Sunday 4 April 2010 Banbury to Stow-on-the-Wold

Sunday 4 April 2010 Banbury to Stow-on-the-Wold 37km

We had planned on a bigger day and regretfully turned down the offer of another day in Banbury.

The Steiger's, great hosts

As it turned out our legs would have liked a day off and climbing the hill into Stow-on-the-Wold saw us deciding that we had had enough for the day so we stopped and found a B&B.  We talked about it and booked for two nights as our legs needed a day off.

We gathered our belongings and said a reluctant farewell to the Steiger family.  The weather today was not too bad, no rain, head wind, cool but not freezing so we rode OK.  After a quick trip into Banbury to get some money and to take a picture of the Banbury Cross it was off toward the Cotswolds, famous for being the 'most' English of areas.

The Banbury Cross, read about it

The first stop was Broughton then we followed the back roads to Little Tadmarton, Hook Norton (beautiful little village), Great Rollright, Little Rollright, Adlestrop, Oddington and then onto Stow-on-the-Wold.

Just a random shot

In between Great Rollright and Little Rollright we stopped and had a look at the RollRight Stones.  An ancient circle of stones left by neolithic man.

The Rollright Stones

The view from the Rollright Stones

Just after that we entered the Cotswolds, we knew that from a sign on the road.  It all just looked like beautiful English countryside to me.

Zooming down a hill into the Cotswolds

 The riding though, was getting a little harder as we now had hills, not too steep but some first gear hills.  I asked Sandy what was so special abou the Cotswolds, apart from the sign 'How do we know we're in the Cotswolds?', she didnt know.  Sandy asked me if her tyres were flat, they weren't but it was an early sign that we were getting tired and needed a break.

Today was our first day of navigating by map as we have left the designated National Cycle Network.  Not too bad, we just pick a point on the map in the general direction of where we want to go and then go from village to village on the quiet back roads.  Today we had one stretch on the A436 coming into Stow-in-the-Wold but it was not too bad.  People say drivers in the UK are not very tolerent toward cyclists  but I think those people have not cycled in Australia.  We have found the drivers to be very courtious.

When we got to Stow-on-the-Wold we started looking for somewhere to stay and Sandy went into the Visitor Information shop and came out with a booklet on the Cotswolds.  We went into a cafe and ordered tea for two and Sandy laughed as she started reading the booklet the first words were 'In simple terms the word 'Cotswolds' refers to an area of gently hilly country spanning over 100 miles north to south'.  "oh great" I laughed "we've gone out of our way to ride up hills!!!"

Stow-in-the-Wold

Rang a B&B as the YHA hostel only had dorm accommodation and booked in to a lovely farm house 2km out of town.  Could get used to this B&B lifestyle (he says as he just finished his bacon and eggs) even though it eats into our budget but it's just too damn cold to camp yet :)

The view from our room...not too bad ;)

Day off tomorrow as were knackered.