Colchester

It was a dead flat sea for our crossing last night. I left the blind open so I could enjoy the moon on the water. At 5am we thought we would go down and Wait for the kitchen to open as it was too light to sleep. Strange, we were the only ones up ? Darn… I had forgotten to move our clocks forward an hour for British time.! We had been waiting for breakfast at 4.30amWe all went through customs together then said our goodbyes to Peter and Jacqui as they headed off to catch the train to London .The goal is Colchester today and we were impressed at how well the bikeway was marked with ‘National Bikeway 51’ . We biked beside the sea on our way out of HarwichVery little of England’s cycleways are for bikes only . If you are lucky it will be on a quiet country lane like this but quite often we shared it with cars and trucks. Those two in front are a Dutch couple who were on the ferry with us. Because the ferry docked at 6.30 we were cycling by 7.00am. By 8.00 we were all looking for coffee but of course nothing was open.Colchester. It’s famous for being one of England’s oldest towns and there’s evidence of the Roman occupation every where. I had booked ahead as we wanted to make sure we could get a place for 3 people. The pictures on ‘Booking .com’ looked good ( no not that one)

(this one )but it turned out to be a heap of the proverbial crap. I had prepaid for it ,so I kissed that £70 goodbye and we went and found a nice one . Ash and I then went sightseeing in the old town,( mostly looking over the rim of an ice cold beer glass ). Colchester Castle. The foundations use part of an old Roman building. The ruins in the foreground were Roman buildings ,2000 odd years agoColchester was a major hospital centre for injured soldiers in the First World War . This magnificent sculpture in flowers and cane is to mark the 100 years since the war.

Ash leaves on the morning train to London tomorrow to spend time with his London family, and we will head west to Harwich.