As we woke up a little storm brewing outside. Nothing to serious we hope, but bad enough for the captain to make an excutive decision and look at replanning the route. We will keep off the narrow trails and tow paths and keep to the roads instead.
While Dave and Stubbsy was eating their full English breakfast I was toiling over the maps. The captain’s work is never done. It must have taken all of 5 minutes. I let them all know how much I had worked!
We set off around 8:30 with the rain coming down like stair-rods and a bit blustery. Itlooked like a tough day ahead. We got on the old A4 which was a surprisingly nice road with very little traffic. We smashed some miles out in the rain and then stopped in quaint town called Calne. It’s a lovely place and I had the biggest piece of chocolate cake in living memory.
We pushed on little bit more and the sun even came out for 30 seconds though the wind was getting stronger. It was time to dig deep and keep pedalling. We passed through Chippenham (another lovely place) then turned off the A4 heading for the Severn crossing. We had lovely roads and the architecture in the villages was superb: Stubbsy said it was like the top end of St Radegunds.
Very weirdly I started to see lots of people looking like Bingo; seems like he had a holiday romance here ages ago!
We stopped for lunch at the Dog Inn in old Sodbury. We were all in good spirits as we left possibly due to too many coffees! The wind was getting a lot stronger as we carried on to the crossing and as we got closer all of us were unsure about whether a crossing would veven be possible. As we came to the cycle path entrance we could see the road traffic was as shut.
It was one of the most scary things I have ever done seeing Bingo walking horizontal hanging on to his bike as we walked across. I was tucked in behind him when a young lad on a motorbike came passed us like a speedway rider, obviously used to the the weather.
Eventually we got over the other side as we finally into arrived in Wales. All of us were totally knackered so we had a beer in the first pub and Bingo did the stuff to book a hotel.
As an added bonus Stubbsy’s daughter Anna came over from Bath which made for a very enjoyable evening. Bingo meanwhile was sorting out a rendezvous with Chris and Lester Powell.
Bike Rugby Japan 