Eye to Eiffel 2014

Last week, seven guys and one girl filled their backpacks with energy bars and jelly beans and peddled over to the London Eye to begin the nearly 200 mile bike ride to the Eiffel Tower. This is the story of our journey....

Day One. Wednesday 14th May. London Eye to Newhaven. 57 miles.

After the continuous rain on Tuesday - which led to a rather unspectacular slow motion fall off my bike at traffic lights on the way home from work (forgetting about the toe clips on my new bike) - the weather couldn't have been more perfect for our first day of the trip!

Left to right: Francois, Ali, me, Rash, Olly, Michael, Bill and Graham

And it wasn't long before the next (just as unspectacular) fall, this time by Rash - when we were still in front of the London Eye. Without a support vehicle or medical professional among us (unless you count my brownie guide first aid badge), two falls before we'd even started didn't bode well, but we set off in the rough direction of the route we'd taken to Brighton a couple of months ago and managed to get some good miles under our belt before stopping for lunch at the Cowdray Arms in Balcombe, Sussex.

Rash celebrating his fall

Sweet potato fries at the Cowdray Arms

Post lunch stretching

Setting off after lunch, we picked up the speed a bit (must have been the sweet potato fries) and kept peddling south. Just outside Haywards Heath we had the third (far more spectacular) fall of the group and an opportunity for me to dust off my first aid badge (-; Must add there were no more falls after Day One though! Keeping a group of 8 together isn't easy so we often needed to look behind each other to check if everyone was still there. It's quite tricky to keep the wheels straight when you're looking back, and for poor Michael (aka the incredible powerhouse packhorse of the group with double panniers) it meant his wheels clipped the side of the road and threw him off balance. But legend that he is he just jumped back on and it wasn't long before we found a very friendly Boots the Chemist who let us use some of their first aid box rather than buying up half the shop. 

Day One was quite hilly so the long daylight hours really worked in our favour meaning we could stop and rest, stretch or refuel when we needed, finally getting to Newhaven around 9pm. 

Making the most of the sunshine

Road side stretching

Ali and enough energy gels to light up the London Eye

Day One. Done.

Day Two. Thursday 15th May. Dieppe to Gournay En Bray. 47 miles.

Day Two started with a 4 hour ferry crossing from Newhaven to Dieppe, eating croissants, checking the routes and catching some rays. So it was a bit of a shock to the system when, at about 3:30pm French time, we had to get back on the bikes and cycle another nearly 50 miles to Gournay En Bray.

About to check in

Newhaven port

Croissants and sunbathing on deck

Checking the route

On board yoga class 

Approaching Dieppe

The majority of the route for Day Two followed a disused railway track (called Avenue Verte) which meant we avoided roads and went through some really beautiful countryside. With the extra hour of light we made it to Gournay En Bray just before sunset and just in time to eat at a nearby restaurant. Steak-frites x 8!!

Rash, Michael and Olly at the start of the Avenue Verte

Team t-shirt day with Francois

The old fuels are the best

Our hotel for the night...

Just kidding. But the little restaurant next to where we DID stay had great steak-frites

Day Three. Friday 16th May. Gournay En Bray to Paris. 84 miles.

At the end of Day Two, Rash realised that one of his wheels had lost a spoke and wasn't properly aligned so in the absence of a bike repair shop we tracked down a MOTORbike repair shop. They couldn't replace the spoke (obviously) but did manage to realign the wheel so we set off just after 10am.

Rash outside the motorbike repair shop

It was a long loooooooooooong day with lots of hills but beautiful scenery again. Francois managed to get some action shots which really showcase northern France in a way I've never appreciated before.

We had lunch sitting on a wall in the sun outside a little boulangerie before doing the last push into Paris. Michael, Bill and Graham took the lead in map reading (never my strong point) as we approached the outskirts of the city - I wouldn't have had a clue!

Which way?!

Who knows?!

The first sighting of the Eiffel Tower was amazing (and such a relief), even if it was very far into the distance. But we finally arrived, exhausted but elated at 9pm. And by 10pm we were already talking about where to go on our next trip. Addictive, this long distance cycling mallarky!

A teeny tiny Eiffel Tower in the distance

Made it! Love this one - think Bill just spotted his wife who'd come to Paris to meet him!

Day Four. Saturday 17th May. Paris. 0 miles (unless you count cycling to Gare du Nord to get the Eurostar home!)

After 3 days of cycling it was great to spend a sunny Saturday with my Mexican friend Rebeca who I met when I lived in Morocco. She now lives in Paris with her husband Porfirio, son Mathias and gorgeous pointer Petra. It was so relaxing not to rush anywhere and just enjoy catching up, watching Mathi play in the park playground near their apartment. Throw a lovely lunch into the mix and it was the perfect antidote to 3 days of cycling.

On the way to the station I managed to snap my new bike in front of some of the other famous Paris sights before heading home on the Eurostar and cycling back to Balham from Kings Cross St Pancras. Crossing  Lambeth Bridge I had a great view of the Houses of Parliament and the London Eye. Hard to believe it was only 4 days before that we'd set off on our journey!

Invalides

Grand palais

Arc de Triomphe

Full circle. Overlooking the London Eye from Lambeth Bridge.

It's a long way to Lilongwe...

I've just got back from a really encouraging programme quality visit to Lattitude Global Volunteering's ICS programme in Malawi. Malawi is a long thin country in southeast Africa, bordering Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique. It's one of the lowest on the Human Development Index (HDI) in Africa, with 85% living in rural areas and an economy reliant mainly on agriculture. With the capital Lilongwe in the south of the country and the communities of Mzuzu and Sangilo located in the north (and no internal flights) it was a long drive after an even longer flight (via Addis Ababa in Ethiopia) but well worth the journey. And I'd forgotten just how BIG the skies in Africa are....

Long roads and big skies

For my first 4 days I was in the town of Mzuzu, which by the way you should look out for on Sainsbury's supermarket shelves in the coffee aisle among the Taste the Difference range (I bought a 1 kg bag direct from the cooperative and can vouch that it's gooooood). But coffee aside, my first two days were spent in meetings with the Lattitude team, made up of a Country Manager (Matt) and 2 Programme Coordinators (Chisomo and Adriano). We firstly reflected on the volunteer learning aspect of the programme in the previous cycle of volunteers and how to prepare for the next cycle, and secondly explored their education project and how they're getting on measuring progress towards the outcomes and ultimate impact they set out to achieve. 

Mzuzu coffee - highly recommended!

On the third night I was there, the new team of volunteers arrived from the UK to join their Malawian counterparts in order to attend a two day in-country orientation. As well as observing the sessions led by the Lattitude Malawi staff, I also facilitated a pilot "introduction to volunteer learning" session through the new ICS resources that we produced earlier in the year. After long evenings of proof reading in January, it was fantastic to finally see the resources in the hands of the volunteers themselves and I'm looking forward to hearing more about how they're used through their whole placement.

Volunteers present their small group work back to the whole group at in-country orientation

Facilitating the pilot session on "introduction to volunteer learning"

Volunteers writing personal learning goals into their new ICS resources

After the in-country orientation, I visited the rural community of Sangilo (3 more hours north) where Lattitude's education project is being delivered. It was the first time I've been to such a rural ICS placement and just the kind of placement I'd have wanted to go on myself... if I was still in the 18-25 age bracket. If only. The volunteers live in counterpart pairs (one UK volunteer and one Malawian) and stay with local host families, one pair even living with the local village chief! The community is located on the shores of Lake Malawi and volunteers are unlikely to get in a vehicle (apart from the odd shopping trip to a nearby bigger community) during their whole 10 weeks. So it's an opportunity for them to really integrate with the community (who couldn't be more welcoming) and work alongside each other on their project activities. 

Grace and Innocent in their host home...

...and with their host Mum

Visiting host homes in the community (Lake Malawi in background and Tanzania beyond that)

Counterpart pair preparing the evening meal at their host home

Before the long journey home, I also managed to squeeze in a visit to one of the community's pre-schools where ICS volunteers are supporting teachers to develop new resources and encourage varied approaches to learning. It was great to see that even within the space of one cycle, teachers had adopted more participatory teaching methods and were experimenting with visual aids and learning through play, all of which had led to increased concentration levels and regular attendance from the children. It was such a good opportunity to witness the impact ICS volunteers are having first hand. Just wish I could have stayed longer. But year two annual reporting awaits.....

Learning through play

Volunteers facilitating participatory approaches to learning

Teachers adopting new visual aids developed by volunteers