21st August (cloudy morning, sunny afternoon, warm) 93 km

I got my first bikepacking book when I was seventeen. Around that time, I had a few things that I wanted to do. The first was to be a professional footballer, that was all consuming. Another was to sail around the world. I’d heard my dad talking about Robert Knox-Johnson and Che Blye, famous around the world Yachtsmen and thought it would be cool to be mucking around in a boat in the middle of the ocean. Fact was, I didn’t have a boat and there was a minor detail in that I had never learned to sail.

Upon opening the book, I was suddenly taken to countries I had never been to and I was able to do it under my own steam by just turning my bike pedals. The book even gave detailed accounts of everything that you needed for, a weekend trip, a tour of a couple of weeks, or a long tour of months. I read that book from cover to cover, planning where to go and how I would go about it.

However, there were still a couple of things on my fantasy list first. I was hitchhiking a lot at this time, so of course my fantasy driver was a gorgeous thirty year old Swede, driving a Porsche. She would drive me back to Malmo and keep me as her sex slave for months, my family not too concerned, thinking that I must have gone sailing around the world. The other was to race cars like James Hunt. Perhaps if I’d looked like him, I would have had more chance on the sex slave front. However, an horrific car accident some years later, when I was driving too fast, put paid to the speed aspect and resigned me to driving like a nana for eternity.

Anyhow, for some reason, all these thoughts kept flooding back as Julia and I slogged it up a five kilometre hill, straight out of the campsite gates. We’d enjoyed a nice night there and met some friendly people. This area is full of climbs and this first one of the day was a doozy. The weather was the usual overcast, but mild. We’ve had that since we arrived in England nearly two weeks ago. The lanes were once again beautiful and this morning, even though we were looking at a long day, we took some time to indulge in blackberries from the brambles at the side of the roads. And they are in abundance and delicious.

Bromyard High Street

Into Bromyard down a very long hill and sat eating a couple of Cornish Pasties to fill us up. The going had been quite slow with all the climbing this morning and we wanted to push on. Decided to take a chance on the B4214 which turned out to be a quieter road than expected and we made up some time into Ledbury. 

Here we found a Tesco, did a shop for lunch and sat eating it in a small park down the road. This park catered for a council estate and for the first time on this trip, we were hearing Polish accents in abundance. Funny, the places people end up when emigrating to foreign parts.

Scenes from Ledbury

The B4216 to Newent was lovely riding once again, but soon the traffic became heavy. Back roads to High Leadon and nice scenery and conversation, before the busy B4215 for 5kms had us desperately searching MapsMe for a way out.  We pulled off the road in the village of Highnam and noticed a thin pink line as we zoomed in on the area that represented a cycle path into Gloucester.  We gratefully took this and with a few backtracks due to the numerous intersecting footpaths, we were rewarded with a majestic view of the Gloucester Cathedral with the late afternoon sun highlighting the light coloured stone it was built from.

Gloucester Cathedral - very impressive

On our way out along Westgate Road, was very pleasant and no traffic.  Then it turned to Eastgate and the mall became a road, the traffic was fast and impatient and the people had an unfriendly vibe.  We did not want to stop and pull out the smartphone to check directions that’s for sure.

As soon as it felt safe, we did stop to check if there was a quieter road and turned off in Upton St Leonards, which was a beautiful little village.  However, a monster awaited us at the other end of the village in the shape of the steepest hill we’ve encountered since we’ve been here, named Portway Road.  After 88 km, it was the last thing we needed.  

We had no idea where we were going to camp as there had been nothing on the way to Gloucester that we could get to easily.  All the roads seem to criss cross each other at inconvenient angles which seemed to double the distance we had to travel.  So halfway up Portway, we looked up campsites near us and found one only three miles away.  Phoned her up to warn her we were coming and with renewed hope, pushed our bikes to the top of the worst part of the hill and then climbed back on to slog our way to the top.

With renewed energy now, we pushed on for Painswick Glamping and eventually found it of course, in a valley, which means a climb, once again to start the day tomorrow. A nice lady called Rachael met us and told us that her and her husband had worked in Cambridge for a while. Paid for the night, fifteen pounds and also arranged for her to bring us some bread in the morning. 

The boathouse at our campground - had the whole place to ourselves

Tent up, we gratefully showered the sweat off and ate dinner at 9pm.  Blogged and plotted our course in the beautiful and well-equipped boathouse before calling it quits at 10pm and crawling inside the tent after a very long and arduous 93kms.

Really? ?? Not even I was tempted!