The Bikepacker: Bikepacking 2023 - Aumale to Saint-Martin-en-Campagne

Day #

State of Legs

:-)

	Distance (miles)	Distance (km)	Ascent (feet)	Ascent (metres)	Punctures
Today	47.0 miles	km	1368 feet	metres	0
Trip Totals	1182.7 miles	km	41868 feet	metres	0

Today's Route

Route So Far

Travelogue

Last night, the sky was clear and full of stars. That's a first on this trip! And this morning, the sky was blue and the sun warm from the start. Beautiful.

Our destination today was a small village called Saint-Martin-en-Campagne which is right on the coast, just north of Dieppe. We set off using fairly major roads, which happily were not carrying that much traffic and found ourselves cycling up big climbs, the first of which was about two miles long.

We stopped in the town of Neufchâtel-en-Bray for our usual morning coffee, which as usual hit the spot.

As we left the town, our route joined a cycle path and got us off those roads. And this was one special cycle path. We proceeded to cycle the Avenue Verte du Pays de Bray for the next 25 miles, all the way to Dieppe. It made for glorious cycling; fast, smooth and scenic.

We caught up with a family group cycling together. The group consisted of mum and dad, their 11 year old son and their 14 year old daughter and as we talked to mum, we learned that they were from somewhere in North Western Italy and had flown to Paris with their bikes and were now cycling to London. On hearing that we hailed from near London, mum had a lot of questions for us, largely about how safe it was to cycle into central London. We did our best to help.

The conversation moved on and M1 said that he'd cycled through parts of North Western Italy on his solo trip in 2022. There was a lot of interest in knowing exactly where M1 had been, but the only place names he could remember were Torino, the Ligurian Alps and Imperia. So, we stopped our bikes and M1 fired up this very blog on his phone. As the group examined the places he'd visited on the blog's European Bikepacking index, there was a cry of recognition on seeing the place named Rossana. "We live less than 10 km from there!" said mum. They asked where exactly M1 had stayed. From the blog, he was able to show them the website of the farm he'd stayed at and loved. He also told them how the family at the farm had helped him devise a new route when it transpired his planned route was blocked by a collapsed tunnel.

And this is where it got quite unbelievable. Not only did mum and dad know the farm, but they knew the owners personally. It really was the most uncanny coincidence. What are the odds?! Amazing. They took our photos and promised to mention us to Ana and Peio, the owners of the farm campsite in Rossana.

We went our separate ways and M1 and M2 soon found themselves by an amazing chateau.

We cycled on, enjoying ourselves immensely. Every now and again we'd see something worth taking a photo including this church and what was doubtless once a railway station. The whole cycle path seems to be a former railway line.

We liked this group of geese, heading for the water!

The quality of this cycle path never varied and was excellent from the start to the end.

But finally, it did come to an end on the outskirts of Dieppe. We headed for a supermarket and bought provisions and continued on our way, cycling up a very tough hill to cut across the edge of the city and rejoin our planned route. And it was here that our route met up with and followed Eurovelo route EV4 (known as The Central Europe Route)! With a bit of luck this means we'll have signs and low traffic roads from now on. We're following EV4 for most of our remaining time in France.

Our campsite today is pretty good and we're sat outside the bar/restaurant enjoying cool drinks now. Lunch was eaten before we'd even put the tent up, as we were both starving! As you can see, it included a Cheese of the Day, called Anselin. It looks like a camembert but tastes nothing like it. It's actually quite crumbly and its flavour reminded M1 of Cheshire Cheese. A thumbs up.