I Would Walk 1000 Miles

I have made it to Metz in northern France. Even with the lift I got in Italy / Switzerland to clear the dangerous roads, I am over the 500 miles mark. In fact, I think I’m further past it than first intended as my routes have not followed the major roads which I plotted. Instead I’ve taken a lot of back country roads which wind a lot, so I’d almost say I’m back on course!

Still, half way is half way and I’ve still got five countries (including Blighty) to go. I should be in Luxembourg… and back out of it… soon, then on to Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands.

A huge thank you again to all the folk on couchsurfing.com who have made my life a lot easier, cheaper and more interesting!

Despite the rain deciding to belt down late in the afternoon, I made it to Vesoul relatively unscathed. Again, my thanks to Jean-Etienne for hosting me in Besançon and to Jérémie for joining us for dinner. Great guys, and hopefully I’ll see them both sometime as I do need to go back and visit the citadel.

I also got a mail today from another nutter, this one a girl from the US who’s cycling 600km round the south of France, raising money and awareness for Darfur. Another worthwhile cause, and not least because my good friend Hans has recently accepted a job over there and ships out at the end of September… Robyn’s page is at www.cyclingfordarfur.com. Pop over and give her some support. And money!

Another hard day’s walking got me to Besançon where I am being hosted by Jean-Etienne. After today’s break, I will walk to Vesoul and another couch courtesy of Philippe. It’s likely I’ll then be camping for two nights before reaching Nancy.

I chose a good day to stop. I was intending on staying here and then heading off this morning, but I didn’t wake up until almost 11am… Very unlike me, but if I was tired, then it was a worthwhile rest. Instead, I walked into town - and it’s a lovely old town - to do some sight-seeing and to meet Jèrèmie (another couchsurfer) for lunch. Then the clouds came over, thunder and lightning started up and rain deluged down. It would have been thoroughly unpleasant to be walking in that! The downside is that I did little touristing, especially not bothering to go up to the citadel as I only wanted to see the view from there. With the weather today there was no view!

So tonight we will meet up for dinner, I will have an early night and then off in the morning. It’s a long hike but I should make it there by dinner.

In other news, I had a quick call from Graham Mack at TFM this morning, so tomorrow should see a brief interview on his breakfast show. Also, a huge “thank you” to Jean-Etienne for these 2 nights and to Florent for putting up with me / putting me up in Champagnole.

There are full details of the journey including all the touristy stuff on the travel blog, but I’m posting this from Champagnole where I’ve got myself a couch for the night. There are a hot of videos available, but as YouTube’s getting annoying while they bed in the channel players, here’s a link to the page with all my videos on. Just find the ones you’ve not seen yet! Or better yet, subscribe so I don’t have to keep telling you! The next major stop will be Besançon where I have another couch and a few people waiting for me. Sponsor news is good. First of all, I’ve fixed a bug (by "fix" I mean "bodged") on the Donations page that stopped you seeing the bottom of the information on certain browsers. The same bug affected the Donations Made page. So you now have no excuse not to send your cash in and tell your friends to do the same! Please do contact me when you donate so I can keep track of how much I’m raising. A thanks in advance out to Helen who’s crafted a special pot with the BDCF logo on which she’s using to collect donations at work. Her hubby-to-be is also grabbing minimum donations of a fiver from his work colleagues. Thank you both!