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@Kidneys
Just arrived in Minehead Butlins yesterday, after leaving London at the crack on Tuesday, on the fully loaded radtractor.
I'm shooting Bloc weekend here on Sunday night, and shooting Bangface weekend at Southport Pontins next weekend. For whatever reason, I thought it'd be a 'good' idea to turn it into a (mostly off-road) bike trip.
CAINED myself getting to Newbury-ish by late evening. As well as beautiful, the canal was very heavy going in places (esp. either side of Newbury) but the bike did its job and I slogged through it at about 4mph. Stopped near Burbage around 10pm ('solarstorm' ebay special light arrived the day before I left) and set up my new Hubba Hubba Nx tent in a sweet little copse near the road. Slept like a dead rock. Completely broken.
Left for Devizes the next morning, feeling pretty weary. More rutted canal into the town, I was lucky though, as it would be virtually impassible had there not been a week of dry weather beforehand. Devizes proper is beautiful, especially the section of houses backed onto the canal, and the lock staircase descending out into the plains before Bath was great. Stopped and bought a crapload of lemon drizzle cake and some rum raisin icecream to to raise my spirits, in the face of the impending grey skies.
Reeled in the last few dull straight miles to Bathampton. After that it all got pretty lush pretty quickly. I wish I had more time to explore here but time was ticking so I pushed on through Bath on the canal path and then the Bath/Bristol railway path.
Jumped off the path at around 4, and up what I thought at the time was a substantial hill to a golf course near Saltford. Set up camp in a wooded bit and rolled off on an odd feeling, unloaded bike into Corston for a couple of pints, a meal that wasn't noodles or 'nanas, and to charge my phone. Booked a train for the next day from Bristol to Taunton, since I was feeling pretty rough, and didn't fancy what I'd heard was a boring on-road drudge down from Bristol.
Woke up the next morning and had a brief chat with a maintenance guy on the course, no problem. Most people I've found are inquisitive and confused rather than angry or upset. I wouldn't camp in someone's garden or anything though!
Completed the Bath/Bristol path that morning and took my sweet time. Was accompanied for the last few miles by a courier from Bristol called Amy. The company was much appreciated. Bought a curry nearby, packed it up and boarded my train to Taunton at midday.
I made a mistake here in not planning my route thoroughly enough: there are hills on East Exmoor. Who'd have thought it. Got only about 10 miles in, with a dead phone, dead garmin, following confusing route notes I had hastily made on the train, and completely bonked on another 15% climb. Avoiding the busy and fast moving A39 had proven a bad move, and the little traffic that was on these B-roads was large and shall we say 'overconfident'. I mashed as much lemon drizzle cake into my mouth as I could and descended into a gorgeous steep sided valley, in what I thought was completely the wrong direction, where I intended to thumb a lift for the last however many miles. Passed a pub and circled round to drown my sorrows before the inevitable flounce. What luck! The landlady reckoned I was on the right path and it was 'all downhill from here'. Needless to say, it wasn't all downhill, but I was totally envigorated by crisps and ale, and hammered it up to Dunster castle. Beautiful home stretch! Sat on the beach at Minehead, downed a flask of tea I'd made that morning, and checked in to BUTLINS after security insisted on looking through all my stuff (but didn't confiscate my meths, weirdly).
So I shoot here on Sunday, and leave back (for what may be a hard horrible journey) to Taunton and a train up to Porthmadog on Monday morning. Then I begin the second part of my trip on Tuesday morning, to arrive in Southport by Thursday morning.
Tonight though, I'm going to get laddered.
Cheers!