The lag is kicking in...

Well that was an interesting voyage! The ferries here are not like they are at home, let me tell you. Don't get me wrong, they're much fancier, I felt like the foyer and bar were akin to the Titanic, but the noise they make! I thought we were sinking for sure. We set sail at 11:00 pm, and there was probably about 50 other cyclists or more on board, I felt a bit silly wearing jeans next to all those fancy spandex-clad road-bikers. After a five-hour boat ride in which I had a Guinness and fell asleep at a table, we arrived at the port of Dieppe at about 4:30am. The other cyclists and I departed, them wishing me all the luck in my travels, and proceeded to the customs stall. The border guard seemed to have some trouble with my passport, but after a friendly chuckle let me through. I then climbed a very long, steep hill in complete darkness as I forgot to put my bike light on and couldn't find it, and followed random signs that seemed to point towards Dieppe. As I came upon an industrial area, I spotted a sign that said something like "Route de Canadiens," and relieved to find something from home, I decided to follow it. Luckily, it led me straight through town and to the beach. Now I could barely see anything due to the fog and the dark, but what I came upon in the centre of the beach was pretty neat, so I took a photo.

Pretty cool, huh? By the way, Dieppe smells like tar, smoke, and beer malt. If you've never smelled beer malt, I wouldn't suggest it. Actually, it's exactly like I would imagine a war-stricken France would smell like 70 years ago. Here's some more of the beach.

Turns out the Canadians played a huge part in Dieppe in WWII. A few months before the Normandie beach landings on D-Day, the Canadians were sent in to Deippe to test the possibility of a beach landing. From what I gather, not many of the several thousand Canucks made it out alive, but Dieppe seems to have a deep gratitude towards our country, and the words Canadian, Canadienne, and other variations were apparent on road signs, names, buildings, and so on.

Now it's still super early in the morning and I've got no power or navigation to find the Caming la Source that I had booked, so I picked a road and went with it. Of course, it's the road with the biggest hill. After riding around in the fog for a couple hours, I randomly stumbled on this:

That was pretty inspiring, and a pretty cool welcome to mainland Europe. By the way, if anyone ever has a chance to see the play Padre X by Marc Moir, I would highly recommend it. Its a true story of the only Canadian chaplain to receive the Victoria Cross during WWII, and he was a major player in the Dieppe landing. I had the pleasure of working on this play when Marc brought it to Penticton and it was AWESOME! 

So after biking in circles for another hour or so and looking at maps in bus stops, I decided down a path for about 10 minutes and happened to look at a sign behind me that mentioned my elusive campground exactly opposite the direction I was heading. Thank God for that! So I followed the signs and finally made it to my campground at around 8, and was just blown away at the beauty of the place. 

All in all, a good choice to rest for a couple days. That day was a write off as the jet lag had finally kicked in and I slept all day and more. But this morning I had my baguette and rode back to town and now I sit in McDonalds (the only free WiFi I could find writing this story. My next plan, now that I have some maps and ideas, is to ride the coastline south towards Fecamp, then inland to Rouen, and take the main road straight to Paris. We'll see how that turns out!