£6.50 for Welsh Rarebit & pot of tea at Jelly Roll Cafe, Tewkesbury
£12.45 for evening meal in Kinver Tandoori restaurant
£2.59 for pint of Thrasher ale in Ye Olde White Harte Inne, Kinver High Street
After a wonderfully comfortable night's sleep in Ceri and Adrian's guest bedroom, my hosts when even further with their generous hospitality and made me a full cooked breakfast. I really was being spoiled! Sheila then drove me back to Over (via a thorough tour of the Ross-on-Wye Morrisons car park, as she tried to find Ceri, who had escorted us there), we unloaded the bike and panniers from the back of her car, and she drove off whilst I negotiated crossing the A40 to get onto the cycle path back towards National Cycle Network route 45, my main route for the next day or so.
As I stood at a large dual carriageway junction trying to figure out where route 45 started from, I saw a man stood beside a bicycle at the entrance to a bridle way. He had his back to me, and looked as though he was waiting for a friend. I pushed my bike over to him, calling out "do you know where National Route 45 is here please? It's a cycle path that starts here somewhere". As he looked round, it became obvious that he wasn't waiting for a friend, but answering a call of nature. I apologised, saying I'd wait for him to finish (that was considerate of me, wasn't it?!).
We then chatted for a while about our bike rides. He introduced himself as Skip and said he was riding from where he lived in Liskeard, Cornwall, to Birmingham and had set off at noon the previous day, riding through the night and without stopping for sleep. Compared to my Land's End to John O'Groats, his trip was awe inspiring, I thought. He admired my panniers as he was on a mountain bike (!) with just a back rack holding a black bin-liner wrapped bundle, and then he went on to say that the only uncomfortable part of his ride so far (he'd completed about 200 miles) was how saddle sore he was. He'd borrowed some padded shorts from a friend and thought they were the problem as he didn't normally wear them, even though he'd ridden 100 mile rides before. It was so bad, he looked forward to hills so that he had the chance to stand up out of the saddle! I told him about my wonder product "Hoo Ha Ride Glide" a chamois cream made specially for women, and how I hadn't had any problems, or even discomfort, despite riding every day for a week now. I got my tube of cream out and offered it to him, suggested he pop over behind a nearby bush to apply some to his sore parts.
He came back amazed, saying he could already feel a positive difference. We chatted some more, I told him about my blog, and then we parted ways as he was following the A38 all the way whilst I was taking the scenic and long-winded route everywhere. Skip pedalled off whilst I continued to search for route 45.
I eventually gave up looking for the cycle path and took the A417 north since I could see from my map that the cycle path ran alongside it. Where the route crossed that main road to take small country lanes, I picked it up again, thankful to be out of the traffic.
The lanes and quiet back roads to Tewkesbury took me though some lovely Gloucestershire and Worcestershire villages with Tudor beamed buildings, classic village greens, and inviting pubs. I resisted the pubs though, telling myself I'd stop for a cup of tea in Tewkesbury.
As I crossed the A38 to come into Tewkesbury, I saw Skip again, cycling slowly along but smiling and waving as he passed. I hope he got to Birmingham safe and sound, and that those saddle sores have had a chance to heal.
I wanted to sit with a cuppa in the sunshine to warm up as a cold wind had started to blow up, but all the cafes were on the shady side of the main street through the town. I rode around the town searching for a suitable cafe and was about to give up to continue heading northwards when I spotted the Jelly Roll Cafe, next to a cycle rack, with pavement seating in the sunshine, and opposite a cash point. Everything I needed. My perseverance paid off as I got exactly what I wanted and more, since the cafe had gluten free bread for a fantastic Welsh Rarebit. Why just have a cup of tea when it's lunchtime and you've found such a marvellous cafe?
Cycling between Tewkesbury and Droitwich, I could see dark rain clouds in the west, moving towards me. I stopped to put my waterproof jacket on as I felt the first spots of rain, and a lone cyclist coming the other way stopped to comment on the amount of luggage I had and ask if I was going far. We discussed 'End to End' journeys with full camping gear (he'd done it twice, and told me he'd vowed never to do it again as it makes the bike so heavy) as well as saddles as he was out testing a new saddle. They're such tricky things to get get right. You can't really try them on, like shoes, so you only know if the saddle shape, size, and type suits you after you've ridden a few miles on it.
A couple of times route 45 took me on overgrown muddy tracks best tackled with a mountain bike, and I got bloodied legs from the brambles, as well as stung by the stinging nettles. Following the National Cycle Network routes definitely isn't for those who like sticking to Tarmac all the way, or who are nervous of dark overgrown tracks that look like they lead to a fairy tale witch's cottage in the woods.
As well as these unexpected and badly maintained paths and lots of lovely country lanes where I could potter along with very little traffic to worry about, the day's riding also included quite a bit of canal tow path. Both Worcester and Kidderminster had long stretches of it. As I was riding here on a Sunday, I had to keep my speed down for all the other users, regularly ringing my bell and saying thank you when people stood aside or held their dogs to stop them chasing me. There were also lots of people fishing in the canals so I had to dodge the fishing rods and paraphernalia that was laid out on the path.
The need to concentrate and keep both hand on the handlebars meant that by the time I got to Droitwich I was fantasising about a cup of tea, so I rode around trying, unsuccessfully, to find a cafe. The heavens opened just as I reached a junction with a large sycamore tree so I made do with sheltering there for a few minutes and drinking my water whilst eating one of the pieces of banana bread that Liz had packed me in Bristol.
It took me ages to find my way out of Droitwich and I kept following signs for the route 45 but finding myself back at the same place. It felt like a cycling version of the The Blair Witch Project and my spirits dropped as I realised it was starting to get late, the rain wasn't going to stop, and I still had to navigate my way from route 45 to my B&B for the night, just the other side of Kidderminster.
The canal tow path through Kidderminster turned into a test of my mountain biking skills as I weaved between puddles (you never know quite how deep they are, or what lurks at the bottom to puncture a tyre or send you flying off your bike) and negotiated wet exposed tree roots across the path. The short tunnels as the canal goes under roads were alarmingly low and I didn't want to test my cycling limbo skills with a canal two feet to my right and a brick ceiling to knock me out, so I kept getting off the bike to walk through, stooped down. At one point, the tunnel was so long I had to find my head torch to light my way through.
As well as the tunnels, another hazard of these paths were the brick paths going up over and across locks or roads. These looked clever as I approached the first one - a smooth path to push or cycle the bike, with slightly raised bricks at intervals alongside to supposedly provide grip for shoes. Wet brick and cleats do not mix, however, and I kept slipping around and losing my grip on the bike as it slid backwards. At one point I had to take the panniers off and transport them up the slope separately as it was the only way to get the bike up. I haven't even got road bike shoes and cleats, which are really exposed, but SPDs which, although metal, are usually a good compromise for having to walk short distances.
From looking at my map, I had to keep going on the canal path through Kidderminster and on through Wolverley, Cookley, and Caunsall before taking a road into Kinver for my B&B. The numbered cycle route signs stop appearing though, at I entered open countryside again, so I became worried that I'd missed my turn off in the gathering gloom. I turned back until I came to a couple out walking their dog, and they told me I was still on the right route, but "had quite a way to go yet". That wasn't what I wanted to hear as I was getting cold and extremely miserable. My bike computer told me I'd covered over 60 miles that day, and I'd been expecting it to be a 50 mile day.
When I eventually reached my turn off, it was closed to traffic as one of the weak bridges was being repaired. In my misery I panicked and thought I'd have to do a long detour, until I remembered I was on a bike which I could push through the pedestrian access past the road works. At the top of the road I called the B&B to explain that I was still on my way, albeit late, and that I needed talking in as my judgement and map reading abilities had gone with my tiredness. Luckily, with this B&B being one of the cyclist friendly ones from a specialist website (Beds for Cyclists), the owner totally understood and even told me a route in that avoided a big hill.
Arriving at the B&B at 8:15pm, wet through, cold, and desperate, the owners gave me a wonderfully warm welcome, locked my bike up safely for the night, and made me a pot of tea to have as I threw myself in the shower to thaw out. I then had to find somewhere on a Sunday night in Kinver to eat, as I hadn't had anything since the Welsh Rarebit in Tewkesbury. Despite Kinver having 4 pubs, none of them served food so late on a Sunday so I ate in the Tandoori restaurant without an alcohol licence. It was probably best, as I was so tired. I popped to one of the pubs that did real ale for a pint afterward, and smiled when I saw one of their guest ales, Trasher, had the phrase "off the beaten track" on the hand pump. Very apt for that day's riding.
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