Friday 12th July 2024.
This was, for some of us, the last real day of cycling. When planning our return from Paris, it became clear that six of us getting on the Eurostar back to London with bikes was not going to work. We had looked at trains back to Calais and trains to Dieppe. Some of us planned to cycle to Dieppe and others had decided that Paris was a fitting end point to their cycling adventures. We knew that the weather forecast was not good from the previous night and when we awoke on Friday morning it was already raining quite heavily. Any desire I had left to jump back on my bike, quickly ebbed away and I made my apologies to Andrew that I would not be cycling with him to Dieppe. Stephen and Tim had also decided the same thing, so unfortunately Andrew was left on his own to cycle the 110 miles to Dieppe. There was no way he was going to get the train, and his determination to finish the ride through France was unwaivering. We wished him well as he packed his bike and we saw him off.
The remaining five of us split into three groups for our various train journey's to Dieppe and Tim and I headed off first to St. Lazare station to catch our first train of the day. On the way to the station the rain eased and stopped, I was briefly left wondering if I had been too hasty in deciding not to ride. Tim and I caught our first train from Paris to Rouen, where we had 20 minutes or so to wait for our next train to Cléres, then at Cléres we would have to wait nearly an hour and a half for our train to Dieppe. On boarding the train at Rouen we found it was heading to Dieppe anyway, so we just stayed on that train and arrived in Dieppe just before midday. We quickly found a bar and had lunch with a few beers while we waited for Joanna and Alex to arrive shortly after us....
Unfortunately Joanna and Alex had changed their travel plans. They had somehow gotten the wrong train from Paris and had ended up in Caen! Steven was still in Paris, with his train due to leave at 14:00 and by the time he arrived in Dieppe, Joanna & Alex had also caught a train back to Dieppe, in fact, they were all on the same train! Tim and I had already made our way to the hotel, and we awaited the arrival of Stephen, Joanna and Alex. Once we were all showered and ready to go, we realised that Andrew had done fantastically well and was not far from reuniting with us. The five of us found a place to eat and got a table while we waited for Andrew to arrive, so that we could all eat together. Our final night in France turned into a rather late night, with a few beers and a bottle of Champagne consumed, plus soft drinks and water!
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