Day 1 Leaving Bristol
We had spent the summer in Bristol after travelling together for a while, but settling down turned out to be harder than we had expected. Everything was new. Us, the city; the country, for me.
At the end of August, Josh said:
‘do you want to just cycle away?’ ‘Cycle away?’
‘Yes, let’s just go back to Cambodia’
‘On a bicycle??’
‘Yeah!’
I said, ‘ok’.
Why not say yes? I didn’t feel like I had anything to lose. I’d wanted to take a long trip on a bicycle for a while and when I’d asked Josh if he was up for it, I learnt he’d already done this kind of voyage in the past. I was, however, imagining my first long-distance cycling trip to be a month-long trip around a pretty island, not a cross-continental expedition to South-East Asia. But, why not, hey, I do want to see the world after all.
I bought a second-hand bike, some panniers, and a sleeping bag. We packed our bags and left. Just like this.
Well, not exactly just like this. First, we had to put our flat up on AirBnB. I felt like getting rid of the flat. I didn’t want to have anything holding me back. Josh wanted to keep it, it’s scary not having a home. I understood. We kept the flat.
The day we had set to leave arrived and we were absolutely not ready.
Josh had spent the last couple of days attaching a motorbike light and a train horn to his bicycle and I had tried to pack our bags.
We woke up at 6 am, took a disapproving look at the bags I had packed, and started adding stuff to them in a state of frenzy.
Josh said while running down the stairs, ‘I’m going to grab the bottle opener, just in case, have you seen my jumper?’
I answered while running in the opposite direction, climbing back up the stairs in search of my gloves ‘I think it was in the pink bag. Did you pack tape?’
‘No, where is it?’ Josh shouted from downstairs ‘In the living room’ I shouted back.
‘I can’t find it!’
I ran back down to produce the tape out of the messy drawer, then ran back up to get dressed.
‘Can you help me get this on??’ I shouted again from upstairs. We have a lot of stairs for such a small flat.
The cleaning person arrived at 10 to get the flat ready for guests and had to wait as we tried to fit the stuff we were not taking with us, into the only lockable cupboard we had.
Finally, we managed to close the cupboard door, pump up our tires and take off. It was about 12, and we immediately stopped at a chip shop.
On this first day of cycling, we only travelled 35 kilometers. We left at around 1 pm and stopped to buy rain gear and return unused tools in the September rain. Then, we followed the river path to Bath.
I felt alive. All of my energy was allocated to going forward. I had none available for thoughts that didn’t concern the rain on my cheeks, the wind, the bumps of the road under my wheel and my breath getting heavier. I was pretty out of shape.
The cycle track between Bristol and Bath follows the old Railway. It takes you through the forest and over the river, next to old train tracks, under bridges, and past forgotten train stations.
I imagine time travelling to look just like this. Maybe you’ve left a place, but you did not reach the next one yet, you’re floating between two time periods and your surroundings have not quite adjusted yet. Then, the puzzle solves itself, and you land at your destination time.
In Bath, Josh took me to a minuscule Tea shop to eat cream tea while overlooking the river (cream tea is a British heart attach in ‘snack’ form. You get a huge scone with a pile of cream, jam and a pot of tea).
When the night came, we stopped in a clearing between trees and put the tent up, thinking that we were deep in the countryside. We couldn’t have been more wrong.
