The night has started to dissolve into day as I hand over my passport a minute or two after 5am. Pedalling towards the town a large bulbous moon, brighter than all the street lamps, hangs low in the sky. I climb through hushed streets towards the coast road to the east. Away from Dieppe the sky is a turquoise and peach watercolour. I know these roads well but really only in the dark or by dawn twilight. Roads etched deep with recollections of rides past, to Rouen, to Amiens, day long long loops out from Dieppe or down to the Loire and beyond, once to Gent by evening and ultimately to Copenhagen. The landscape an old friend. The dips and turns known, that roundabout there, crossroads, the barn on the left opposite the agricultural supplier. When to click down a gear, get out of the saddle for a few pedal strokes.
A flittermouse skedaddles across my eyeline. Pylons and turbines, gathered in social groups, fizzing and whirring with chatter as they stride across the fields. A blood orange sun momentarily appears above the horizon, then evaporates into cloud. At Fresnoy-Folny I take a left, down a lane not ridden before, to visit a trio of château d’eau I’ve only ever seen across the fields from more distant roads. These are the ones that started the whole randonneur round the water tower project.
Dropping into the next valley I spot what I think is a baby deer hightailing it along the boundary of road and field, but it’s too small? When it darts into the barley and I see a pair of long ears bouncing out of the crop I realise it’s a hare. One or two corners later a vole scuttles along a gutter and into the grass whilst a kestrel hovers. Over a ridge through the Forêt d’Eu past Second World War bunkers and gun placements, reminders of a sad and violent past, like the war memorials in the villages here and all across northern France.
Turn left towards the smell of warm bread at the lights in the town in the Bresle valley. Sit on a bench awaiting a chausson aux pommes to cool down enough to risk biting into. Stuff a pain au chocolat in my musette for later.
Long straight walls of flint and brick and ornate ironwork gates protect overgrown estates and mansions whose glories lie in the past. A stern brick church looks over a village. I’ve crossed departments and regions, from Seine-Maritime into Somme, from Normadie into Picardie. I’m unfamiliar with this particular combination of roads apart from the bit through the centre of Oisemont. Both bars are closed so no opportunity for coffee. Luckily back down in the Bresle valley the PMU is open in Senarpont. Half the distance ridden and only 9am, don’t need to rush, plenty of time for a coffee and the stashed pastry. I’ve already earmarked a bakery in the next village for a musette top up.
I climb back through the Forêt d’Eu, further south along the ridge, more broken World War Two concrete hidden amongst the trees. Beyond there hills undulate shallowly, in and out of woodland. Too early for galette et cidre for lunch at the converted station on the once train line now cycle path at Neufchâtel, so another coffee whilst I wait for the kitchen to open. There’s plenty of time. Only 40 kilometres back to Dieppe and ferry check in is almost five hours away.
Up the big S bends to pick up the D56 all the way to Arques-la-Bataille, autopilot engaged. Rejoin the Avenue-Verte for the last handful of k’s back to Dieppe. Time for a visit to a supermarket and a drink or two at the yellow bar on the corner by the imposing catholic church before heading back to the port half an earth’s turn since leaving it.
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