Bristol, west coast of England.
Many months ago, I discovered some bike riding trails around Bristol and Bath, the two major towns towards the west of England. There are excellent paths, relatively flat land and beautiful scenery ... as well as great little pubs dotted around the place, which conveniently provide an ale or two at lunch time!
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| Beautiful scenery |
This all sounded very promising, but there were a few hitches. We often have trouble hiring a bike for Sophie ... not many places hire bikes that are only 16" wheels. Secondly, we had requested a tow bar on our hire car, but it didn't happen ... so we couldn't keep the bikes with us for the five days, as we had hoped. Instead we opted for a few day rides.
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| 1.7km worth of tunnel! |
Our first ride was around Bath. We all got bikes, but they were poorly maintained, so riding them was hard. There is a tow path out along the canal, with a loop about 12 kms or so. We headed out and it certainly was a beautiful ride. We past many long boats, which were obviously the permanent home to many people. We had lunch and ales at "The George", which was right on the path. At one stage, we rode through a tunnel .... that was 1.7km long! Purely for cyclists and walkers! Amazing feeling, with music playing and dim lights the whole way. It came with a warning that it would take you 10 minutes to ride through it. There was a second tunnel, but only 400 m long.
But, one wrong turn and the situation can change! We got so excited by the tunnels that we just kept riding .... until it was too late. We were way past our drop off point; very close to our drop off time of 5pm; no way to keep the bikes overnight as no bike rack .... and very tired kids, as we were up to about 22kms! A minor panic resulted in a ride through traffic, through town and a rather unpleasant experience really.
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| Bristol is known for this really high suspension bridge! |
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| Storm developing over the harbour |
The next ride, a few days later, had to be suspended due to rain. We had to have an inside day, doing some shopping then some museums around Bristol. We went to the M Shed Museum, one of Britain's free museums, which is child friendly and based on the history of Bristol and its people. Bristol is a much more interesting town than we initially thought and the more we learn about the history, the more we like it. The Avon River runs through it and was an important port in the 1800s for getting goods to the west of England and Wales. But due to very high tides, the river height was unpredictable - so the city created a floating harbour, that is based on the same technique as a lock system. So clever! The harbour is now 200 years old and while not the big trading hub that it once was, it is still used somewhat. There is significant retail, cultural and residential development around the harbour, so it was much more interesting that we expected.
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| Rain jackets on all day! |
We planned another ride and despite rain in the morning, we were determined to just go! We hired bikes from a great shop; but again, no bike for Sophie - so the owners went home, collected their 8 year old son's bike and lent us that for the day! What service! We ignored the black clouds, put our wet weather jackets on and set off along the Bristol to Bath railway path. This is an excellent path and we only did half the distance - from Bitten to Bath, then back again. This was a 20km ride which had the added bonus of dodging rain! Thankfully most of the rain fell just as arrived into Bath, so we headed to the nearest pub to wait it out! It was a great ride and we all really enjoyed this. Its a shame we are leaving the area tomorrow, as we've love to explore the other end of the railway path.
The Cotswolds
In between our riding days, we also had a day exploring the Cotswolds region of England, albeit briefly. The children are enjoying seeing different countryside and are fascinated by stone fences and buildings, styles, cows (don't understand this one as they do spend time on a farm regularly) hedgerows and identifying quirky pub names. They have been keen to see thatched rooves and we had hoped to see some in the Cotswolds. That didn't happen but we did have a nice day wandering around the villages of Bourton-on-the-water, Upper and Lower Slaughter and Stow. Cute little towns, but not much more to do other than wander the shops and eat! We did eat the local speciality, scones with cottled cream which were rather yummy!
From Bristol, we are heading south east, past Stonehenge and to Southampton, where we will base ourselves for four days.
Finally, we finished our parkrun tourism stint with junior parkrun at Southampton on Sunday. This was an extremely friendly group of people with some very impressive junior runners! They were fast! The fastest runner did the 2km is just less than 7 mins, but missed the course record at 6.43 mins! Tony offered his services as a volunteer marshal on the course, and got to wear a hi-viz jacket! Junior parkrun is a great concept and we hope that it can start in Australia at some stage.