Lejogle - Day 17

It rained last night. It rained this morning. It rained when dad got up. It rained when I got up. It rained so much that I got onto my third bowl of cornflakes while waiting for a lull in the rain in order to take the tent down. Eventually we did take the tent down and pack up, but it was still raining.

We set off at about 9:45 and headed south over the Warburton Toll Bridge and, while I went around the cars and didn’t pay the toll (there wasn’t a sign saying that cyclists had to pay) dad had to pay the toll in full, all 12p of it!

We went down and skirted Crewe and Nantwich and then down to Market Drayton, where I’m sure I passed an Aldi on the way up but found a Lidl instead (I’m eating a lot of crackers at the moment and so had to stock up).

To me all went quite well until we left Market Drayton, which is, apparently, the Home of Gingerbread (I forgot to say that when we went through on the way up, finally I have!). From there dad’s sat nav was going to direct him along a load of unnamed and small roads and so I decided to do a slightly longer route along main roads so that I didn’t get lost and we would then meet when I got on the A442.

So I went off and followed my route, the reverse of the route I took on the way up, and dad followed the sat nav. I arrived on the A442 and cycled along, passing a few laybys where dad could have pulled in but dad wasn’t there. I stopped to eat and check my phone and found that I had a missed call and text message from my dad. He had got lost!

It was the same area as he got lost on the way up when I found him riding towards me. I called him but got no reply and so carried on along the road. I stopped again when leaving Bridgnorth to wait and after about 15 minutes he came along. His sat nav had kept taking him down dead end roads and so he had to keep turning around. Unfortunately one was a bit tight and he knocked an indicator on the bike with the trailer and it snapped off. Another thing to add to the mountain of maintenance the motorbike will need when we get back.

In that time the weather changed. I think it stopped raining at about 13:45, the sun came out a bit later and the roads started to dry up. We also started to dry out but still had wet feet by the end. As it was raining today, there are no photos, we only crossed one county border anyway.

We arrived at the campsite at about 16:25. I think that we’re the only people staying here. They don’t normally take tents but have kindly let us stay and aren’t charging us. It’s next to the Severn Valley Railway and there were a few trains making noise earlier but appear to have stopped now.

Tomorrow we’re staying with a friend on the outskirts of Bristol. We will be going down to Worcester (I’ve still got to look at the map to work out how) and then taking the A38 down to Bristol. It looks like they might be rain around the time that we’ll be leaving but it should clear by midday.

Distance Today - 81.5 miles
Distance from John O'Groats - 595.3 miles
Total Distance - 1484.7 miles