Alice and our friends, Claire and Eug, had to leave fairly
early to get back to Cambridge by lunchtime. It had been really great to see
them all, especially my wife, and was very grateful to Claire and Eug for
suggesting and then coming all the way to the other side of the country to see
me! I decided that I would wait at the Campsite for the breakfast café to open –
I wasn’t disappointed, the fried breakfast I had was absolutely delicious,
especially the black pudding!
I was ready to set
off by 10am, and the sun was beating down strongly. The first 10 miles or so
were mostly flat, but once Wrexham was past, the road got quite hilly in
places, which was hard work, especially in the hot sun. Shortly after lunch the
sun went in to hide for the rest of the day, and whilst it didn’t rain, it
became quite cool as the wind rose from the south. The hills got bigger and
harder as the day progressed and as I spent the day repeatedly crossing from
England to Wales, and back again.
I took a detour from my planned route in the mid afternoon
as I was feeling really tired and a bit sick of the windy roads that ultimately
weren’t getting me any further south. I decided to join an A road. For about 10
miles I cycled along a duel carriageway, which was actually completely fine as
there was a wide cycle/hard shoulder. The traffic was heavy though and after 10
miles my nerves were getting shredded. I stopped at a service station and
topped up on fizzy drinks, thinking I would need the sugar to get me through
what I thought was going to be more intense miles. Whilst at the service station
I chatted to a guy who was sat outside waiting for his wife, as my nerves were
shredded I think I spent much of the conversation swearing and being negative –
to the extent that the guy pointed out that I didn’t sound like I was having
fun! I tried to counter that with how it had been a great experience, but
ultimately I think that I was starting to feel the effects of being on the road
continuously. Seeing Alice leave that morning had made me realise how much I
had missed her, and our quiet life back home. I was still glad I was doing the
trip, as it was something I’d wanted to do for a very long time, but I was
equally looking forward to it being done with! Not sure if it was just me, but I felt that each time I crossed into Wales that the quality of the driving got worse...bent road signs indicate that I might be right...
Back on the road and expecting more busyness, but thankfully
the road got both more narrow (single lanes) and quieter too – bonus! Welshpool
wasn’t far away, and the road was flat too. I arrived at Welshpool needing more
supplies and headed into Morrison’s. I was outside refuelling on a chicken
baguette when some very dodgy and shifty looking individuals arrived close by –
one was clearly a drug dealer, surrounded by his entourage of sycophantic cronies.
They were standing right next to my bike, and I was conscious of the few
valuable possessions I had potentially going missing to fund their lifestyle –
as a result I kept a close eye on them, but not too close as the leader of the
pack was particularly shifty and kept making eye contact, trying to suss me
out. Luckily they soon left without incident (or my possessions) but I was
reminded that my normally liberal attitude towards drug use is through the rose
tinted glasses of my own teenage experimentation, and not necessarily the
experience of many, many people up and down the country.
Safely back on the road by 5pm I headed south east towards a
village called Church Stoke – the rolling countryside was really lovely again,
and the sun came out again briefly too. I reached a place called Bishop’s
castle and carried on towards a village called Clun. I had planned to reach
Knighton by nightfall, but hadn’t counted on the road to Clun being really hard
work! I found myself really struggling with the gradient, and needed to take
regular breaks to rest and catch my breath – I don’t think I’d faced gradients
this tough since the north of Scotland, and had forgotten how much fun they are
– my legs were feeling strong, but I was still glad to reach the top and then
glide down to the village.
The time was getting on, it was almost 8pm by this point,
and the light wasn’t too great. I saw a local man putting his ducks to bed for
the night in their coop. I asked him what the road was like to Knighton and he
said that it was about a mile straight up, then half a mile flat, then another
mile straight up – much like the road I’d just completed – I didn’t fancy
carrying on too much further as the light was quickly fading. Thankfully the
man said I could camp where we stood, on the village green – a beautiful spot,
close to the remains of the village hall/castle and right next to a small
stream – perfect!
As usual it didn’t take long to set up camp, and just as I
was finishing, the man from earlier reappeared with a kettle full of boiling
water for me to cook with – just perfect! Small gestures like that make a huge
difference at the end of a long day, and really saved time too! Again, we stood
chatting for quite a while – mostly about the local area, and a trip he had
taken a decade ago to Everest basecamp in the Himalaya.
These random conversations I had with people were really
great, people really open up and share something of their own lives and I
always felt very lucky that people were willing to chat with me, a complete
stranger – I suppose that it can be easier to chat to someone unknown to
yourself at times, and certainly people disclosed sensitive and personal
information to me, but then my livelihood no doubt has something to do with
this too. I really enjoyed the conversations I had with everyone I spoke to,
and I think that my natural curiosity about people and their stories was able
to come to the fore much more than in my day to day life, but then, traveling
on your own does open you up to chatting with people you might not approach
otherwise. Each of the conversations I had with complete strangers was a
highlight of the trip though, and I can honestly say that the single best thing
about the trip was having my faith in the kindness of strangers renewed.
Camp all set up and dinner eaten it was more or less time to
get some sleep. Whilst the village of Clun was another highlight of the trip,
there was one downside to the location – I had absolutely no mobile phone
reception, and the phone box up the road was disconnected – and so this night
was the only night I wasn’t able to contact and speak to Alice L
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