the proverbial blue-bottomed insects trying to fit everything in before the day was done….phew.

So… we managed to find a couple of fantastic cycling shops to buy the much needed cold weather gear: full length cycling tights (tres chic, hmmm, perhaps not); gloves with fingers (luxury); balaclavas (no, we’re not joking). Thanks to Clayton of The Great Bicycle Club for his enthusiasm and willingness to help us find exactly what we were looking for, even if it meant finding out whether another nearby bike shop had it in stock, and for his bits of advice. Also to all the crew at Sunshine cycles, who kept us in their shop for a good hour kitting us out with additional stuff, and giving us lots of sage like advice not only about cold weather gear but lots of other little cycling tricks as well…special thanks to Nick and Ritaan.

Dropping the newly purchased stuff back at the hotel, much happier but quite a few dollars lighter, we set straight out to find the Laundromat that we had understood was not far from the hotel. After circling the supposed location for a good few minutes and getting bluer and bluer from the cold, Anthony said “[forget] this for a game of soldiers” and strode purposefully into the nearest hotel and worked his charms on the lady on reception, who was amazing and offered to let us use their coin laundry. We won’t name her so we don’t get her into trouble for bending the rules for us, but we were extremely grateful.

Us x