Fresh off the boat

Dover to London by bike — with a kid

Back in the seventies, every young Aussie I knew dreamed of travelling abroad, specifically making the pilgrimage to London. We counted up our savings, budgeted ourselves to the wall every week, just so we could sooner rather than later afford the elusive one-way ticket. We never considered buying a return ticket. We had it all planned out in our heads. Work for the money, travel around Europe, work some more, travel more. Rinse and repeat until you get sick of it, and then come home.

So I spent a lot of years living in the shadow of the green-eyed monster, watching a string of friends going off one by one, and wishing it were me. I always knew I would get my turn. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would arrive in the UK on a bicycle, with a 2-year-old on my back.

But that’s exactly what happened.

Spoilt by the cycle paths of The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium, even riding off the boat that had ferried us from Zeebrugge to Dover was a near-death experience. Talk about the shape of things to come.

A giant roundabout stood between me and the entry to Dover township and the road which would lead us to London. So, as I’d done in Europe, I brazenly stuck out my arm to indicate I was coming aboard. On the continent, traffic entering a roundabout had the right of way but in the UK that privilege was held by the traffic already on the roundabout. I quickly learned that British drivers had absolutely no respect for that malarkey. The abuse was almost instantaneous. A thick English accent screaming, “You can’t fuckin’ do that!” greeted me from the open passenger window of the car that almost took off my front wheel. Okay. Lesson learned. And quickly.

Lesson number two hot on its heels — should have packed even lighter. The road from Dover to London via the A2 switch backed up a mountain roughly as high as those famous white cliffs. There was no possibility of actually pedalling. I pushed the bike and my 2-year-old passenger up the feeder road for hours in the hot sun. Mad dogs and Englishmen be buggered. Add crazy Aussie backpackers on bikes to the saying.

There wasn’t much relief when we did reach the top of the cliffs. The A2 was mostly a broad, dual carriage roadway with very little shoulder. Not much room for bikes. And trucks. Lots of trucks. Typically, one brushed by my right elbow about every five minutes, creating a slipstream that almost shook my grip from the handlebars every time. By the time we reached Canterbury just on dusk, I had the forearms of a Norse God.

The next day we fared much better. We knew what we were in for and made it all the way to Dartford, over 80 kilometers to the west. I still can’t quite believe that we got that far in a day. Just goes to show what a few good downhill runs can do for you. But, alas, on reaching Dartford, there was no room at the inn, at least not at one that fitted into our meager budget. And there were certainly no camping grounds to be found within cooee. I refused to ride another 30 kilometres just to pitch our measly tent for the night. Actually, now that I think about it, I’m sure I refused to ride even one more kilometre.

No, I had a much better idea. When in doubt, ask Old Bill — if you can find the police station. The amiable young constable at the desk that evening scratched his head. “Hmm, well there may be some bylaw against it but I can’t think of one right now, so I guess you can put up your tent somewhere up on the heath.”

Well. Excellent.

Problem. ‘The Heath’ was a setting straight off the pages of Sleepy Hollow. It was a large area of mostly flat scrub, dotted with dense low woodlands and crisscrossed by walking trails and bike tracks. We pitched our tent in the dark, crawled inside and waited for the nearest axe-wielding psychopath to discover us. Not one wink that night I slept, especially since I lay with one hand sticking out the door of the tent, firmly grasping the wheel of my bike. Just in case the axe-wielding psychopath decided to take it for a spin prior to murdering us all.

Sometime during the dark night on The Heath, I decided I’d had enough of this wild and potentially dangerous road trip. Spurred on by a new resolve, the next morning I insisted we find a nice little café, have a fairly normal English breakfast…and break the cardinal rule of backpacking — ask a local. There is a very good reason why asking a local for help is against the unwritten backpacker code. It is never helpful. Often just the opposite. But desperation can play funny tricks on you.

So, against my better judgement, I trundled myself into a small travel agency with my son on my hip. The fact that I hadn’t showered or slept properly in several days most likely accounted for the way the jaws of the three elderly women at the line of desks fell open. Politely, I explained that I was trying to get to London and wanted to know another way, other than going down to the A2, which I was convinced led only to certain loss of limb and possibly life.

They looked at each other as if suddenly struck dumb by my appearance. Finally, one of them managed to find her voice. “By car?” she inquired. I went on to explain that I was on a bike. “A motorbike?” another asked, incredulous. “No. Actually, a pushbike.” That simple statement had the effect of a sonic boom, and in unison, they all slumped back in their chairs. When they regained composure, one of them said, “We always take the train.”

Eventually I convinced them to just write me a list of all the little villages and towns that we would pass through if we took the back roads. After much conference and discussion, they managed to make the list, all the while protesting that it was going to take hours and hours. And it did take hours. Two hours to be exact.

Eventually we met up with a main road again as we neared the outskirts of London, and discovered that the road to Victoria Station was littered with suburbs named after pubs you might visit on a night out in Sydney’s Rocks area.

I always knew I’d visit London one day. But never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would arrive on a bicycle. Apparently, neither did the British.