Pathetic, that's what we were when we rode past the Barge Inn, saw the canal and the boats putt..putting by then not 100m up the road a gorgeous thatched roof B&B. What were we to do? We had only ridden 40km but we were cold and it all looked so inviting we made an executive descision. We would rather be drinking a pint by the canal than riding our bikes.....so we did. This is a holiday afterall :)
Let me rewind to this morning: As we were packing up the owner of the B&B in Purton came out and said goodbye and gave us a little parcel for the road. It contained a block of chocolate, two yohgurts and four apples, I love English people. We got free Internet access last night so we spoke to Eleanor and Greyson and my Mum. We also cooked some pasta and vegies for dinner.
Todays itinery saw us pass by:
Lydiard Millicent
Great Field
Hook
Wootten Bassett
Broad Town - saw our first White Horse here and cycled up a bloody big hill to get out of there.
Avebury - Avebury boasts a henge (you know circle of big stones from about 4,000 years ago) This was pretty cool and we had lunch here. Nice little village altought squareley aimed at the tourist market.
West Kennett
not to be out done by East Kennett - it was here that we passed a farmer walking his two border collies down the lane. He saw us coming and said "you've got a big climb coming up." I quickly motioned toward another laneway and acting the goat said "What about that way?" he laughed "You've got big climbs no matter which way you go out of here". And climb we did, although I think we are finally starting to get our 'touring legs'.
Alton Barnes
and then Honeystreet....the demise of our cycle day.
White horse at Broad Town
Part of the stone circle at Avebury
Church at Avebury
Avebury Manor
Chalk downs
White horse at Honeystreet
This was a great days cycling as for the first time we had a tailwind the whole way. So really we picked a pretty stupid day to cut it short so we could take in the ambiance of the canal over a pint. Nevermind, there will be other tailwinds......we hope.
We walked from the B&B to The Barge Inn and had a pint. Considering we were so cold earlier it wasnt such a bad day and we almost considered sitting outside to have out pint......almost.
Our B&B is nice, not old, the plate on the wall says "1996" but they still put a thatched roof on?? The view from our window is pretty special, the window frames a white horse on the hill in the distance.
Cooked our dinner on the Tranigia outside and then settled in with a cuppa to read our books.
Caution bike geek content:
I have been riding the Schwalbe Marathon XR (26x2.0) which are a big heavy tyre designed for expidition touring like South America or the Gibb River Road. I bought Sandy some new Schwalbe Marathon Duremes (26x2.0) which are the same width but with less aggressive tread and weigh just about half as much. Today I put the almost slick and narrower Marathon Supremes (26x1.6) back on Sandy's bike and I swapped the XRs for the Duremes on my bike. I'm hoping for an improvement as the XRs have been pretty tough compared to the Supremes I was running in Australia.
2 comments:
english people are very nice to give you guys a picnic,,,wow!
caution bike geek section:have you seen the movie with anthony hopkins in it called "the fastest red indian" its a true story about a kiwi in 1960 era breaking the land speed record in the usa on his bike.What helped him was by cutting the tred off the tire and leving it smooth.[jeffs wine is staining my teeth] ride safe
I thought you had learned your lesson about Jeff's wine :)
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