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| Checking out the route |
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| Grey and rainy, but still okay |
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| Second breakfast stop |
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| Valley view |
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| Looks like fall to me! |
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| So many tractors |
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| Crossing the Severn River |
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| Sheep field |
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| Still pushing, just not uphill today |
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| The Malvern Hills on the left |
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| The Cotswolds on the right |
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| Half way point |
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| Garden centres are great places for coffee |
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| Gentle hills, short day! |
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| Nice room at Ye Old Talbot |
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| Umbrellas lining the street |
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| Some gorgeous architecture here |
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| Worcester Cross |
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| More of the Severn |
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| What we’re they rectifying? |
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| On the way to the Cathedral |
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| Not as big as Gloucester |
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| But as beautiful |
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| Out at an old favourite, Nandos! |
Back in the saddle today after a most excellent day off. Today begins the 5 rather than 4 day sections, of which we have four. After today we will be out of the Southwest and into the Midlands. It’s a mere 32 miles today, but as we’ve found the route takes a day whether the miles are many or few so we’re expecting to arrive in the home of Worcestershire Sauce around check in time. The hills are back as we climb out of the Severn Valley, but only a 925 altitude gain. Cooler temps - 66 / 19 degrees. Nice thing about a rest day is we have all clean laundry and we wearing new shirts today!
Really enjoying the back and forth with the comments and the blog! It’s a treat to get to at the end of the day!
Feeling pretty good this morning. Need to build in some stretching as we’re either in the pedalling or the pushing position for hours each day.
Steve made a very nice comment about the navigation the other day and it brings to mind another aspect of doing these big journeys together - the relationship and interaction. Not mushy relationship (but that’s fun too!), but the interaction with each other during hard, complex and sometimes stressful conditions. In so many of the books I’ve read about couples doing epic adventures together, they seem to spend a lot of it taking chunks out of each other, rather realising that in most instances people are probably doing the best they can with the information they have. Patience is pretty important to making this trip a pleasure rather than a battle and also letting go of the need to be right. The navigation is just one example, it would be easy to get irritated over the ‘STOPs’ coming from the back, but instead realising that it’s not a navigation miss, it’s a save of possibly miles of going down the wrong route. We try to both navigate as we’re using the Komoot gpx files and the National Cycle Network (NCN) signs to validate Komoot. Although, just for fun I sometimes think, they don’t agree. At that point, we usually stop and agree which way we’ll go.
Another thing, crankiness is usually caused by hunger, often unrealised hunger. Eat something.
Getting out of Gloucester was an easy one, down to the quays, over a bridge and then a cycle path (paved) through woods and fields until we were well out of town. Up a small (300 ft) hill and then across the flats to Tewksbury. The route at that point split into the 45 heading down to the River Severn and a ferry crossing or the more circuitous (45) taking you around Tewksbury. The book said the ferry runs from Weds-Sun in the summer. By now, we’re suspicious of such things so I called yesterday - the ferry hasn’t run since 2020! So glad we checked that one!
Thought we were going to make it through a whole day without pushing, but not today. We did make it through the whole day without pushing uphill though! At Baughton, we (Steve actually) ended up pushing the bike along a muddy footpath. The road route up Church Road would be better. The path was only .3 of a mile and it was flat so we persevered rather than turning around. Pretty mucky shoes though.
Nice to get to the hotel in Worcester, Ye Old Talbot, by 2:00 - earliest stop yet! Had a wander around town and checked out the cathedral, nice town, lots of dressed up people. Spoilt for choice restaurant-wise. Funnily, we settled on Nandos, Steve had his whole chicken and I had my 10 wings, and it was just like a Thursday night in London ‘back in the day’!
Love the sheep! The views are something else too. I am amazed the route is through so much country roads. Do you have to navigate through many busy roads as you get closer to your stop for the night?
ReplyDeleteHello Folks, not only is Katherine doing all the navigation (one guy passed us a few days ago and remarked “she is watching television back there”, Katherine’s phone is in a case which is mounted on the rear handlebars), she is doing all the blogging too. From time to time I will
ReplyDelete“chip in” with views from the front. Today two things …. How ready for this trip were we? And how is the transition to full retirement going anyway?
To the first point, the answer I think is we were somewhat prepared but could have done more. The good news is we had done some rides of similar miles with the tandem loaded and we had done multiple days, what we hadn’t reckoned on was the much reduced average speed on this route which is down to a lot of off road. This I think, with hindsight matters, because it’s not taking 4 hours riding to cover 50 miles it’s taking closer to 6, and that has an impact on the bottom. We have done enough and I am pretty confident we will do the whole trip, just a “better if we had…”.
In terms of point two, the transition to full retirement, it’s been great in that it’s so different to the routine of work (no lap top, no time in “dingly dell” (home office at the bottom of the garden)) that I haven’t thought much about it, it’s completely different. Does feel like a great way to transition.
So we are about one third of the way through and all is well. Tomorrow it’s Nantwich (50 ish miles) then Manchester (40 odd) then Pleasington (30 odd) and we will be about half way. Onwards and upwards.