The Diary - Part Four

Day 4 - Wednesday 5th July


We awoke to glorious Somerset sunshine streaming through the dorm windows. Pretty, but annoying when you really need that sleep.

A hearty cooked breakfast was just the tonic to set us up for the day before we somehow contrived to spend an hour washing up and loading the bikes. Nevertheless we were on the road at 10am and heading toward Matt's home town, Wells, where we viewed the many tourist attractions that the city offers. (Strictly, that's not true. We stood outside Tescos in the drizzling rain eating bananas whilst I bemoaned having forgotten to bring a raincoat. Then we set off again.)

The mendips provided a bit of a challenge for us as we headed on towards Bristol. We tried to take our minds off the endless climbing by telling some poor jokes. Ask Doug to tell the one about his visit to the zoo with no animals...

On the way, Doug and Matt made contact with some fellow nutters / friends of theirs who were doing the JOGLE cycle (i.e. backwards) and it transpired that our paths would cross at Barrow Gurney. We met them briefly at the Prince's Motto pub, but with most of our cycling still not done (unlike the others who had made a ridiculously early start and were nearly finished), we reluctantly declined the invitation to join them for lunch, instead heading towards the Clifton suspension bridge.

Crossing the bridge was uneventful save for the spectacular views across the Avon gorge. We then climbed up onto Clifton Downs where we were briefly halted by incorrect directions. Once we worked out where we were going, we journeyed on in the rain towards the old Severn Bridge.

The wind blowing down the Severn Estuary made crossing the bridge tricky, but we soon reached the second country of our tour - Wales. Disappointingly, the "Croeso I Gymru" sign was on the opposite side of the dual carriageway to the cycle path, so a photo opportunity went begging.

It was, once again, getting late in the day. We still had a fair whack of cycling to do before we got to Abergavenny, so we agreed to push ahead. When we reached Llangwm, we stopped for lunch and I phoned that night's B&B to let them know we were running a touch late. As we set off, Helen repeated my effort of Day 0 and took a tumble off her bike - it looked worryingly painful, but she did herself surprisingly little damage.

We headed to Usk and then onto Aberystwyth. As we got within a few miles of our destination at Llanvihangel Crucorney, our direction of travel swung us round into a headwind making the last half-hour somewhat arduous. We finally arrived at Penyclawdd Farm at 7.30pm, to be greeted by Ann and John Davies, the owners of the B&B.

Ann and John were incredibly welcoming to us. After we had showered, tea and cake was laid on and John ferried all of us to the local pub for dinner. All of us, that is, except for Martin "can't-miss-a-minute" Hunter who declined coming for food just in case the pub didn't have a TV showing the football (it did).

Day: 4, Dist: 81.4miles, Cycling time: 6hrs 49min, Ave Spd: 11.9mph, Max Spd: 34.5mph