Day 31: Bath to Warminster

October 7, 2022

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We got a break early, when the pesky eight o'clock rule about getting breakfast started and also unlocking the spot where our bikes were was broken by the arrival of a delivery truck. We had been plagued through the night by the exhaust system near our window, blowing frying oil fumes. Now the delivery man was carrying 20 litre kegs of oil through to the kitchen that was the source of the fumes. I was amazed at how much oil he brought, and how much used oil was standing around in jugs.

Here is what his truck contents looked like:

As we began to cycle away, I glanced at the store/restaurant? that was just beside the hotel. It had the non explanatory name "Taka Taka". But what caught my attention was the window, which was filled with ... oil! Maybe we had passed the night by an oil store?

I jumped off my bike and went in to Taka Taka. Admittedly, English was not the native language of the lady inside. But I asked her "What do you cook in this place?" and she replied "We are closed". "Yes, but what do you do here?" "We are closed". "What do you cook here?" "Yes, we cook here". "What do you cook?" "Wraps" OK, as usual I ended by giving up.

I caught up with Dodie and said "I went into that store". "Of course you did", she commented. After 55 years she is used to my behaviour.

Meanwhile, Dodie herself had engaged with a store a little further down the street. What attracted her attention was the sign "Vinyl Cafe". All Canadians will recognize this as the name of the long running series of books and tapes by Stuart McLean. Did this store know of Stuart? Apparently not. Perhaps it's not all that unique a name for a music store. (Stuart's fictional character Dave ran a music store).

We got done engaging with quirky shops on our street, and were free to look at the rest of the town, and a pile of other shops. The character of Bath is much different from the regional towns we have been passing through, where you find a High street with a line up of very modest small chain or independent shops, often with modest goods, like used clothes or knick knacks. Bath by contrast has elegant looking buildings and a lot of elegant looking shops, in addition to the old standards.

There is also a lot of other elegsnt looking things about - from the Cathedral to hotels we did not stay in, to the iconic lined up apartments. Here are some of our casual shots, snapped as we hastened to leave town:

Buildings have a lot of carved images. Do you think these are Greek scientists?

A weir in the Avon river. See the swans?

Today figures to be a cake walk. We are heading for Salisbury, but that is too far for one day, so we settled on Warminster as a stopping point. That would be about 50 km. We also knew that the route involved the Kennet and Avon canal, and then a rail trail called the Collier's Way. The Grampies had cycled this in 2012, and we read their account. They seemed to sail along, doing this little side trip and that, and thought it was great. Ok, so here we go, but maybe you have guessed it is not going to go so well!

After a few kms, Dodie was thinking about her front brakes, where only one of the pads was really moving, and the other was resting against the rim. The friction from that was not much, but hey, let's adjust it. With Dodie's brakes, the only way to fiddle the pad centering is to slightly move the wheel in the fork. So I undid the front bolt (it's not a quick release, but rather a sort of anti-theft idea that loosens with an Allen key). I moved the wheel in the fork and retightened - but "snap!" the axle bolt decided to strip. There was then nothing for it but to find a bike shop, and the bike was not rideable, because the wheel could not be secured in the fork. You might chant "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", but then, if that bolt were waiting to strip, better to do it here, sort of near town, than when fixing a flat, maybe out in the countryside.

The net result was that I found myself typing those dreaded words into Google Maps: "bike shop near me". Google Maps had some ideas, but Dodie asked a passer-by as well, plus I spied a bicycle policeman. They all agreed - the shop by the bus station. So off we trudged back in to town. It was a walk alright, but not the anticipated cake walk!

The bike policeman shows his bike shop recommendation on the GPS.

Saying this was not a cake walk is not quite accurate, because Dodie did spot a cake shop as we walked. We had had a suggestion of the "flap jack" as a good anti-bonk food, but in the end fell for those raspberry topped cakes in the second photo.

The bike shop had no trouble at all digging a bolt out of a box of spares, and no charge! Thanks Avon Valley Cyclery!

So almost two hours after we sailed out of our hotel, boosted by the oil delivery man and with time to spare for bugging local merchants, we really set off for distant Warminster.

We got a view of some interesting distant Bath suburbs, and then it was on to the canal. Canals, especially in England, are always fun for the unique boats to look at, the water views, the locks, etc. This time around we had all of that, plus some special observations and adventures. The special observation was a boat piled to the gills with junk. Usually one needs to run a tight and tidy ship, because they are so small. But this owner had not heard of that.

Swans often provide entertainment. We thought it was cool to have swans on the lawn. I stopped to look at these, and one by one they dropped into the water and came across the canal to have a look at me. Clearly they thought I might have food, but alas. Too bad, because not too far down we came across some swan/duck food for sale.

A lady nearby and her little son had been feeding something (but not this food) to the ducks. I asked her help as to which of our coins might be 50 p, and then bought some of the food. But the swans were now behind us, so we gave the food to the little boy. He was really cute and demonstrated his "high five" for each of us.

Our next adventure was the chance to talk to a "real" farmer, with a real local accent. He was standing by the canal, looking at a circular hay feeder that was partially submerged in the water. Apparently his bull, on the hill up the opposite bank, had tipped this it rolled it down, crashing through the brush and into the water. The farmer was worried that the next boat along would hit it. His plan was to get a hook on it and pull it back up with his tractor. Someone in a row boat was slowly paddling over to help with the hook.

About a mile further on, Dodie alerted a team of canal workers to the navigation hazard. They headed on down to see if they could help sort it out.

We had some nice views to the side as we continued on the canal, and also a side canal to look at.

After a time we shifted from the canal to a route called the Colliers Way. This was comprised of some rail trails, but also some on road sections. The photo of the sign board for the route is too small to really read, but it does show that the route is a "thing".

What came next for us was the section from Dundas to Radstock, that certainly did contain a lot of nice pathway, and also a lot of quiet laneway or road. There was a problem, though because a lot of that nice laneway or road turned out to go quite steeply uphill. We were sent up some of these by misleading NCN signage, and had to come back down. This had us watching our chances for reaching Warminster in the daylight fade. But we did have the hope, that the rail trail out of Radstock would be good, flat, and not misleading.

I was really impressed with Dodie at Radstock, as she seemed to sail through a barrage of misleading signage, not to mention a tough roundabout, to put us quickly on the trail. In the roundabout, probably with the awareness of time slipping by, she seemed to tell the cars "back off, we're comin' through". It had me thinking that if you can be fearless you can make progress, unless, of course, you end up smushed.

Just at Radstock we noticed from a sign that we were near Midsomer Norton. Now that would be the "real" Midsomer Norton, but it is significant to us for being a place in the Midsomer Murders tv series, that we have watched so much of. Two or three people get killed in every episode, so watch out for Midsomer!

The rail trail turned out to be exactly what we needed, because it gave us a chance to spin along and cover some distance, without getting lost or having to push up hills. It also featured the one and only other pair of touring cyclists we have seen in English. They didn't stop to talk. Probably hurrying to catch a ferry out of the country!

Great scenery continued along the way, although the trail also ran through dense forest. In several spots there were good apple trees. It is often mentioned that these can be found along rail trails, with the trees grown from the seeds of apples thrown from the trains.

See the well trimmed hedge row. Hedge rows are a significant part of the English countryside.

We had to dipsy doodle through Frome, which took up a bit of time, not to mention that by then it started to rain quite heavily. We stopped to put on all our rain gear, and to reflexively put more shower cap material on top of my e-assist, which was not really working anyway.

Perhaps these buildings near Frome are made from Cotswold stone?

Ten years ago, the Grampies did one of their stunts in jumping a barrier, and found they had let themselves in to a Safari park. Not that they ran in to any lions or zebra, but they did run in to an "escort car" that took people through the park. The place, they later found out was called Longleat. Longleat is an English stately home and the seat of the Marquesses of Bath. But it has become much more than that, with its almost 10,000 acres of land. It has been turned into a major safari park, the first outside of Africa, and it also has a Hedge Maze, a Jungle Cruise, a Railway, restaurants, and special seasonal features such as a Roald Dahl festival coming in November.

We entered the grounds by a "do not enter" road, but this time there was a little sign that said bicycles permitted.

We went around that road blocker, all above board, apparently.

Once on the grounds, we cruised on down to the main house, passing rather incongruous theme park type stuff, like a Charlie and the Chocolate Factory thing, some jungle type giants, and some Red Coats beseiging (?) the main house.

Our Longleat "experience" really began only after we passed the main building. From that point there was a 3 km very steep hill to push up. In the coming dark, we slowly pushed up and up. I was really sweating inside my rain gear, and had to open it up. Dodie's tenacity was admirable. She pushed and pushed. Showing her practical bent, later when praised for the long push she said "What option did I have?". Well yeah, but still!

Longleat was not done with us at the top of the hill. Since they have those 1000's of acres of forest, we got to head off on a forest path before we could reach Warminster. At least being in a forest we could turn off our flashers, which we already had on because it was getting dark enough for that. "Here we go", I thought, "another march in the a dark forest, I sure hope we recharged those headlights well from the last time".

Of course, NCN, which had directed us into the forest in the first place, dropped all signage inside, including at clearly ambiguous forks in the path. No problem, because we have GPS, right? Well not quite. The track we are following may not be 100% snapped to where we need to be, plus the GPS location finding may not be totally accurate. That had us again going up some hills only to come back down. "Aha, lost in a dark forest with flaky GPS", I was thinking.

Clearly, we did exit the forest, since I am typing this in a comfy hotel room in Warminster! But once out of the forest there was one thing more. We could continue to follow the NCN route, which would eventually take us to our hotel, maybe on some safe roads, but in the dark, or we could bolt straight to the hotel on the most direct road available. We bolted, and we made it!

Here is our hotel in Warminster. The Bath Arms is another Wetherspoon hotel. Wetherspoon usually takes over heritage locations, and offers competitive value in the rooms plus decent pub food. They are controversial, however, taking strong positions on lockdown and taxation, for example, in a magazine they publish, and distribute in their properties.

Tonight the bikes are sleeping in here. Good thing they don't drink.

Today's ride: 75 km (47 miles)
Total: 1,190 km (739 miles)

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