Update: Wed 20:10

Wednesday, 12 October

It was indeed very wet pumping the tyre up and the first two hours went by in a bit of a blur. However it did warm up in Belgie and remained mostly not unpleasant down here to Calais. A better run than I thought. No sign of any cheap hotels -- they're usually in the tail end of industrial estates and so effectively invisible -- and having rumbled through Calais I decided to stop at this 2* hotel, which isn't cheap. Do people really come on holiday here? Not through here on their way somewhere else but actually to Calais itself for a holiday?

Anyway, with around 500km to go (Dover to Liverpool) according to Google maps the numbers are: this trip has been 63204km to date and the bike has done 94843km in its three years and a month.

For what it's worth, Google suggests that the circumference of the earth at the equator is a little over 40000km.

Currently at lat/long: n50 57.762 e1 50.115

Hotel De La Plage, Calais, France