Lejog day 7 Tiverton to Bridgwater

 


We'd enjoyed our two nights at the Bridge Guest House in Tiverton. At breakfast we got talking to Nancy from Norfolk, a regular parkrunner. She showed great interest in our attempt to go from Land's End to John O'Groats so much so that I gave her a card showing details of this blog! She'd had two nights at the Bridge and was not relishing the long journey home. If you're reading this Nancy we hope you had a safe and smooth journey. 

The longest day so far - over 38 miles. We thought it was going to be easy. It wasn't! 

I never want to see another towpath again! About half of the route followed the towpath of, first, the Grand Western Canal and later the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal. It was for the large part lumpy and bumpy, quite painful in fact! There were low bridges, dogs, buggies and people to negotiate, as well as cyclists coming in the opposite direction, usually arriving at the most difficult of passing places. 

Probably what will remain in my memory the longest is the moment I ended up in a ditch after falling off the bike and rolling down the steep bank into a whole load of stingers! There was some blood and a whole lot of pain and discomfort from the stings, which I can still feel some five hours later! It would have been less painful to fall the other way into the Canal! No serous injury to either man or bike fortunately. 

Nice accommodation tonight, with a bath, and yet another Wetherspoons meal. Another long day tomorrow but NO TOWPATHS! 




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