By direct route it’s only 100 km from Oxford to London but I wasn’t in a hurry to get there. I’d read that the Cotswolds by bike is a ‘thing’, so I went in that direction. Bath sounded nice too. And Brighton. Planning done.
Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 June, 2019. In Oxford |No Travel|
I stayed in Oxford for 3 nights/ 2 days and, even though it drizzled rain pretty much the whole time, I did manage to trot down to the downtown area a few times with my camera. Fell in love with M&S and Sainsbury’s food halls all over again too.
Architecturally and historically, Oxford is inherently interesting for sure. But it is also a small town and I’m afraid us 17 million visitors per year can’t really all fit in very comfortably. Even if we were spaced out evenly throughout the year (that’s 46,000 per day) it would still be busy, but June, despite the crappy weather this year, is coming into peak season and there would have been double that number in town. The overcrowding greatly devalues the touristic experience: they’re definitely in danger of killing that particular golden goose. I didn’t find it any fun at all jostling along the footpaths in the drizzle amongst the tightly-packed guided groups of selfie-stick-welding mostly-Asian fellow tourists, and so kept my excursions to a minimum.
Friday 14 June, 2019. Oxford · Worcester |140 km|
The River Hotel is almost right next to the main rail and bus station, so it was easy to pick up NCN’s cycle route 5 that starts at the station and goes along the Oxford Canal, and at about 15 km outside town, becomes NCN route 442 all the way to Worcester. This made for some very pleasant riding.
The scenes below depict my journey through the Cotswolds on my way to Worcester (‘Wuster’ if it’s to be spelt like it sounds).
There were some very narrow, unpaved, soggy single-track sections to negotiate, lots of murky puddles in potholes of unknown depth to avoid, and lots of hills to climb (1,300 metres-worth for the day). I stopped at the cosy Baker’s Arms pub in the village of Broad Campden, mainly for a reprieve from the drizzling rain, but also to top up the bike batteries over lunch. Their menu wasn’t great and I settled for just the courgette and pea soup. Several bedraggled hikers, mostly American couples, wandered in. They had the soup too, I noticed, after also pondering over the menu for ages.
I glimpsed a lot of hikers today. Taking short walks along the dense network of public footpaths between the closely-set villages while based at one of these cosy pubs seems to be the chief attraction around these parts.
Route 442 took me right into downtown Worcester, where I was making for the address of my WarmShowers host for the night, but down at the canal basin there was no going any further because the Severn River was in flood and had inundated the bike path.
It took me some time to navigate my way around the flood, but I needn’t have worried about being late – I had to wait for a couple of hours in the nearby Talbot pub anyway for my host Mike to arrive home. It turned out that he didn’t actually live at that address, but just maintained a shed there, where we secured Ziggy and then headed off in his small car with 3 young foreign lads to his bedsit in the town of Droitwich about 10 km away. Alarm bells ringing at this stage!!
But it was alright. Mike, who’s normal occupation is control room operator for a highway breakdown company, working blocks of 3 x 12-hour shifts for the past 17 years, is also a volunteer on the Severn Valley Railway scenic attraction, and he hosts young people looking to improve their English and get work experience on the railway, through an organization called HelpX. We sat around and had a couple of beers that I bought at the local Tesco Express, then Mike set off to deliver his charges to their overnight digs in the town of Kidderminster. By 9.30 I was asleep on his proffered sofa and barely stirred when Mike returned later to sleep on the other sofa. All a bit strange really, but no harm done.
Saturday 15 June, 2019. Worcester · Bath |110 km|
Mike dropped me back at the shed where we stored Ziggy at 7.30 and I was on my way again in the direction of Bath via more of the Cotswolds.
There were some very steep hills to climb around Stroud, and a few times I was on isolated paths between farm boundaries that I thought would lead nowhere, but eventually did lead somewhere without any need for significant back-tracking.
Unlike yesterday, I really did need to recharge the bike batteries today in spite of the shorter distance travelled, mainly because of the hilliness of the terrain I guess (1,300 vertical metres again), and the heavier going on the soggy single-track sections.
So I stopped for 2 hours at the Polo Pub in Foston’s Ash, where, in spite of the pub’s poshness the staff were friendly, and because of it the food was excellent and the other customers entertaining. It was the pre-wedding venue for a groom and his toffy mates who were having a few pints before heading off to the church to do the deed. Quite amusing really, like a sequence out of ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’. I was pleased to see that people like that really do exist.
Due to my early departure from Worcester, I arrived into Bath quite early in the afternoon and set about looking for a hotel. Bath was busy – the annual Boules Championship was on – and everything seemed to be booked out until I finally did land a room – a very nice room – at the Queensbury Hotel. The Queensbury is located near the Circus, a famous and much-photographed street of Georgian townhouses.
Like I said, much-photographed. I even photographed it twice myself! It does complete a full circle, by the way – in three segments.
I stayed in Bath for 2 nights. My room was huge, a mini-suite really, and tastefully-appointed, though being at street level at the front of the building it was a bit noisy from the occasional rowdy foot traffic. I can certainly recommend the Queensbury. The staff were officious but helpful. They let me store Ziggy down in the cellar and even let me login to one of their own password-protected email accounts instead of having to use the standard crappy one for guests where you have to put in all your details so that they can track and market your preferences (my main problem with this is that the bike computer cannot login to this type of account and so I wouldn’t have been able to upload my data or download new routes).
I thought £13 for a Gin and Tonic in the Queensbury’s bar was a bit excessive though, and so confined my further drinking to a couple of beers in a pub downtown and to ‘several’ take-away G & T’s from Sainsbury’s. For food, I was quite content to graze at a couple of the food tents at the boules match.
The weather had slightly improved at last and there were even a few almost-sunny spells that weekend in Bath, so I got some sightseeing done even though walking the steep streets was killing me.
Monday 17 June, 2019. Bath · Southampton |138 km|
[Well, waddya know. Today was my first day in England in 2 weeks that I didn’t need to roll out my wet-weather gear for cycling. Great ride too – first along the Kennet & Avon Canal and then down the Wylye valley]
All the locals had told me how great cycling down the Wylye Valley is, but I suspect they’ve never actually done it themselves. The Kennet & Avon Canal was much better.
Later on, there were also some really horrible sections both on and alongside busy A roads for the last 40-odd kilometres into Southampton.
As for Southampton, I didn’t really like it. To me, it is an unattractive town with an air of quiet desperation to it. The presence of so many begging ice addicts in the streets didn’t help.
I had requested a WarmShowers home-stay in Southampton too, but the potential host didn’t respond to my message until 8.30pm, by which time I’d already given up and booked a room at the Dolphin Hotel downtown. There, they gave me a room upgrade for booking in person and not through Booking.com.
Tuesday 18 June, 2019. Southampton · Brighton |114 km|
This was a tedious ride, mostly along busy roads in a semi-build-up landscape of endless housing estates that had nothing to recommend it, except for the last 20 km from Worthing into Brighton along the foreshore. The rain was back again, too.
Brighton must be over-supplied with accommodation because I got a room in the reasonable King’s Hotel on the foreshore close to the pier for only £60. The staff were nice – they let me keep Ziggy in the left-luggage space next to reception. I liked Brighton too – it had quite a festive air to it. Just Burger King for dinner though.
Wednesday 19 June, 2019. Brighton · London |89 km|
Wow! Another day without rain! I’d already booked an Airbnb room in a share-house in Brixton for 4 days at £28 per night, and it only took me 4 hours to get there from Brighton. While there were some quiet country lanes and dedicated bike trails involved, as witnessed by the pictures below, these photos give entirely the wrong impression. The route was predominantly really scary A roads, through residential neighbourhoods or on the footpaths of choked London streets. In each of the photos below, for example, there’s a roaring, screaming freeway less than 5 metres away to the right.
At one stage, the bike path took me right past the end of Gatwick Airport’s main runway. Flying out of Gatwick with a bike wouldn’t be a hassle, as there’s a lift directly into the terminal building from the bike path.
And so now for a week in London….
-ends-
Europe 2019. Maastricht · London |591 km|
5, 382 km travelled in Europe in 2019