Day 3 - Llangammarch Wells to Tenbury Wells

The eagle-eyed amongst you will perhaps have spotted that we didn't get all the way to Builth Wells last night - instead we had an absolutely excellent Country House B&B/restaurant just 6 miles short of Builth. We were the only people staying there and we were the only ones staying for dinner, so it was just like having our own luxury house and chef!!
Unfortunately, when I started riding again this morning, the lane from the B&B took me 1 mile in the wrong direction before I could resume my easterly ride.
I would classify this mornings ride as "Boil-in-the-bag". I had decided to wear my waterproofs as there was a lot of rain in the air and it was quite breezy, but after the first couple of hills I could be best described as "moist"! Then, when I came to have a drink from my bottle I found it liberally smothered in sheep poo! As I was sulking about that, who should pull up but Jan. So I got a clean bottle from the car and filled it up with some bottled water.
Just before crossing the bridge in Builth I spotted this character:

The rain was becoming steadier now and reducing visibility quite appreciably, however I could still make out this quarry on the outskirts of the town.

I'm continuing to try and take a picture every time I get to a fold in the map. At one such point, a I stopped to turn my map over, a load of sheep came running expectantly towards me. I was puzzled for a while and then I realised - they must have been under the impression that I had some news for them from Gary!

Having left the main road and turned on to a yellow road that was also marked as a cycle route, I studied the map more closely and realised there were several steep hills ahead of me. However, I found the scenery interesting and, what with my glasses misting up on the inside and a fine spatter of raindrops on the outside, I couldn't really see far enough ahead for the hills to bother me.

I knew about this hill though - I got into granny at the front and biggy at the back and just ground my way up. Here's the view up:

Here's the view down:

and this is looking back from the top:

This was followed by a four mile downhill and then, having gone through a village called Gladestry, I took a lane that skirted round the side of Hergest Ridge. Does that name mean anything to anyone? - answers via the comment facility please.

Half way along this lane I crossed the border from Wales into England. There's no sign there but this Bridleway follows the line of the border. I left my own scent mark there! (liquid)

Just a few miles later and I met up with Jan in Kington. Due to bad planning on my behalf, we'd arrived on early-closing day and most places were shut. I found Jan chatting with a couple of locals in the town museum. Nearby a cafe was open and we had a pleasant lunch of egg mayonnaise sandwiches (me) and a toasted cheese and ham sandwich (Jan) washed down with mugs of tea. Even after an hour in the cafe I was still soaking wet from my mornings exertions, so we went back to the car and I changed my shirt. The sun was now trying to come out, so I packed my waterproofs into my barbag and set off again.

One thing that I've found quite moving about my trip is that every town and village seems to have a memorial to the fallen of the two world wars (and often other conflicts are remembered as well). It brings into perspective the scale of the sacrifices made by the ordinary men and women of our tiny little countries.

I was enjoying the afternoon ride - the sun and the wind were both on my back and I then discovered that I'd made a mistake adding up the miles on my routecard and I actually had 6 fewer to travel than I first thought - RESULT!

Here's a picture of a private school I went past. I waved at one of the boys on the tennis court and he waved back -what was he thinking!

The next part of the ride was on the A456 and it was very busy with loads of HGV's and I wasn't feeling very comfortable. Then Jan phoned to say she'd found a B&B for tonight, only trouble was, I'd have to stay on the A456 to get there. Ah well, I just put my head down and pedalled quicker.

There weren't any hills as the road crossed the River Teme and then ran alongside it all the way to Tenbury Wells. The B&B is in a pub just on the outskirts of the town.

Once again, the room is freshly decorated and lovely and clean with free wifi available as well, so I've knocked this blog entry up before we go for our dinner.

Tomorrow we head across to Bewdley, Kidderminster, Lickey, the southern outskirts of Birmingham and then Solihull to finish at Hampton-in-Arden.

My bottom and my saddle have been fighting each other for supremacy over the last two days and I've noticed that the saddle is starting to adopt the shape of my posterior - I may well post a picture of it tomorrow (my saddle, not my bottom)! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED...

Todays stats:

Miles ridden today: 50

Average speed: about 10mph

Maximum speed: about 38mph

Day 2 - Newcastle Emlyn to Builth Wells

WHOAH!!!!!!!! What a day! I knew this was going to be hard but If I'd known how hard, I'd not have started it......


After last nights trip out to the pub which took us over the first nine miles or so of todays ride, I had an inkling of what I was letting myself in for. But...


I reluctantly left the luxurious surroundings of Maes y Derw Guest House and headed east from Newcastle Emlyn on the A484 before turning left onto the B4334 and then right onto a yellow road which dipped down before climbing up to the A475. In turn the A475 had a steep, half-mile long, energy-sapping climb. There was a bit of drizzle in the air by the time I reached the crossroads with the A486. At this point I gave Gary a call to let him know I was nearly at his place. The next mile was all downhill, at speed - I clocked 40 mph! Meeting up with Gary I handed him an empty water bottle - I didn't want the weight of the bottle holding me back.
The hill was incredibly tough but I managed it and Gary will no longer be able to say "I've never seen anyone ride a bike up that hill" (although, to be honest I wish I'd never heard him say it - if I hadn't I wouldn't have included it in my ride - what a thing the male ego is!).

However, that wasn't the end of it - that self-same road had a further two VERY stiff climbs before I left it and headed south east on the B4338. On arriving in Llanybydder I was starting to feel quite tired and despondent as I knew I'd be struggling to make the lunch halt before 13:00 hrs as I'd only managed 15 miles in just over an hour and a half and had another 15 to go. Just for good measure I accidentally reset my speedo, so from now on I'd have to recalculate the mileages on my route card. Oh, and it was raining!

Anyway, wolfing down a Mars bar cheered me up a bit and I sent Jan a text saying what my eta for lunch would be. It was a longish drag up through Brechfa Forest, but once I reached the crest I had a great blast down the other side and managed to arrive at our lunch halt only ten minutes later than my original plan.
We lunched at the Dolaucothi Gold Mine, which, being National Trust, didn't cost us anything to get in. Here are some pictures I took there:

The mine workings date back to Roman times, although this particular adit is actually Victorian:

Then, in the 1930's a vertical shaft was dug - here's a picture of the winding gear:

After a leisurely hour and a half lunch - I was hoping the rain would let up and the promised sunny spells would start to dominate - it was time to get going again. I couldn't face any more hills so skipped my planned yellow road route in favour of the main road. This worked OK and then I went back to some yellow roads having worked out they were only half the distance of the main road and didn't have too much in the way of climbing. Not only that, but the last 5 miles to Llandovery were all downhill! RESULT!!!

One thing I've noticed here in Wales is that the bilingual roadsigns take twice as long to understand - you find yourself scanning the whole sign to spot a word or two that you recognise and by the time you've worked it out you're in the middle of the hazard or feature it's supposed to be warning you about!

I know that triangle means Give Way, but the Welsh for Yield get's in the way of understanding it!!!

The scenery is great and, to use a Gavin and Stacey word, it's lush:

This lump is called The Sugar Loaf and the road I was riding went all the way up to it and then climbed round the side and on even higher before finally running downhill to Llanwrytd Wells. This was about 50 miles into the ride and I was really struggling to find any energy by this stage - Janice was struggling to find the B&B we'd booked and I had to stop a couple of times to discuss what to do (over the phone). However, she found it and what a gem it is. Luxuriously appointed with a glorious view. Unfortunately the last 200 yards was uphill and had such wobbly legs that I had to rest the camera on a fence in order to take this photo of Jan and the ever faithful Scooby:

Once again free wifi is available so I've been able to rattle off this blog quickly - either side of a fantastic evening meal of chicken with risotto and green veg and a wonderful vanilla panacotta with blueberry sauce. Oh, and two pints of cider.

Ah well, time for bed, another long day in the saddle tomorrow and I suspect it'll be wet again.

Stats:

Todays Mileage: 59 miles

Todays average speed: about 9 mph!

Todays fastest speed: about 40 mph!

As planned, we met up with Gary and Gaynor and spent a very pleasant evening at the pub. Gary had warned me that the pub served large helpings of food and he wasn't wrong - I loaded up with about a ton of carbs washed down with several pints of an ale called "Piddle"!
Halfway through the meal I surprised everyone by suddenly jumping up .... I'd felt a cramp coming on in my hamstring and just managed to stop it before it took hold - that would have made tomorrows ride even more of a trial.

We finished the evening with the ladies chatting in the corner of the snug whilst Gary and I played pool, or rather, Gary gave me some lessons on how to play! Anyway, the bottom line is that we all really enjoyed ourselves although I ended up drinking rather more than I intended - Gary said "this pub doesn't serve halfs" and he was right!

The other thing I learnt is that the ride over to "Gary's Challenge Hill" has a couple of hills and as for his hill, I reckon it's going to be hard going, especially as he's going to video me going up it. And I'll have another 50 miles to go afterwards....

Day 1 - St Davids to Newcastle Emlyn

Well, we've started!

It was a shame to leave St. David's, it's a lovely little place amidst lots of wild and beautiful countryside and coastline. We stayed at the Alandale Guest House and would thoroughly recommend it - the hosts, Rob & Gloria were charming, the accommodation was very clean and well-presented, the breakfast was top-class (loved the pears in cinnamon and orange) and free wifi made writing the blog a doddle.

I've uploaded various pictures that we took - they're in sequence so will hopefully give you a flavour of the wonderful scenery in these parts. It's the first time Jan and I have been out here and we feel we must come back sometime to do it justice.

It's a wild and rough coastline in places and the route I was following (NCN 4) was going up and down as it crossed various rivers and stream making their way to the sea.

There's much evidence of ancient human activity around here with Burial Chambers and standing stones dotted all over the map - here's a stone I saw standing in a field by the side of my route:


Our lunchtime halt was at Fishguard and the next picture shows Fishguard harbour mouth as that slight inlet in the middle of the picture.

We found a little "Art" cafe and had a light lunch of panini and salad washed down with tea whilst sitting in the suntrap of a courtyard. Fortunately it was sheltered from the wind in there as it has been blowing all day - luckily for me, from the west i.e. from behind.

Out in the countryside, I've been impressed with how lush everything is, the greenery is awash with bright greens and the hedgerows are lined with flowers.

This helps take my mind off all the hills there have been. Only one was marked as 20% but I've been up at least three that were unmarked but seemed steeper!

I've been taking a picture more or less every time I get to the fold in my Landranger maps - there are 7 in each map and I've gone all the way across one and almost all the way across the second so far. It's been great having the OS maps -I've not been lost for a moment and I can see what terrain is coming up and so I'm not caught out by sudden hills or confusing junctions.

Tonight we are meeting Gary from work and going for a meal at a nearby pub. Gary is something of a sheep aficionado, so I took this picture especially for him:

There have been a large number of chapels dotted around the countryside, sometimes in the middle of nowhere, often with an accompanying graveyard. Most of them look as though they are still used, but I have seen quite a few that appear to have been converted to private houses. This one looked to be still in use:

A few miles after lunch and in the middle of nowhere, I realised I need to answer a "call of nature", quite urgently in fact! Just then a car park appeared and, as there were no cars and no-one to be seen, I decided to water a local tree. Before I did, I spotted a small building off to my left which, on investigating I found to be a public convenience. I'm impressed with how well the Welsh seem to be anticipating my toiletry requirements!

Here's an attempt to contrast the verdant roadside scenery with the distant rugged hills:

and here's my bike having a rest in amongst the flowers:

Three things to note here:

1) the bar bag - in an attempt to fend off the rain I've a full set of waterproofs in there (along with a pump, patches, spare tube, multitool, energy bar, long fingered gloves, spare neckerchief, wallet, spare car keys, maps) and it weighs a fair bit thus upsetting my ability to ride no-handed.

2) my water bottle - I filled it with welsh tap water and it tastes GREAT!

3) my new saddle - the old one I called "The Edge", this one I've named "Jimi".

The constant wind of today is certainly a regular feature of these parts as you can tell by the shape of the trees:

I keep looking at this tree picture and thinking something is wrong with it. I've just realised what - I took that picture looking back down the road I'd just ridden, so consequently the tree is pointing in the opposite direction to all the others I've seen today!

I was starting to feel a bit tired now and so I stopped in a village called Boncath and got myself an ice cream and a bottle of orange isotonic drink. as I sat in the sun outside the village store I realised the pub opposite was open and had a nice sunny garden. It took all my willpower to resist just popping over for a pint!

It was quite a while before Janice drove past me this afternoon, it was only about 10 miles from the finish and we were on a B-Road. Other drivers please note how much space she has left me as she's done the overtake and she hardly need to alter her speed.

This bridge is in Cenarth - it's only a tiny village but has several pubs and various tourist attractions (one of which is the "National Coracle Centre").

From Cenarth it was only 3 miles to the B&B and I've got to say, we've come up trumps again. It's a beautiful Edwardian place full of antique furniture and fittings (but with modern plumbing and, yes, we've got WiFi (hence the blog being done so quick).

This is the view from our room on the first floor:

Right, that's it, I'd better phone Gary now to sort out the finer details for tonight - where exactly are we picking him and his missus up, for starters!

Stats:

Distance cycled: 47.1 miles

Average speed:

Fastest speed: I think it was 38 mph.