Set of this morning with the aim of making Maidstone where we had an overnight stay with a host
The first 4km were wonderful riding and then came reality cycling in the UK(at least east UK): crappy road surface, even worse surface on footpaths ( if they can even be found and then not entirely overgrown). It is quite extraordinary that this even exists in developed country!!!
Add to this the extreme level of rubbish on the side of the road – absolutely next level!!!!
Had morning tea in a very quaint cafe where the building was about 500 years
We boxed on until 3 pm when we tried ( unsuccessfully for about an hour) to find the bus to take us across the river. Finally across we still had 34 km to ride and it became increasingly obvious that this was not gong to work but we tried for an hour
We then decided that it was not worthwhile pushing on for the sake of it so managed to find a hotel 15 minutes away (meanwhile Karl had fallen off his bike so we decided that it was best to call it a day)
Hotel was very nice, although dated but had nice beer and we had a nice dinner, so a good end to a frustrating day!