Sunday 14th April 2019. The Grand Départ has finally arrived. 

The day we have been leading up to for several months. The past month has been hectic – finishing our jobs, moving out of our flat in Kentish Town and packing up our lives into 4 panniers each – but we’re here now and ready as we’ll ever be. 

This afternoon we’ll be setting off from Milla’s parents’ house just outside Dunsfold, Surrey towards Portsmouth, to jump on a ferry to France and start cycling south. Any decent cyclist would do this easily in a day but we’ve decided to take two so we can ease into the journey and take the quieter country lanes.   

Last night I was ready and raring to go. This morning, however, I’m feeling a bit anxious and one or two butterflies have definitely crept into my stomach. Pre match nerves. Pre trip nerves. I’ve had them before and I know that as soon as I start pedalling they will dissipate into the strong Surrey Hills head wind. 

— Chillo

Kind of the opposite to Chillo, last night I was all over the place and now I’m just sort of floating about, tinkering with bike lights and just generally faffing. But ready I do not feel.

We finished our jobs a week before setting off; what with finishing off some big projects at work, moving all our furniture and belongings out of our flat, finding places to store said stuff and all the many leaving parties, I always knew a week at home wouldn’t be enough time, but crikey I didn’t think it would go by so quickly. While we’ve had moments in the past few months to sit down and plan the key parts of the trip, it’s never felt like we were really able to take it all in, but maybe that’s a good thing?

What I do know is that as soon as we made up our minds to go on this trip it felt like the right thing to do. The rest will just fall into place…

— Milla