I must try and write less as its taking a long time and consumes a huge amount of my battery. This one might be quicker as a large proportion was spent head down on the A49. While I had unloaded the bike into the Travelodge bag by bag, as the bike was in the room I decided to load it up and wheel it out – less disturbance for everyone, and the receptionist didn’t bat an eye lid.

Was on the road by 7:00 and needed to do over 60 miles to get to Burlton, near Shrewsbury, by about 12:30. This was to meet a work colleague and his wife who were cycling south to north on an organised tour. Anyway headed off determined not to get lost (I’d written detailed notes including distances to main landmarks – rivers, motorways etc), as this would be the main thing that would eat into my time. Being on a main road also encourages you to keep you speed up, and I positively sped into Warrington town centre. I passed the Warrington Decathalon shop at 7:45, it didn’t open until 9:00. I would have loved to go in – my shoes (which were from Decathalon last year and very comfy) were getting worse, smelling bad from continual drenching, and the soles were becoming slippery which didn’t grip the pedals well, but to keep on schedule, I sacrificed my comfort. I hadn’t had breakfast (the Travelodge box is never appealing), but McDonald’s seemed the easiest choice at that time of the morning. Once refueled I hit the A49, I went wrong at one stage doing a few unessary miles down the A51. This which resulted in me cutting through a village called Bunbury, according to the plaque was Britains best village in 1980 – but I still think they are contenders, everything was “chocolate box”. This route also took me past a canal lock staircase – so a fortuitous navigational error.

Also stopped in Tarporley and Whitchurch, both very nice towns full of traditional buildings.

I met up with Richard at lunchtime, sitting down to a massive buffet – he was doing a fully supported 14 day LE to JOG – how the other half live! We had a photo done and then headed in our opposite directions.

I was then able to do what I do best, dabble along the back lanes getting lost at every turn – it seemed to happen more this afternoon must have been the beer at lunchtime!

I didn’t quite get to my planned site as I found a nice looking site right by the River Severn (I was slightly concerned that sites might be full or take bookings at the weekend). This was my first glimpse of the Severn, but I would be following it for a few days. Very quiet site with reasonable facilities – including a plug for charging up my battery pack (I’d tried to charge it in the Travelodge – but the wrong combination of plugs and cables – or something meant it didn’t charge overnight). I hadn’t shopped, but knew there was a co-op near my planned site (planning huh!), so headed off, riding my new bike for the first time without 20kgs of luggage, it was very responsive and a completely different beast. Cooked a good chicken curry for dinner.

That’s was supposed to be less writing – oh well!
* The mileage is a complete guess, it was 63 miles to the meeting point (and I did a good deal more).