Well. So much for not spending too much on B&B’s. Woke this morning in the only 5 star place in
Oxford. Very nice it was too, but so it
bloody well should have been. We also couldn’t for some reason connect to the
internet, so that was annoying. Enjoyed
a delicious breakfast and found the service by Nez the manager to be second to
none.
Cycled into Oxford for a look
around and what a truly amazing city. Past
Kellogg College, which I thought was a bit corny and then spent the next three
hours oohing and aahing at the most amazing architecture imaginable. Remember, a lot of what we were seeing was
built in
medieval times and aside from the buildings, you have to appreciate
the layout of the town planners of the day.
Into the Head of the River pub, where we were lucky enough
to get skyped by Georgina and Brody which was great.
Caught up with some stuff that needed
attending to, and took down some info off google maps to get us further down
the road.
Must have taken a few dozen photos in Oxford before taking
the Thames pathway south to Abingdon. Here we encountered the university rowing
regatta. There were crews for Africa from normal sounding humans to ever so
laid back Hooray Henry’s (Hurrah Huzzah!....) but quite a spectacle. The path started off well enough, paved but
quite rutted and very well utilised.
Came across a young student couple selling sandwiches and cupcakes to
raise a few quid so bought some food from them and carried on down the
towpath. As per usual, the further you
get from the main centres, the less well maintained the path. Negotiated several mud puddles, until the
path came alongside the railway line where it was a good surface and this took
us into the village of Radley where there was a beautiful college and nice
quiet streets.
Julia’s turn…..Found another cycle path that followed the
Thames, then we crossed the Thames over the Abingdon lock and found a nice park
bench to eat our sandwiches and cupcakes while overlooking the scenic village
of Abingdon and the river Thames.
Carried on along the bike path which as per usual turned very muddy with
the ever-present stinging nettles alongside the most muddy bits so that if the
mud didn’t get you, the stinging nettles would.
But it was either this or the very busy A415 so we decided we’d rather
have mud and stinging nettles than traffic.
Kiwi ingenuity was called for when we reached a little bridge across
some swamp land as there was a deep muddy puddle across the breadth of the
entrance to the bridge with stinging nettles either side. (If anybody at this point is wondering ‘why
the fuss about stinging nettles?’ they obviously have never endured the burning
pain caused by these prolific weeds).
But by manoeuvring one bike at a time between us we managed to get over
the little bridge and back onto the track which mercifully soon brought us to a
little lane and over a bridge that was built in 1462. Through the lovely little village of
Appleford and onto the B4016 which was only moderately busy. The road was very flat all day to this point
with cloud cover and although quite cool this morning, developed into a
moderate temperature this afternoon – perfect for cycling.
Pete noticed a cyclepath into the town of Didcot and this
had a good surface and was a joy to cycle on.
There is a massive power station here which from the look of it is
nuclear. The town of Didcot is larger
than expected but this great bike path ran right into the centre of it where we
stopped for a coffee and to check google maps to see where to go next.
Headed on the B4016 out of town and found Woodway Lane which
we had noticed on google maps was a quiet little road that would take us away
from the traffic. It took us up a bloody
great hill which we decided we could walk up faster and save the chafing on our
bottoms and the strain on our knees.
Passed a couple of girls on horseback and exchanged hellos and quietly
congratulated ourselves on finding such a nice quiet lane through the English
countryside. Then we reached the
top. Here began our first disagreement
of the trip so far. The country lane
turned into a mudfest and then split into two mudfests, one left, one
right. I wanted to go right, Pete wanted
to go left. My choice was somewhat
influenced by the fact that the lefthand path was much muddier than the
right. Pete did however inform me that a
road to nowhere would be followed by an ‘I told you so’ and so began our trek
to the right. Like something from a Dick
Francis novel, we soon found ourselves on ‘The Gallops’. This, for the uninformed, is a vast area of
pasture dedicated to unleashing the true nature of a thoroughbred
racehorse. It is where, usually, in the
early hours of the morning, racehorses are given their head to show their full
speed.
No racehorses this afternoon,
just two squelching cyclists with the only thing being unleashed, a torrent of
verbal abuse to the google maps bridlepaths who brought us to this point. I spied a yellow looking path off to the
right and thought, ‘aha I am right’ and
feeling smug, lead us over to said path.
It was however made of woodchips which our bikes sank into even more
than the mud.
It was like a modern day
version of being tarred and feathered.
But surely this path would lead to a road? But no.
Another muddy path lead us back upto the left in the direction Pete had
wanted to go all along. Man I hate it
when that happens. Anyway, we finally hit
upon a more compacted path with just the frequent muddy puddle to squelch
through and eventually onto a paved driveway where we found a couple of walkers. We asked them which direction to the village
of Compton and they said, yes, we were going the right way (for once) and soon
we were back in civilisation again.
 |
| Told you we should have gone left! |
About 8.30 pm we found our perfect campsite and set up the
tent and wrote this blog before crawling nto our sleeping bags for a well
earned kip after cycling 56 kms this afternoon.
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