The team head into London for the start of the weekend. When the boys finally stir from the glorious comfort of the guest beds at Char's mum's we get breakfast and head to Paddington on the train. Our first stop is the map shop 'Standords' in Covent Garden which John Briggs, Glasgow University's Head of Geography had highly recommended to us for European O.S maps. It turned out to be a very helpful store and we were quickly supplied with maps for France, Spain and Morocco by the shops's expert and very knowledgable staff. Thank you Standfords!
The rest of the afternoon was spent showing Chris the sights of London. This is the first time he's been to London so the tourist sights were a must see. Donnie gave us a very detailed tour along The Mall from Trafalga Square to Buckingham Palace. We ate lunch in Hyde Park and passed some time in Harrods before heading to meet Matty, our 4th team member in Tooting.
(photo coming soon)
Friday night was the party Matty had been promising us the whole week running up to arriving in London. The hot tub in the garden, DJ and completly relaxed neighbours meant the party carried on till all hours of the morning. We woke up after 3 hours of sleep to the dull sounds of drum and bass coming from the living room - thankfully we had no cycling to do that day! We sorted out Matty's kit in the afternoon and headed back to Oxfordshire.
The evening before Matty's first day cycling with the team was a late one. We stayed up till midnight to make a much need 'cull' of everyone's equipment. Over the 450 odd miles cycled through Britain we unanimously decided we needed to carry less weight. The boys had been kind and taken Charlotte's sleeping bag and matt to give her a fighting chance up hills but it wasnt enough. We all cut out the non-essentials and ended up with panniers weighing shy of 1 stone each.
With everything organised to a 'T', a good nights sleep was in order. We had an 80 mile day to tackle to make it to Portsmouth for the Sunday night ferry.
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