I expect you'll need new tyres bo-yo.

August 14, 2011

A few pints of ale and much wine. I wasn't feeling at all great first thing Sunday morning. A couple of cups of tea later and a bit of breakfast before the nausea began dissipating. What's wrong Sean asks Nick, aye nothin, I just need a moment. And not long later out on the patio I was packing everything on the bike. The tent and the sleeping-bag had been hung up drying in the outhouse. I thanked Nick and Veronica for their hospitality before pushing the bike out through the gate at the side to the street where they waved me goodbye as I rode away.

I cycled the same road Nick and I cycled from Ruthin yesterday. The narrow country lane between low manicured bramble hedges and overhanging broadleaved trees, following Nick's directions on a quiet route south to and over the "Horseshoe Pass" to Llangollen. The weather forecast had given it to be a fine day with prolonged periods of sunshine, but I'd to put on my rain-jacket as a misty light rain came down the mountain just as I started to climb. The drizzle was short-lived though and a group of Sunday morning cyclists dancing on the pedals up the hill past me hadn't bothered with capes. I kept mine on though, as perhaps I'd need it on the descent, sweating inside it all the way up the mountain to the top of the Horseshoe pass. The descend dropped away along the near vertical side of a deep valley. Looking left and below across the valley the road could be seen traversing the opposite hillside, a thin line with toy cars moving in slow motion along it, and looking ahead down the road, the curving bend in horseshoe.

Down in the valley below, Llangollen was thronged with holidaymakers. There was a steam locomotive train ride. It wasn't possible though getting into the station to have a closer look, as there were so many people, even getting through with the bike on the pavement so I could lean it outside a cafe was difficult. In the cafe I had a delicious bagel, filled with carved roast-beef and relish, and a cup of tea. Across the street was a small supermarket open on Sunday were I bough vegetables to cook with rice in the evening, next door to which was an outdoor shop, open too, where I bough a new gas canister as the gas I had was getting low.

The sun now shone through broken cloud and the afternoon would eventually be gloriously sunny and warm. I pedaled fast on the big chain-ring along the wide shoulder of a busy dual carriageway south toward the town of Shrewsbury but turned off at Welshpool, as I had had enough of the monotony of looking at backed up bumper to bumper slow-moving traffic and not must more as the road was enclosed by landscaping pines on the cuttings. I did cover a lot of ground though and anyway the B road I turned onto was the first feasible alternate route taking me my way. It meandered through rolling farmland in and out of England; the only way of telling for certain when Is in Wales was the bilingual signs.

Five o'clock came and the sun was something I lately hadn't been used too. The sweat ran down my face and I realized I'd need more water if Is to wildcamp. I was riding up the steep street of a village called Montgomery to a square where, first having not found a water-tap at a church, asked for water at a shop that was open. Outside when I returned, an old couple took a curious interest in me and my bike asking usual questions: Where I had cycled from? Where am I cycling to? I told them Is cycling to Cornwall......The man looked in disbelieve saying in a broad Welsh accent "I expect you'll need new tyres bo-yo before you get that far!"

I would have cycled on until I found a piece of woodland, but a mile outside Montgomery, I saw a caravan and camping sign on a farm gate. There was only one campervan there on the mown green along the drive down to the farmhouse, so it was to be a peaceful evening. The farmer, an elderly man, recommended I take a walk across the fields, as it would do me good after a day on the bike. It was beautiful Summer's evening for a walk. I opened and closed a gate after me where cattle gathered around me and proceeded to follow after me. When I came back and closed the gate keeping them in, they looked dolefully after me. Arriving back at the yard, the farmer sat on a quadbike looking up at swallows diving in and out of a barn said "there comes a dozen in the spring and there flies away forty at the end of August."

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