Day Nine - From Cheshire into Lancashire

Adlington to Dunsop Bridge (route)

Wrote this last night, in the pub, watching the football. Pictures, maps and profile to follow if we ever get somewhere with a decent internet connection.

After a pleasant stay in the company of Cycling Widows, and also with Georgina and Darren, we left Adlington in grey skies heading North on A-roads towards Manchester.





A local guide and cycling enthusiast had kindly provided a route that threaded through the outskirts of Greater Manchester, with only seventy three traffic lights to negotiate. It also constituted a scenic tour of Hyde, Dukinfield (see picture of this famous Roundhead leader), Oldham and Rochdale, with several spectacular examples of municipal town hall architecture.

There were numerous exciting vistas of decrepid run-down abandoned mill architecture, alongside canals brimming with fish, reeds, and abandoned supermarket trolleys.

After leaving Rochdale, we headed North up and over a moorland pass to Bacup. The rain intensified and despite putting on our wet weather gear, got steadily worse. So much so, that our brave heros decided to shelter in the first available building which, by chance, happened to be the Deerplay Inn (a Thwaites pub). In order to legitimise our shelter we were forced to eat locally made hot beef sandwiches and drink some of their best bitter.

By the time we emerged, the rain had stopped and the sun appeared. We had a great descent down towards Burnley and over the M65 (third motorway of the day crossed), towards the countryside of North Lancashire.

At last, in glorious sunshine we found ourselves amid verdant green fields - the Forest of Bowland, with its hills in the background. We had earlier crossed the mighty Ribble on a magnificant sandstone bridge but the Hodder is every bit as beautiful. According to a well informed source (chap next to us in the pub) our Monarch stated "the Hodder valley", in response to the question of whither she would like to retire.

Stopped for a cream tea (not with clotted cream, though) at the Inn in Whitewell, amid a wedding party. Got to relax and read the Sunday papers and then headed on another 2 miles to our destination for the day, Dunsop Bridge, which is (according the Ordnance Survey) the georgraphical centre of Great Britain and it 400 associated islands. In order to emphasise this communications hub, BT have positioned a special phone box on the exact spot.


We have carefully chosen our resting places. Tonight's is no exception as inside there is a picture our landlady, Mrs Whiteker,receiving a cut glass decanter from HRH the Duke of Lancaster. Such a gift is apposite as there is no pub for miles around.

Our profile today is dominated by the big up and down from Rochdale to Burnley.

Day Eight - Onto the Cheshire Plain

From Westbury to Adlington(route)


Had a fine start to our day. Got going extra early at 8.20 since we (at this stage) know that we have at least 75 miles ahead of us. We are spurred on by thinking of dinner tonight with our wives, and of a rest day on Saturday.

Shropshire countryside was something of a blur as we hurried our way towards Cheshire. But we did notice the Welsh hills in the distance, and felt a pang of regret that we weren't able to cycle up them.

The two most significant events of the morning were (a) re-crossing the river Severn, last seen in a slighly wider form near Chepstow, 3 days ago, thus demonstrating that it really is the longest river in the British Isles; and (b) seeing the Knockin' Shop. Although tempted, these athletes realise that their performance might be affected by a visit and also that they were due to meet their better halves at the end of the day.

Mid morning tea break was taken in Ellesmere, in what appeared to be a day-care centre for geriatrics. There was just room for the slim figures of the authors amid the zimmerframes and walking sticks. Had our first toasted tea cake and fruit scone - does this mean we are "up North"?

Lunch was taken at a pub on the outskirts of Nantwich, who stocked an extensive range of real ales including Weetwood Ales's Best Cask Bitter and Coach House's (Warrington) Dick Turpin. Thus refreshed we proceeded to get lost in Nantwich, having done two laps of the town centre. Once we had found our way, we discovered that Cheshire has the highest proportion of inconsiderate drivers of any county in Britain. It being necessary on several occasions to take evasive action from overtaking 4x4s, impatient white van drivers, etc.

After surviving several near misses we escaped down the back roads towards Goostrey and stumbled across this iconic Cheshire landmark, which tracks stellar objects moving at the speed of light, including end-to-end cyclists such as ourselves.

After only 83 miles we enter the bounds of Adlington, Cheshire, where Hill Senior has his principal residence, and lo, welcoming us was this banner, reading "Welcome, You R nearly 1/2 Way".

As we write this, we have been relaxing for a full 24 hours, girding ourselves for the next 11 days of cycling which will take us to John O'Groats. Such relaxation has been ably assisted by excellent food and fine wines amid the company of cycling widows (of both Senior and Junior), together with the company of society couple-to-be, Mr. Darren Brooker and his financee, Miss Georgina Hill. We regret that we are not resting for another day or two, but tomorrow we must set out to continue our journey.

Day Seven - More Border Country

From Staunton-on-Wye to Westbury (route)

Both the Hills slept well after a sumptuous feast at Il Trattoria de Enriques y Szuszana, which featured Bife del Casa di Hereford con Pudim del Yorkshire. Washed down with copious vino del Concho y Toro. The dessert course featured a delicious Pudim del Pane y Mantega. We also enjoyed tales from the British Raj circa 1947 and Devonian exploits. After an excellent breakfast wearing our pristine, recently laundered lycra, we felt able to award the Rosette of Best B & B so far. Apparently this has nothing to do with the cost, but just the excellent food and company. Thank you!

Our research into British Ales had excited the attention of the Wye Valley Brewery, who sent their Meister Brewer, Mr. Jimmy Swan to tag along on the Herefordshire leg to investigate further. Jimmy was chosen not only for his nose, but also because as a successful competitor in L'Etape, he would be able (just) to keep pace with these two finely tuned athletes.

Set off in good weather with forecast for worsening conditions en route. Made good progress through beautiful Herefordshire farming country, nearly to Lyonshall, where the society wedding of the year will be taking place in early September (Miss Georgina Hill marrying Mr Darren Brooker). The presence of an additional cyclist spurred on our two intrepid explorers by providing scintillating conversation and encouragement to laggards at the tail end.

Crossed three principal rivers today - the Arrow, the Lugg (the border between Herefordshire and Shropshire?) and the Clun. Only pictures of some of these are displayed because through the beads of perspiration they all started to look the same. Despite this, we were able to appreciate many fine houses of Border Oak construction.

Herefordshire/Shropshire would indeed be a fine place to live, if only they had some functioning tea shops. Both Brampton Bryan and Bucknell promised delicious tea stops, however it appears that the owners were unaware of our progression, and had decided to go on holiday/sell their premises instead. After being knocked back from our second tea shop we decided that enough was enough, and dismounted to take an alfresco picnic of our packed lunch provided by last night's hosts.

Continued our journey into Shropshire, where we passed through Hopton Castle. During the Civil War, this was where Colonel Samuel More with 30 fellow Parlimentarians held out against a siege by 500 Royalists, for three weeks. On surrender, all were shot. After Hopton Castle, weather conditions worsened - so severe that even Jimmy felt the need to put on protective clothing.

Despite this protection, the need to dry out and also de-tank forced us to enter the Powis Arms and to continue our research into real ales of Britain. "Champion Beer of Britain" award-holding brewery, Hobsons, supplied us with slightly more than one pint of their Bitter. Local dairy farmers were assembled to greet us and to advise us of the economics of Jersey cows.

We passed through Bishop's Castle where our trusty guide, Phil Horsley evidently lived a dissolute life, having "One Hundred Memories of being served by John Roberts in the Three Tuns". He also advised us "that the landscape is as varied as a good salad" (Nicoise, Russian, Caesar?).

Infused with dutch courage from our beer tasting we boldly decide to take on the ultimate challenge of ascending Stiperstones in pouring rain. Our legs are burning but we manage to keep pedaling with one thing in mind - the prospect of a warm cup of tea and yet more cake at the top - named "The Bog". Here we are welcomed by a bickering married couple in a chilly, drafty old schoolhouse who serve us gargantuan sized slabs of cake.

At this point, Jimmy has to head back to his base. A mere 40+ miles away, on top of the 50+ he's already clocked up. I suppose he wouldn't count those as they were sub-25 miles an hour with frequent breaks for photos, map-reading, de-tanking and breath-recuperation.

We proceed thankfully downhill towards our B&B, now encumbered with maximum bad weather gear. Our B&B in Aston Rogers is reached well before 5pm. We will have to pay for this short day tomorrow!

Day Six - Up the Welsh Marches

From Chepstow to Staunton-on-Wye (route)

After yesterdays flat traverse today was always going to be harder. Still there are always opportunities to make life even harder! So we decided to eschew the scenic low level route along the Wye valley past Tintern in favour of the stiff climb across the top via Trellech in order to warm up the tired muscles as well as enjoying the spectacular views.

On reaching Monmouth we crossed the river Monnow with its fine example of 'the only surviving two storey fortified bridge in Britain'. Hill Junior was underwhelmed at this edifice pictured alongside. Still at least Monmouth could provide a decent cup of tea and of course cake for our mid morning break.

Monmouth is also famous as the birth place of Henry V who as our elequent gude, Phil Horsley, pen is famous for his 'once more unto the breach, dear friends' speech. Apparently Freddie Mercury also Bohemian Rhapsody here.





Suitably swilling with Earl Grey and stuffed with carrot cake we cycled up he delightful Dore Valley. This is called the Golden Valley by those who ignorantly think that Dore means D'Or rather than being derived from the Welsh Dwr meaning water. The Dore valley is also renowned for its castles built by the Welsh Marcher Lords such as Grosmont pictured here with Hill Junior in the foreground wondering why on earth he invited his father to accompany him.

Luncheon is served at the Neville Arms close to Abbeydore and washed down with two excellent pints of Butty Bach brewed by Jimmy Swan at the Wye Valley Brewery. Thus fueled we proceed further up the Dore Valley with its views of Hay Bluff over to the west.




Once we reach Dorstone we do an abrupt right turn up and over Dorstone Hill and down into the Wye valley. It's a 1-in-4 double chevron, but no problem for either Hill (albeit at a snail's pace). Finally we cross the Wye again and reach our destination in Staunton-on-Wye where we are staying with Hill Senior's sister and brother-in-law - Susan & Henry.



They maintain the tradition of providing excellent tea and two types of cake. For tea, we're joined by Herefordshire local, Ms. Gill Bullock (wife of the aforementioned brewer) and the recently arrived Anna. They have forgone the world-renowned Wellington Duck Race in order to greet these two sweaty lejoggers as they whizz through Herefordshire.







Todays profile shows a steep drop into Monmouth and then a steady climb up the Dore valley + the final up-and-down Dorstone hill.

Day Five - out of Somerset and into Wales

From Westhay to Chepstow (route)

Started our day in beautiful sunshine, and after a warm-up climb, we stayed mostly along the flat. We are both feeling painfully weary in the legs when going uphill so we are very glad to have an easy day.

The Somerset scenery is excellent - great views of the Mendips and lots of golden limestone buildings. We head towards Cheddar Gorge where we join an old railway line that used to run from Cheddar to Clevedon. It's a bit bumpy in places but good to be away from the traffic and on the relatively flat.


At Axbridge, our railway line stops - so we do too - there's a pretty market square with an old-looking timber framed building. A pasty is purchased for future consumption but we forget to eat it and it is now in the bin at our B & B.




The railway line cycleway starts up again after Axbridge, and takes us around the Mendips. Especially enjoyed cycling through a pitch black tunnel with the way lit by cats eyes.

Morning tea is taken in Congresbury outside a little bakery. One doughnut each - Hill Senior has cream, Hill Junior has jam. Mmmmm. Picked up some Cheddar cheese sandwiches for lunch (the only option really for today).


From Congresbury we head to Clevedon and then along some quiet backroads in the shadow of the M5. Apparently according to our hallucinating guide, Phil Horsley we are enjoying a "Diorama of moving vegetation". Fortunately we happen upon this excellent pub called the Black Horse in Clacton in Gordano. We've not even had lunch yet but we can't resist another couple of pints of Butcombe bitter amid the office workers quoting 3 letter acronyms at each other.

Lunch is taken in the lee of the Avonmouth road bridge (where the M5 crosses the river Avon). We gorge (sorry!) on Cheddar cheese baguettes and then head across the river into Gloucestershire.

We don't spend too long in Gloucestershire - navigating our way around the outskirts of Bristol and towards the Severn bridge. We've heard that some lejoggers like to stop halfway across the Severn bridge and wee into the Severn. It's obviously become a bit of a problem as there were several Severn bridge patrolmen waiting in the cycle lane ready to pounce on any such misdemeanors. Not that we were so tempted!

We then successfully and seamlessly traversed our third major river, the Wye, which along with the Severn and the Avon completes our 'Jour de Trois Rivieres'.

By this time we were gagging for our tea break so made a slight detour down into Chepstow. Hill Junior was concerned with the choice of cafe but had to admit that the Rainbow Cafe serves excellent teas and sumptuous cakes at bargain prices.

Our B&B at St Arvens is just past Chepstow racecourse where our hosts Rodney and Elizabeth ply us with much needed liquid refreshment and Radox bath salts.

Today was a blissfully flat day which can be verified by perusal of the graph below. The only hill of any significance was at Chepstow at the very end of our day.

Day Four - out of Devon, into Somerset

From Crediton to Westhay (route)

Got going at 9.15, and headed out of Crediton into the hills. Not long after leaving Crediton we were overtaken by three lejoggers who we had previously met in Launceston. Weather is fine - sunny and warm. Made good progress to Thorverton (a picture postcard Devon village) and then over the river Exe to the first of Hill Senior's Devon residences (circa late 1950s) in Silverton.

Next stop is Cullompton for Hill Senior's Devon residence number 2, but not before we've climbed our first single chevron of the day out of Bradnich. We take morning tea, along with a couple of home made jammy dodgers. Although not originally from these parts, these were made in Devon.

After tea, our journey takes us along the Great Western Canal which runs close to Hill residence number 3 (in Ayshford). We are heading towards Taunton through the last of Devon's hills which our guidebook describes as "lush, heavy and heaving, like Shiva's breasts", although neither of the riders experienced this sentiment. We stop for a picnic lunch in Bradford-on-Tone near the eponymous river, where we wolf down some pasties we had bought from Betty's Pantry in Cullompton - made with Devon beef. We take extra sustenance in the local pub - 2 pints of Exmoor ale (from the brewery in Wivelscombe)

Post lunch we make our way through Taunton and head out along a different canal and into the Somerset levels where there it's blissfully level. We take our afternoon tea in a willow basket weaving museum centre - where the local ladies were selling excellent mammoth sized cakes.

Final section of the day continues across the Somerset levels, up and over various "drains" including "King's Sedgemoor drain". The open flat wetlands are great to cycle through: flat, with wide vistas into the distance (makes a change from being confined in narrow high hedged lanes).


Only problem with today's route is the element of doubt about our mileage calculations. Yesterday we thought it would be 54 miles. It turns out that it was yet another hallucination by the author of our guide Phil Horsley, as we ended up doing 63.

For dinner we meet up with Hill Senior's brother who takes us to an excellent pub for dinner in Catcott with beer from Otter and Buttercombe breweries. Thank you Peter!

Day Three

From Tintagel to Crediton (approx 60 miles - route here)

Weather - windy and sometimes sunny. Fortunately the wind is blowing in our direction so we got some help up the hills today. Started out at about 9 with a look at King Arthur's Castle - see if you can spot it in this picture. Couldn't see any swords to pull out of stone, so decided to set off, but soon discovered a different sort of challenge - Hill Senior's front wheel had a puncture. After getting that sorted we headed up and out of Tintagel, eager to make progress towards what promised to be our longest day yet.

We struggled up 300 metres of hill, only to discover that the road we had taken ran out - into a farm. Bugger. We discussed carrying on - this would have meant carrying the bikes over the pastures and hedges, but we decided to retrace our steps all the way back down the hill, to take the correct road, back up the 300 metres of same hill. Not a great start, but we were certainly warmed up, and we had a great view back into Tintagel on the descent.

We made good time into Launceston on side roads and then attempted to find a suitable cafe for our mid-morning break (a little later than normal at about noon). Unfortunately Launceston runs a "close everything on Sundays" policy and we had to make do with a dingy back room in a run-down hotel. A posse of fellow end-to-enders were lined up outside waiting for their backup team to provide them sustenance. Like everyone else we have met, they plan to do the whole route in 10 days.

Post-Launceston we followed the old A30 towards Oakhampton, making fast time. Got good views across to Dartmoor - our route is not taking us onto the moor, but we are skirting around the edege.


Lunch was taken on the edge of Oakhampton and then we profited from the Granite Cycle Way alongside an old railway line for 10 minutes of blissful flat cycling. Especially pleased with the excellent viaduct over a particularly nasty looking curtsey (or whatever they're called in Devon).




We head of Oakhampton uphill to Sticklepath and then along a delightful Devon ridge lane, part of which is used by the Two Moors Way. Had our first Devon cream tea in a beautiful village called South Tawton - as yesterday, the tea was taken in a community centre - well, it was the Church House - a recently restored 500 year old building, staffed the local church wardens. Cream tea was of the highest standard, especially the wide range of locally produced jams.


After tea we continued our rapid progress along the ridge, and ended up going through Coleford which was frequented by both the authors at varying times on their Two Moors Way expeditions.









Got into Crediton just before 6pm having done 60+ miles. We have recalculated the mileage for tomorrow and we now know it is 54, not 44 miles. Our B&B is the very same used by Hill Senior and Q on their Two Moors trek.

Our profile today is made more impressive by the extra unnecessary hill!

Day Two

From St Agnes to Tintagel (approx 47 miles) - look at our route here

Got a good start at 9am after a tasty breakfast courtesy of Maggie, who by the way is selling her B&B for £695k in case you fancy getting away from it all in St. Agnes.
As we set off the weather is grey but there's no rain. Our first mile takes us out of St.Agnes and then down into Blue Hills tin mine, and our first curtsey of the day. This would be at least one chevron, possibly two if it were marked on a map, but we don't have the ordnance survey for this area. By the time Hill Senior had taken this photo, Hill Junior had passed beyond the horizon! This probably says more about the speed of photographer than cyclist.

Morning tea was taken in St.Columb major in a dingy pub who's only other customers made saucy remarks about the handsome lycra clad cyclists.

We push on over minor roads to Padstow (home of Rick Stein's restaurants). Unfortunately our reservation for lunch at "the best fish and chip shop in the country" has been refused on dress code grounds, so we catch the ferry across the River Camel to Rock.

We have to catch the ferry from Padstow lower beach as it is low tide. This involves an obstacle course over rocks, steps, tourists and sand. (and all over my new lovely bike...)

Lunch is taken at Rock - we tick off another of our Cornish delicacies by having a cheese sandwich made with Cornish Yarg. Very posh. Washed down with local Sharp's Ales. Despite the overpowering smell of sweaty lycra, people from the neighbouring tables approach us to regale us with tales of John Betjeman and his mistress. Apparently he's buried nearby.

We spend the afternoon on cross-country backroads, and take our afternoon tea in St. Teath (pronounced "Teth") where no cream teas are available. Instead, we join the 21 year celebration party in the community centre where the (grey haired) locals ply us with tea and buns. On hearing about our trip, several of them press donations onto us - £22.80 is collected in total - thanks!

The final leg to Tintagel has one massive world-beating curtsey. Double chevron both down and up. So steep that we almost have to dismount to go down. But we daren't wimp out and both of us competitively make it down and up the other side (just). In this graph you can see the ups and downs of our day...