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JOGLE Day 10 (28 Aug 2012)
Warrington to Ludlow.
Awoke to quite nice weather which remained throughout the day. We managed 86 miles—at least 10 miles above our average daily distance—most likely helped by maintaining regular stops for topping up on food. Our route southwards took us down the Welsh Marches, travelling along or alongside the A49 all day. (Our original intention was to go slowly though Scotland and speed up upon arrival in England, so we chose A-roads after crossing the border, but R modified our route to include as many B and lesser roads as possible without significantly increasing our distance.) We stopped briefly in a service station where they’d seen fit to put a pretty little pot plant in the otherwise Spartan toilet, along with a polite notice asking patrons not to steal it (which I thought was rather sweet). Bypassed Northwich, Whitchurch and Shrewsbury with pretty scenery on the way (including some castles). The terrain got a bit hillier towards Church Stretton but it was nice to start seeing familiar territory (this being sort-of my stamping ground). We arrived in Ludlow at around 7pm and found a leisure centre where we indulged in a shower. There are apparently lots of amazing places to eat in Ludlow but the only one that we seemed to be successful in finding was The Bull, where the tarpaulin over the ‘garden’ (a rather shabby courtyard) and group of huddled and disgruntled-looking teenagers in a corner rather put us off ordering. So we ended up buying Ginsters pastries, pasta meals and sandwiches from a Spar before heading out of town to find a campsite. We ended up in a copse just off our route where setting up the tent involved stinging nettles and some wide-eyed pauses in response to unnerving shuffling in nearby bushes. Turning the torchlight on this eventually revealed eyes, but these turned out to be bovine rather than feline, and in any event were unlikely to belong to the escaped lion from Essex reported in the news (and rather gleefully by my partner) a day or so before (Shropshire being a reassuringly healthy distance away). Actually this is about the only news we picked up en route, with the exception of Harry’s (which we’d probably have had to’ve been on the moon (no pun intended, inserts R) not to have heard something about). Satisfied that we weren’t in imminent danger of disembowelment we finished setting up the tent, ate and fell asleep around 11.30. (The Ginsters pastries remained unopened. Which should surprise no one.)
JOGLE Day 10 (28 Aug 2012)
Warrington to Ludlow.
Awoke to quite nice weather which remained throughout the day. We managed 86 miles—at least 10 miles above our average daily distance—most likely helped by maintaining regular stops for topping up on food. Our route southwards took us down the Welsh Marches, travelling along or alongside the A49 all day. (Our original intention was to go slowly though Scotland and speed up upon arrival in England, so we chose A-roads after crossing the border, but R modified our route to include as many B and lesser roads as possible without significantly increasing our distance.) We stopped briefly in a service station where they’d seen fit to put a pretty little pot plant in the otherwise Spartan toilet, along with a polite notice asking patrons not to steal it (which I thought was rather sweet). Bypassed Northwich, Whitchurch and Shrewsbury with pretty scenery on the way (including some castles). The terrain got a bit hillier towards Church Stretton but it was nice to start seeing familiar territory (this being sort-of my stamping ground). We arrived in Ludlow at around 7pm and found a leisure centre where we indulged in a shower. There are apparently lots of amazing places to eat in Ludlow but the only one that we seemed to be successful in finding was The Bull, where the tarpaulin over the ‘garden’ (a rather shabby courtyard) and group of huddled and disgruntled-looking teenagers in a corner rather put us off ordering. So we ended up buying Ginsters pastries, pasta meals and sandwiches from a Spar before heading out of town to find a campsite. We ended up in a copse just off our route where setting up the tent involved stinging nettles and some wide-eyed pauses in response to unnerving shuffling in nearby bushes. Turning the torchlight on this eventually revealed eyes, but these turned out to be bovine rather than feline, and in any event were unlikely to belong to the escaped lion from Essex reported in the news (and rather gleefully by my partner) a day or so before (Shropshire being a reassuringly healthy distance away). Actually this is about the only news we picked up en route, with the exception of Harry’s (which we’d probably have had to’ve been on the moon (no pun intended, inserts R) not to have heard something about). Satisfied that we weren’t in imminent danger of disembowelment we finished setting up the tent, ate and fell asleep around 11.30. (The Ginsters pastries remained unopened. Which should surprise no one.)