LEJOG Day 10 - Gloucester Rest Day

Day off - woohoo!  And we’ve already done all the laundry!

First off to answer the question about how we handle lunches.  Much of the time so far we’ve been in such remote areas that there hasn’t been anyplace where we could get food - no tea rooms, restaurants, pubs or even shops.  The Sustrans book was good about emphasising the lack of midday food options. We brought reusable ziplock bags for our food supplies. The majority of hotels we’ve booked serve breakfast, often quite large ones.  We don’t like to ride on full stomachs, especially when it’s hot and we’re going uphill so we end up packing away half of the breakfast (usually sausage and bacon) and some fruit for ‘second breakfast’.  On our way out of town we pick pick lunch / afternoon snack supplies at whatever local shop there is - Co-op, Tesco, Sainsburys and Waitrose usually.  Trying to get just enough for the day as most hotels here don’t have fridges.  The standard fare is sliced meat and cheese that we make into roll ups, hard boiled eggs (there’s always salt and pepper packed away in a pannier), chicken drummies and fruit.  We carry nuts with us always for emergency rations.  Now and then we find sliced cukes / carrots, but not often.  Sometimes cherry tomatoes can be found.  We tried coleslaw once, luckily I’d double bagged it!  Pitch what’s left at the end of the day if there’s no fridge, which usually isn’t much. 

Food is something we were concerned about in planning this trip, eg, could we find the food we like to eat - meat / fish, veg, dairy and a bit of fruit.  We don’t eat processed carbs and cannot afford the cycling ‘bonk’ that you can get eating pies, cakes, chips, butties that are so much more easily available.

Gloucester is along the River Severn and a large canal with an old quayside and warehouse area that has been renovated into flats, shops and restaurants.  Plenty of outdoor dining.  After breakfast, we went for a morning ramble to stretch our legs.  The Gloucester Cathedral is huge and has been featured in 3 Harry Potter movies.  We managed to find a way in, but it took us quite a while to find a way out.  Went back down to the quays for lunch.  Ended up at Cote, an always reliable French brasserie.  Recovery naps after with another (shorter) stroll for nibbles in the evening.

French cheese plate

Bouillabaisse 

Cote for a rest day lunch

The canal bridge is up

Liking his retirement

Sheltered from the wind and soaking up the sun

Might be the prettiest Wetherspoons in England

Gloucester Quays

Wandered through an old style market

Longest hopscotch ever!

Found a dinosaur for Sofia

Tearoom view

Gloucester Cathedral

So many fantastic old houses in this trip

Absolutely enormous!

These things are vicious!

A bit of Beatrix Potter

Lovely nooks and crannies all over

The New Inn where we’re having our rest stop

Reflections on the trip so far:

The route is good for the trip we wanted to make and is laid out to be achievable each day.  We get to the hotels in time for check in after a full day of pedalling.  The route is hard, probably one of the hardest physical things I’ve ever done.  It is also wonderfully scenic, especially when we do (finally) get to the top of a hill.  People seem to do this trip in two ways - to achieve the challenge of getting from Lands End to John O’Groats, it’s about the destination. They often do the shorter 874 mile route over a shorter number of days 10-20.  The roads are faster, in better condition, 80ish miles per day.  The other approach is a longer, slower trip. This one is also about getting from the beginning to the end, but it is about the journey rather than the destination - that’s the one we’re on.  It’s to see the country in detail, in a way that you would never see in a car or even on a motorbike.  When you’re pedalling, you see the individual flowers in a garden, the sailboat set on a window sill and the design of the stones on which a house is built, and how that differs as you move from county to county.  I like seeing that detail.

Building in the rest stops was a master stroke, the day to recharge, refresh and actually explore a place we’re staying in is wonderful.  Felt a bit bad at first because we weren’t exploring the places we were staying in, just getting to the accommodation, having dinner and a stroll.  Then I realised we’ve been exploring all day every day!

We are getting stronger, slowly, slowly and painfully.  I think Julie said it really well last night, ‘You look great!’  I said, ‘Thanks?!’  She said, ‘I thought you’d look exhausted!’  This is the most physical thing I’ve ever done and the most physical thing Steve has done for a very long time.  Each evening after the day’s ride, we stroll further and explore a bit more.  During the day, we’re making it up hills better, going a bit further and up a bit steeper.  It’s as hard as we expected and we expected hard.  We still have a long way to go, but today, I did well over 10,000 steps on our day off which I’m thinking is progress.