77.92km – 11H09’
Altitude :249m
Because I know that many of you have an eagle eye, you will not have missed the fact that for the past two days, the start and finish cities are not the same. There are too many kilometres and not enough days to get to London, so every day we nibble some 20 km from our finish point and the place where we spend the night, which we reach by car. The following morning, Serge starts from our night’s stopping place. I hope everyone is following me. So, you will say why did you run in circles at Amsterdam and now not have the time for this last crossing in England? For a good and simple reason. Serge wanted to be in Amsterdam when he clocked the distance of the record because access was easier than Dublin. And it is also worth mentioning that life is expensive in the UK; for 1 euro you have 0.77 pounds and 1 liter of diesel fuel costs 1.2 pounds or 1.56€. Contrary to what is generally thought, the cost of living is lower in Finland and Sweden, which are countries that have the same standard of living as France.
This evening Serge will finish his second stage in Wales and he hopes that his entry in England tomorrow will be flatter, than the hills of today because he was faced with 4 walls, the last of which was at km 68, for 1 km and which forced me to climb in low gear with my four-wheel drive. I’m suffering for Serge…but he doesn’t complain; he was warned and it is also one of the reasons why Serge made the pleasure last in the flat country: Holland. This evening I can reassure him that the first 30 km tomorrow will be flat, or almost flat
A word about Wales, which we discovered with pleasure. The inhabitants are welcoming and we were surprised to see all the signs in two languages: English and Gaelic. This latter is neither a dialect nor a patois but an official language, just like English in this part of the country; and the two languages are not at all alike.