the ups

from the sublime..

.. to the ridiculous

In the morning we cross the Avon and take quiet roads along a valley skirting Salisbury Plain.  There are signs and posts indicating army training and tank manouvres.  There's also an airfield which later on we realise is probably for parachute training.  Was that gunfire we just heard?  By noon we can see the steeple of Salisbury Cathedral long before we reach the city - it's impressive.  Excitedly we follow the bike paths into the city centre, lose sight of the cathedral and get lost amongst the shops and tourists before finding our way through to a large green surrounded by benches where we can bask in the sun with a view of the cathedral and eat lunch and discuss the distance on to Winchester with a slightly crazy woman sitting on the next bench.  

It's a relatively easy ride east towards Winchester through quiet farmland with lots of woodland and tree-lined roads.  Easy?  In the late afternoon it starts to get hillier and then we have an enormous descent.  We're looking forward to coasting into Winchester before heading out to camp on the other side.  But we didn't count on the hills.  Winchester is surrounded by them and the road up to the surrounding ridge is rush-hour busy.  Fortunately the Navigator is On The Ball.  She has stopped to chat to a couple of road cyclists who tip her off to a back road climb into Winchester.  It's up narrow but empty lanes and brings us into a housing estate at the top of the hill.  We descend down the other side but can't find our way to the junction which should let us pass under the motorway.  In the end we ride into the city centre and get picked up by a cohort of lycra-clad club cyclists off on an evening spin.  They check we know where we are going (we don't) before heading off.   

English or Spanish?

Inevitably we have to climb another huge hill to get out of town but we end up on a road with lots of traffic and not many camping options.  The road is ludicrously busy and we have no idea why.  After faffing around in some woods and then onto some racehorse training ground (an uphill dirt track, if you're interested), we finally settle for a stile into an unused field where we can hide behind the hedgerow.  We're about six feet from the road, which is still busy, but at least no-one can see us.


The only thing standing in our way now is the South Downs.  There's a route eastwards across the ridge, starting from Winchester, but already we are off course because of our camping needs.  The road heads down and then straight back up.  We cruise.  We curse.   Fast, slow, fast, slow.  Down, up, down, up.  Like a demented metronome, our rhythm is all shot.  After lunch we finally join the bike route - cutting through the Queen Elizabeth Millenium Park which is full of mountain bikers throwing themselves down woodland trails.  We climb upwards and note that the mountain bikers are slower than us.  Upwards, downwards, upwards.  The track becomes horribly rutted again and too steep for us to pedal.  We push up two consecutive climbs and look at our watches.  This will take too long.  We told Suzy and Dino that we'd arrive tomorrow and arrive we shall.  But not cycling the South Downs Way.  We detour onto the roads that run parallel on the northside and instantly feel better. Riding off-road with a fully-loaded bike takes time and effort - both of which we are rather short of by now.

the tallest hedgerows we've seen since Cheshire...

Happily the roads through this part of Hampshire are still very peaceful, if not flat, and we scoot merrily along for the rest of the day.  We pass through some enormous estates and there are seem to be more horses here than any other animal.  The earth is bone dry and we wonder how on earth the farmers grow anything.  It appears to be a completely different climate to the one we know in the Pennines.  The woods are full of bluebells and on one quiet road near a village we come across a small herd of deer out on the edge of some trees.  We're astonished.   We camp in some woods next to a peaty bog covered in heather.  But the bog has dried up and everything around the tent is tinder dry.  Gayle rolls her eyes as I fuss about cooking the dinner.  But I'll be the one to blame if the stove ignites any of the vegetation, so I continue fussing.

The worst road we ride in England is the 7 mile stretch the next morning from Storrington to Steyning along the A283.  It's alleviated somewhat by a traffic jam in Storrington - a large village cursed by a set of traffic lights.  We ride as hard as we can once the trafffic picks up and get off the road for quick breathers.  This is the longest stretch of A or B road we have cycled since setting off, which feels like an achievement in itself.  The English Channel beckons.