EV6 day 42- the finish

A strange day. It doesn’t feel real. A Latish start – not a shock after some booze the night before! I have a reception party coming out but instead of the planned 60 kms left, I only have 15. Daughter Sarah, Dave, and baby Eilidh have to drive down to the finish from Nantes and Passepartout goes into Nantes to collect Leeky and Bally (rent a crowd!) from their hotel.

I get left to kick my heels as I can’t arrive at the finish before them and I have 2 hours or more to do the 15 kms that are left. Even I should manage that. It really is last day of term now. I wander over to a local boulangerie I spotted the night before and sit on their terrace with coffee and pain au chocolats.

Betsy takes a break before the last push.

It is so hard to dawdle and waste away this time and I really want to finish now.

Fantastic view of the awesome bridge at St Nazaire.

Finally I hear they are all at the finish and I can complete that last few kilometres of a fantastic journey.

And that was that! 42 cycling days, 10 countries, 3955 kms, blood, sweat, and tears – and a good few laughs- all over. What are we going to do now?

I have been watching that dot crawl across the continent. I can’t believe it has finally made it.

And you can’t finish it without a few thank you’s.
To my fellow riders who made the days go by quicker. Laura in Serbia, KRC from Decize to Orleans ( you can’t count the bit in Sancerre- it was a boozy day off!!), and Steve and Sean through Amboise, Tours, and Saumur. To my supporter group- Leeky (twice!) in Basel and the finish, Lyndsay and Nick on the Decize to Orleans leg with KRC, Bally, Sarah, Dave, and Baby Eilidh at the finish line. To Nick for creating my gpx files that, for almost the whole way, worked flawlessly – the odd disaster when the track was rerouted and I ended up in the middle of nowhere is minimal in the scale of it. To Passeparthree Lease who run the supporters camper van like a professional tour guide, and then finally huge thanks to Passepartout without whom I don’t think I would have finished the challenge. I had to dig deep in many of the early sections, especially when the weather was our enemy, and I really needed the support and encouragement- and I got it and we did it.

It was a great adventure and I hardly regret starting it in the first place! The lunatics really have taken over the asylum.😂