22nd August (cloudy morning, sunny afternoon, mild) 81 km

Woke at 6.15am and adjourned to the boat shed for a cuppa and to finish the blog.  We texted our host and she came down with five slices of bread, but no eggs…shame. Never mind, we were ready to rattle off some kms. 9am start and what a start. Straight uphill, gradient would have been 1 in 5 from previous experience and it was not the way to begin the day. It was only a km climb, but we were dreading what was to come.

The village of Painswick - very picturesque
through the early morning mist.

But the gods must have been smiling as the rest of the way into the next town of Stroud was mainly downhill.   Spoke to Dave in NZ for a few minutes there and all is well with them. Decided to chance an A road. For the uninitiated, here is our description.  “A” roads require the rider to be “lotto” lucky. At anytime, you are in serious danger of being taken out. You have a variety of choices. Huge lorries coming within a millimetre of your bike at breakneck speeds and squeezing you off the road. Car drivers who are simply going too fast and try to get a six foot wide car between you and the oncoming vehicle, when they only have a five foot gap. Finally, we have the “Dickheads”. Those idiots who just don’t care if they hit you as you are causing them to slow down for at least thirty seconds. To all of you who may have nearly brought our lives to a close today, I salute you with my middle finger.

We zipped through Stroud but were taken with this building.

Compared with most A roads, this twelve mile ride to Cirencester wasn’t too bad. Only half a dozen near misses and compared to the bloody great hills on the country lanes around here, we were up for chancing it. Cruised into Cirencester unscathed and immediately spied a very old Church (started building it in 1115). Very impressive.  We found a great spot for lunch (which we had purchased coming into town) in the park at the back of the church, where they were preparing for a festival at the weekend. An Abba and Queen tribute band were two of the acts.

Slung the groundsheet and fly over a fence to dry as they were soaking wet this morning, even though we didn’t get rain last night. Found a nice spot with two benches under a tree to eat our lunch and wait for the drying process to take place. We must have pulling power, because every time we find a great spot, everyone else gravitates to it. Just as we began eating two young high school girls, who were dog walking for some cash, asked if they could pinch a bench. No problem and we enjoyed a chat with two lovely girls. A few other people wandered by, some with dogs. A lady came past and watched as her little Yorkshire Terrier stuck its nose in our pot and began to drink our leftover water. “Oh Rosie” she cried in an upper class accent. “Don’t do that….I hope it was nothing you needed?” ….”No, just boiling up some arsenic”

Cirencester - a beautiful town with a nice vibe

I mean, who wouldn't love a town with this on the public toilet wall?

Cirencester - St John the Baptist Church

Tent dry and decided we were going to push for Swindon, to give us some easy riding on Friday morning. Using “Maps Me”…and who wouldn’t now, because it’s been fantastic, we navigated our way out of town using the B road, which was not too busy, mostly flat with a good riding surface – which our backsides were very grateful for!  Must admit, we were both feeling that part of the anatomy today. Turned off for Purton, up another ruddy hill. This road did take us straight into Swindon however, so we were well pleased. 

With all the climbing, we were rewarded with
beautiful vistas.

What can you say about Swindon. It was obviously designed as a “New Town”, like a lot of others in the 60’s and like so many, this one has no soul about it either. It has a mall as the hub of the city and we must compliment the Starbucks fella who made our coffees, because he got it bang on.  The other redeeming quality about Swindon, (although many people may not rate this quality as highly as us), were the magnificently signposted cycle ways into the city.  We didn’t have to bother with any traffic and cruised right into the heart of the city.  Getting out was another thing, but with our little buddy MapsMe to guide us, it was a cinch.

Hooray, another hill conquered and
some blackberries to be consumed.

In an effort to avoid the main roads and yet get a reasonably direct route to our campground for the night, we headed east out of Swindon on what appeared to be a small road running parallel to the motorway.  We reasoned all the cars and trucks would be on the motorway and we would hopefully have the road to ourselves.  Well the trucks played the game and stuck to the motorway but the cars seemed to take it as their own personal racetrack and were not too impressed when they had to ease one foot off the accelerator due to two bikepackers clinging to the left hand verge in an effort to stay out of the way.  Don’t get me wrong, I can understand their predicament.  I mean compared to the piddling effort we have to make when climbing a hill with our multitude of gears, when they have only five, who wouldn’t be a tad annoyed at dropping from 5^th to 4^th to maybe even 3^rd?  And then the effort to get back up to speed again – well, don’t get me started!

Luckily we had the scenery to distract us as well as the odd blackberry bush because we also had a few steep hills in this section – just what you want at the end of the day.  We rolled into Farmcombe Camp about 6.30pm and after setting up the tent, took turns having showers (which took a long time as each of us had to wait for someone else to get out – only one room here with the toilet and shower in it) and writing the blog before finally getting our dinner at 8.30pm. Just to note, this is the most expensive campsite so far and also the worst. Lovely location and views, but facilities are minimal for $32.