Listen to Africa is a 24,000-kilometre cycling expedition, recording African sounds and voices.
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Gallery: France Photographs from the start of the expedition (March and April 2009) as we pedalled down through Brittany, the Atlantic coast, Aquitaine and the Midi-Pyrenees in France. Photographs by Huw and Bex.
(New photos added on 25th April 2009.)
Ten things we’ve learned in Brittany 
After ten days and 380 kilometres (300 of them in generally the right direction), we rolled through the marshes of southern Brittany and into Saint-Nazaire on Saturday evening. It’s a bit of a landmark for us; Saint-Nazaire sits on the Atlantic coast, which we’ll be following all the way to Bordeaux, and through much of Africa.
Brittany has been a wonderful reintroduction to the “rigours” of travel. We’ve met brilliant people – from caravan dwelling families and barfly journalists to war veterans and cycle touring campaigners. We’ve slept in campsites, wood-beamed gîtes and farmers’ fields. We’ve pedalled along hills, woodlands, towpaths, hills, farmland, marshes and hills. We’ve eaten, well, anything and everything really.
So, as a tribute to Brittany, here are ten things we’ve learned while we’ve been in the region:
France is huge! We’ve been pedalling hard for days and we’re still in that bulgy bit in the north-west. It was only 2 inches on the map.. #
Yesterday: 71kms. Breezed up hills. Brilliant. Today: cycled in circles for hrs before giving up just nr where we started (Bex mapreading..) #
The pedalling begins; our bodies are revolting… 
By any normal cyclist’s standards, we’re hardly cycling at all. Aiming to reach an ordinary humanoid level of fitness in about a month’s time, we’ve started slowly, clocking up a total of 135 kilometres in four days.
Even at this pace though, our bodies are revolting (you can take that in any way you like). Our legs feel like lead. We’re sleeping 10 – 12 hours a night. Our bodies seem to have remembered what a metabolism is; we are permanently hungry.
But the pace of travel is a brilliant relief from the frenetic running around of our last weeks in the UK. Apart from the 17% gradient outside our front door, our first two days of pedalling in England were distinctly relaxed. With two friends taking control of the route so Huw and I could concentrate on persuading our legs to work (thanks Daf and Chris!), we meandered along seafront promenades and farm lanes towards Portsmouth, where Huw’s parents met us and treated us to a farewell meal.
Reached St Malo this morning. It’s T-shirt weather (for English people), folks are nice to cyclists and it’s our 1st night camping. Lovely. #
Well, we made it to France – via a brief encounter with a clown convention nr Bognor and a lovely meal with family and friends in Portsmouth #
A lovely day – all blustery sunshine (no sleet after all). Tired, happy and a little achey. Going to enjoy 1st eve away from computers i … #
Made it the whole 10kms to worthing and still alive, despite the ‘mountain’ in the way. Right, lunch! #
Update (8th March): Oops, deleted old Twitter messages that randomly showed up here – sorry about that!
