LEJOG Day 7 - Dulverton to Glastonbury

Still steep and still gorgeous views!

Miles of canal views

Old bridges and beautiful houses

By the canal to Bridgewater

Typical bridge ‘crossing’

It’s on the right route, we can go

Usually we’re pedalling on the narrow path

Bumpy, bumpy, bumpy!

Drink stop in Bridgewater

By the river

Glastonbury town centre

The Crown & Pilgrim

Very old style pub

Such a nice atmosphere

An evening stroll

Such great buildings!

 Heading further into Somerset to Glastonbury today on the longest day of the tour.  At 63.8, Steve gets to do his 63 at 63!  May rain today, but still orange shirt weather with temps in the 80s / 26. A few hills to start and then we’re onto the Somerset Levels.

Although we’ve only seen one other couple LEJOGing and a man with his son JOGLEing, people along the way have seen others this year.  People along the way have been great asking things like ‘Are you really doing that?’ pointing to Steve’s LEJOG jersey, ‘That’s a beauty’ pointing to the bike, lots of questions about where we’ve been and where we’re going, along with cheers, thumbs ups and claps!  People obviously see cyclists making this trip, but not so many that it’s ho-hum.

Have the legs, bums and lungs improved over the first 5 days?  Maybe we’re seeing an inkling, but with the Southwestern hills and pushing it’s hard to tell.  Think we’ll know better at the end of this next section.  Keeping things going with lots of cyclist care and maintenance - paracetamol, ibuprophen, chamois cream, Sudocreme (do not leave home without that stuff!), multivitamin Barocca (thanks Jess!) and magnesium tablets for the leg cramps (thanks Dad!).

In the end it was 66 miles so Steve got his 63 plus!  We left Dulverton and the route took us on a nice cycle way then path then track then gate that there was no way we could get the bike through, around or over, so turn around and head back to town for an alternative route.  That epitomised todays route - ‘unnecessarily difficult’.  

We started out with a hilly section and surprisingly made it up the steep bits shown on the map.  We pushed up quite a few of the less steep hills!  After the hilly bits, we had 40 miles to go, but we thought we’d done the hard bit, we’d hit the road and crank out 15-18 mph and be in Glastonbury for 3:00 - nope, nope, nope!

Canalside tow paths - we won’t be doing any more of them.  Actually, I don’t usually come out strongly about these things, but we HATE tow paths.  We had gravel, rutted tarmac, cow paths and what purported to be a path and wasn’t even close.  Whipped by nettles, stung by a bee (in the neck even!), raked by brambles for 30 odd miles.  And bumpy - imagine one’s sore backside jounced on a slow rutted road for 30 miles.

All that aside, it was a beautiful ride.  The hills were dotted with just a few farms and very little else.  We had country lanes and single track roads along with a few tiny villages and a few bigger ones once we got to the Somerset Levels.  Like most flatter places, the scenery became much less dramatic.  The canals were very pretty, dotted with locks and bridges.  

We’re in Glastonbury tonight which I’d only knew as the place of the music festival.  There’s a whole mystical, magical vibe here that I need to learn more about.  Our B&B is run by a lovely Somerset native, very cheery and helpful - he even drove us back into town and pointed out the good places to go to.  We had a nice dinner at a very oldy worldy pub and walked back up the hill for an early night.

Steve’s post:

As many will know Katherine and I are doing LEJOG. Today we did 66 miles or 106 km. I think this is the longest day (yesterday was probably highest point at 1600 ft). I am claiming the day as 63 at 63 ( will be 63 before end of the trip). Can’t think of a more difficult way to do 63 miles , started in the hills at the north of Exmoor, then spent c 30 miles on towpaths and off road bike paths so no opportunity to get the speed up, bike is covered in red mud and to top it all some b____ard bee stung me!! Still nothing that a late Sunday lunch and three pints of Somerset Cider couldn’t fix!! Tomorrow Bristol.