The West Country Way. Day 1. Somerset

Waking as a married woman, wow, why did no one tell me how wildly different it feels?

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Covid scuppered our grand plans for an overseas honeymoon, we chose to avoid uncertainty and anxiety and commited to a UK adventure early on. Shelley and I would toughen our butt’s and delvelop thighs of steel cycling the West Country Way after 3 full days of total wedding satiation and indulgence.

I felt like a giant ogre. Full of processco and pastry. What could be more perfect than cycling heavily leaden, up into the Mendips and beyond. Quite a lot, that’s what. The Maldives were laughing at us.

Day 1.
Bristol to Priddy.
(Half day)

We left the standard 12 A4 pages of instructions for our pal Penny who would be taking care of our overly sensitive and demanding cat while we were away, piled into Fat Amy (our chum Jacqui’s van) and headed to Bristol railway station.

It’d rained all morning and most of the way into Bristol, but as previously requested, it stopped on arrival. We were soon off on our way negotiating the hardest part of the ride, leaving the city.

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The West Country Way National Cycle Route no. 3) has a few alterations, some say its Bristol to Bude and some say Bristol to Padstow, we’re going to Port Isaac. Its roughly 200 and something miles but I’m absolutely not counting because we’re going at a pace slow enough to enjoy all the tea rooms, pubs and bakerys we so choose. As is our honeymoon flavoured want.

The Sustrans cycle routes are all mapped (on actual maps) which are largely redundant as they’re also incredibly well signed. Though we have managed to miss a few, this was largely down to our negligence.

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It took a moment to get into the swing, stopping and starting to adjust layers, wee in an urban bush, and go a quarter mile in the wrong direction.

Before long we were out of the city, most of which saw us peddling next to the river, or along the disused railway (Shelley’s favourite). Classic Bristol, keeping it green.

Soon though, we were out on the beautiful surrounding minor roads and the coulds went from grey to blue.

We arrived in Chew Magna before long and rode around the lakeside. This is a fishing and sailing lake, so, naturally we should feel blessed to even be allowed to look at it, don’t even think about swimming.

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We’d set out earlier than expected so moved our end goal 5 miles ahead on to Priddy, that way we could complete the MASSIVE climb into the Mendips today and feel deserving of a big beer tonight, rather than leaving it until first thing tomorrow when we would be regretful and angry of such poor decision making.

The climb was hard. I’ve often driven down this very hill and thought how awful it would be to cycle up it without panniers. Let alone with paniers, which were fully stocked with cheese. I am absolutely not cycle fit and I could feel 4 days of overindulgence seeping out of me. But, we made it to the lofty roof of the Mendips, and our jelly legs took us over the beautiful tops into Priddy.

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It was still early so we decided to camp in a campsite, as, waiting until nightfall to slip into a hedgerow didn’t appeal. Also, the campsite shop had a cat. Named Shopcat, by me. He had massive thumbs.

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This way we could set up at a leisurely pace, make our way down to the pub with lighter bikes then return back to our little tent home to be continously awoken by our neighbours on one side who seemed to have forgotten their tent was not made of concrete. Hearing them repeatedly tell their 3 year old son to “shut the ‘F’ up” was just the ticket for a massively disrupted nights sleep. Cheers lads.

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Day 1.

01.08.21

Miles: some.