Bike Ride To Bristol

With three days before classes officially started, we set out on our cycles, decked out with new panniers, and headed from Oxford to Stonehenge, Bath, and then Bristol. The trip entailed three days of riding, two nights in B&Bs, one evening of bingo, lots of tea breaks, and zero punctures (touch wood--that's what they say here...)

Leaving Oxford--140 miles to go...

A blue door outside of Oxford--our first of many stops to check the map...

We stopped at a place called Vale of the White Horse about 25 miles outside of Oxford. It's hard to see in this picture, but there's an ancient chalk horse carved into the hillside--Ty posted pictures of it earlier. We had a nice snack and rested after the climb up.

When we managed to stay on our route, the roads all looked like this--smooth, winding single lane with basically no traffic. It was great!!

This is the Wilton Windmill...

We stayed the first night at this funky B&B in a converted school house in Collingbourne Kingston. The owner was a funny Italian guy who loved to talk and had a son who raced bicycles, so he had lots to say to us. One of the funniest parts of the trip was our dinner at the one pub (the Barleycorn) in this little village. We happened to turn up on Bingo Night, which happens once a fortnight (that means every two weeks). So, Bingo in the UK works a lot like Bingo back home, except the cards don't actually say "Bingo" on them, they only call numbers--no letters, and they'll loan you a dobber if you don't have your own for free. The whole evening was absolutely hilarious, complete with an old guy on a little bingo announcing system making cracks about how good looking he was, the whole bar making jokes about having to slow down so the Americans could keep up, and everyone singing in unison "choo choo" any time the announcer called out "five-and-nine--the Brighton Line". We're seriously considering going back in a couple of weeks...

We took a shortcut to Stonehenge on this muddy, dirt road (squint your eyes and you'll see it in the background). We walked our bikes down this little track, Stonehenge in the distance, herds of sheep on either side of us, just as a big storm came in. The wind picked up, it dropped about 20 degrees, and just as we made it to the little visitors' building, the rain hit.

It's true--there's a big fence around Stonehenge and unless you buy a ticket, you stay on the outside...

But you can still get a pretty good view.

Snack break in Upton Scudamore.

We made it to Bath!!

Most of these pics are repeats, as Ty had already visited Bath--but he was a great sport and toured me through the museum, which was very cool.

Resting on the royal circus lawn.

We followed a fourteen mile paved cycle track (no cars allowed!) all the way from Bath to Bristol along an abandoned railroad, then took the train back home--a fantastic trip!!

In case you want to follow our route, and because I think it's super entertaining to rattle off all of the little towns we went through, here it goes:

Oxford, Botley, Cumnor, Appleton, Nerherton, Longworth, Charney Bassett, Goosey, Baulking, Uffington, Kingston Lisle, Lambourn, Knighton, Froxfield, Little Bedwyn, Great Bedwyn, Wilton, Wexcombe, Collingbourne Kingston (not to be confused with), Collingbourne Ducis (which is just down the road), Everleigh, Haxton, Figheldean, Ablington, Milston, Bulford, Larkhill, Chitterne, Heytesbury, Boreham, Upton Scudamore, Dilton, Hawkeridge, Woodmarsh, Trowbridge, Bradford-on-Avon, Turleigh, Limpley Stoke, Mokton Combe, Bath, and Bristol...

the end