Day 5: Three Ridings makes for a whole lot of riding

Foggathorpe to camp near Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire

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Well, despite being one of the least stealthy camps I've ever done and being blatantly spotted by late-night dog walkers, I had no trouble at all and was completely undisturbed. I was however, cold: very cold indeed. Wearing everything including my bandanna, I shivered for most of the small hours.

I'd set my alarm for 5am sharp to make sure I could be up and out before the inevitable dog-walking began again, but barely needed it. There was frost on the ground and I got the tent down and packed away sharpish as the dawn came up. There was no trace of my camping, so I made some coffee and watched the sunrise.

Sunrise from my camp spot, looking over the farmer's field beyond the cyclepath. The prominent tissue paper is *not* mine, but I did take it with me so people wouldn't think it was me that left it!

I hadn't seen many critters yet on the tour, but I was given the complete Animals of Farthing Wood display this morning. Some deer trotting about at the end of the field were nice to see, but what really blew me away was the barn owl that appeared cruising along the edge of the field. To my amazement, and then slight terror, it actually flew right at me, its big white face intently looking for prey on the ground below - then saw me at the last moment about 5m away and wheeled around. They're beautiful creatures, and still fairly rare - I know lots of locals who live their whole life without seeing one. No photo sadly, as was too entranced.

That alone made an otherwise slightly dubious camp worthwhile. I know I'm being stealthy when wild animals stumble across me and aren't aware until we almost collide...

Hello Bambi! The deer are a lot easier to photograph

Yeah, it was freezing - my olive oil actually froze solid, so it must have still been less than 4 degrees even after the sun came up (and yes I do carry olive oil wild camping).

My route was pretty straightforward to start off with: I could keep following the rail-trail to the west, and then work my way down towards Selby, joining up with the route I'd originally planned on Skipwith Common. The only complicating factor was the need to cross the Derwent, the only bridge being on the main road (A163) that I was keen to avoid. I figured I could handle a short (2.5km) stretch of it.

The forecast dog-walkers duly appeared around 7 and I greeted them as I set off.

A little way down there was what seems to be a combine-harvester graveyard, covered in frost

Even though the rails are long-gone, there are quite a lot of other remnants of the old railway, closed (as is common) in the 1960s. In the Foggathorpe both platforms are still in place. You'd be waiting a while for the next train now.

The trail continues beyond Bubwith, and in a fit of optimism I followed it to see if I could cross the Derwent while avoiding the road. The old rail bridge is actually in place, but sadly is completely uncrossable (especially with a bike). Hopefully one day they'll restore it as an off-road ride.

I backtracked to Bubwith and then took on the road. It wasn't great timing as it was getting close to rush hour. The traffic was courteous but the road, after crossing the Derwent was straight and fast, there was no shoulder at all, and I can't say I much enjoyed the brisk few kilometre. In North Duffield, I gratefully peeled off and made my way on much quieter backroads to Skipwith.

While it involved tracking a few miles out my way to the north, I'm really glad I went to Skipwith Common. It turned out to be this extensive moorland, traversed by lots of off-road routes you can cycle across. (You can tell it's early in the morning, as I'm heading west but my shadow's still in front of me).

Horses in the distance on Skipwith Common

At Selby I would finally meet the Yorkshire Ouse, as it flows down from York. Selby is very much the picture of a working Yorkshire town - and a lot of the industry has been there, in some state, since Victorian times. Unlike many of these areas, much of it also still seems to be operational - which gives the town a distinctive, and quite appealing, atmosphere.

I re-joined the transpennine trail, which took me along this tiny path between heavy industry (left) and the Ouse, behind the wall on the right.

This big brick Victorian mill was still operating - it was quite noisy, but smelt pleasingly wheat-y. It's a flour mill, originally for Hovis, now Whitworth.

I crossed the Ouse and then proceeded down the Selby canal. This metalwork shows a lot of the traditional industries, including flour milling, as well as a schematic of the rivers Ouse and Aire, and the canal that joins them.

Instead of following the canal, the transpennine trail actually takes a route directly south, past a huge airfield now used only as a gliding club and across a rather desolate expanse of land in the triangle cut between the Ouse and the Air before they flow into the Humber near the beautifully-named town of Goole.

In the last ice age, this entire area was a huge glacial lake, running off the glaciers covering Yorkshire (and dammed off from the sea by another glacier which blocked the Humber near where the bridge is now). Even 10,000 years ago, as the ice receded, the evolution of the lake to peat bog was driven by stone-age human deforestation. Drained by the same Dutch engineers as the fens, the area (the isle of Axeholme or Humberhead) is now dead flat, open and pretty empty.

The most striking site was the two huge coal-fired power stations that were clearly visible; there are in fact three in this slightly forsaken stretch of country, at Goole, Eggborough, and Ferrybridge. They were run off the rich coal reserves around Selby - we were entering mining country. Every time I turned, some huge cooling towers seemed to be looming in the distance, which (since I had trouble distinguishing them as different stations) was a bit disorientating.

Looking west to the large coal-fired plant at Eggborough, now decommissioned. The three power stations of the Aire valley at one time supplied over 20% of the UK's electricity, and generated half of all Yorkshire's CO2.

After some navigation confusion - misreading the signs, I managed to go down someone's drive, and they kindly set me straight - I crossed the Aire and came into Snaith.

This turned out to be a really characterful and distinctively Yorkshire small town. I parked the Shift by the big churchyard, hoping to score some water, while flat-capped old blokes went by, one of them answering his phone with the classic Yorkshire "Ey up!".

Wondering round the churchyard, I had no luck finding a tap. As I was saddling up, a lady hurried over from the high street, and asked if I wanted to see the inside of the church. She turned out to be the vicar - I fessed up, and said I actually was just hoping to fill up my water bottle. She very kindly opened up the church just for me, and let me use the tap in the vestry kitchen to fill up. After a chat - she'd just got into cycling, and approved of my planned route following the TPT to Doncaster - and admiring the vaulted roof of the (really quite big and impressive church for such a small town), I was rather sad to leave Snaith. Funny name, nice town.

The old town goal cell. Amazingly this was in use as late as the 1880s.

The impressive St. Lawrence priory, where the kind vicar allowed me in to fill up my water bottles

Crossing into Snaith, I had left North Yorkshire, and was back in the East Riding. My plan was indeed to follow the official transpennine trail to Doncaster, a major town of South Yorkshire (or what used to be the West Riding). Traditionally, Yorkshire was split into "Ridings" - not derived (as is commonly understood) from the distance you could ride a horse in a day, but from the Old English for "Thirdings". I would be crossing all three, which would indeed be a whole lot of riding.

The TPT's route was rather indirect - but since it would keep me away from the major roads and make crossing the many rivers of this region straightforward, I was happy to follow it. Near Sykehouse I crossed into the modern district of South Yorkshire.

A strange boast on the Sykehouse (almost certainly not pronounced "sick house") sign

Coming onto the New Junction canal, which run directly to the Don, and hence Doncaster. I had some trouble getting my wide bars through the barrier! I had lunch just down here.

Just outside a tiny village was this stone ... monument. It's a total puzzle, as there's nothing related to Asda (a national supermarket chain) in the village whatsoever. I also like the Ozymandias-like "forever".

While it took me on a slightly circuitous route, the TPT really showed it's worth once I got to Doncaster. A large town and railway junction, I had no particular need to go into its centre, and so was very happy to follow the excellent traffic-free cycle route to completely bypass the town to the west.

Doncaster has some excellent, shady cycle paths that can be used to traverse the town without apparently seeing any of it

This made me smile - it does rather sum up the general mood towards our dear leader

Quiet flows the Don. Doncaster has existed since Roman times, but came to prominence in the Victorian age as a major railway junction of the north-south and east-west lines. Many of the lines are no longer used, and so some of the bridges over the river Don (like this one, number 64) have been repurposed as cycleways. Actually, I'd taken a wrong turn at this point - I had to backtrack to get back on top of the bridge.

I just had to cut off the south-west corner of the town - through some not-very-salubrious estates - and then I was leaving Doncaster, and into a strange corner formed by two motorways (the M18 and A1M). This was all part of the plan - it should be possible to cut through to the south, on quite obscure bridleways, and actually cross under the motorway on foot.

After some casting around, I found the path - and it was gorgeous, cutting through extensive woodland. I was actually very tempted to stop early again, as it was deserted and would have been a lovely place to camp. But it was only 2pm - and I thought I should press on.

The entrance to the obscure bridleway that would take me between and under the motorway. It's not an obvious route, on the map or the ground (and would be muddy in bad weather) - but is a good way through the tangle of roads in this area.

Lovely woods with carpets of wild garlic. Always reminds me of my childhood in Devon, where this stuff grows everywhere. I was awfully tempted to camp here, but pushed on.

My plan was to try to reach the edge of Yorkshire, and cross over into Nottinghamshire at Worksop. Worksop is familiar to British children from the Robin Hood stories, and indeed is at the edge of what is (for England) an extensive stretch of woodland including Sherwood forest - where surely I could camp.

In between was the last stretch of South Yorkshire - and, as the elevation graph indicates - it was much more typical of the popular idea of Yorkshire topography. I was going to leave the big, flat area draining into the Humber behind, and enter terrain of steep, green hills, and historically mining country.

I passed a large quarry, and for the next few miles had to share the road with huge quarry vehicles, which I pulled over to let pass on the steep hills. Watching children walking on the pavement out to the quarry, presumably to meet their parents when they get out of work, was like something out of Ken Loach.

Cycling is really popular in Yorkshire. More recently, the "Tour De Yorkshire" has provided a local challenge. This is a slightly strange souvenir of the 2016 event - a munition cart decorated with cranks.

My next stop was the small town of Maltby. There are numerous working quarries in the area - it's very much centred around the decommissioned colliery, in the middle of the photo.

The traffic in Maltby was pretty horrific - I had hit the rush hour and a lot passes through it on the way to Rotherham and Sheffield - and I had to joust with it carefully before peeling off on a back road up the rather steep hill (8%) to Dinnington.

I was getting pretty tired now, but was rewarded with a fantastic, rolling ride across green hills glowing in the afternoon sun. I even had an intermittent tailwind - Yorkshire was showing me out with a demonstration of "God's own country". I was particularly delighted when in Dinnington, a teenage guy greeted my wave with a cheery "Ey up!". Then it was descent down over the Nottinghamshire border and into Worksop.

"God's own country" ... this is more like it. Crossing the rolling ground south of Maltby

Finally, Worksop. 115km down, was pretty tired now. I have no idea what "The Dukeries" are.

Actually getting into Worksop was a bit of a pain, and involved some cycling on marginal paths by the side of big, busy roads. I was keen to get through it, as the light was coming down, and I needed to buy some supplies and get out into the forest to find a place to camp.

Spotting an Aldi superstore, I dived in, and wondered about buying rather too much food and with something of a thousand-yard-stare which may have disconcerted some of my fellow shoppers. I just about could cram it into the panniers, and then set off to cross Worksop - which unfortunately feels a bit rough in places.

Fortunately given the dying light, it was fairly easy to winch out of town, and almost immediately I was into some extensive plantation forest. National Cycle Route 6 runs all through the forest to Nottingham - I would be following that tomorrow - and allows easy access to the middle of the woods.

I went a few kilometres, then peeled off at random, took a kilometre, rounded a forestry operation with large stacks of logs, took another random turn, and proceeded until I was in dense woods and completely out of sight. I wanted a more stealthy place to camp than last night and it was a crude approach, but in the limited time seemed to work. I was on a small path, but figured nobody would be coming down here in the dead of night - and there was a decent clearing, with a flat and pine-needle carpeted floor.

I did have time to photo this national cycleway sign - though unfortunately the distances are hard to read. They indicate: Dover 504 miles, Inverness 786 miles. They must take the scenic route!

120 km day, me and the Shift get a well-needed rest

I pretty much started eating from the moment I arrived, and didn't stop until I thought it was best to put the tent up before the light went entirely. I had a litre of IPA beer to drink, and had gone a bit crazy buying fresh tomatoes, rolls, as well as halloumi to fry up and snacks.

It was very quiet in the woods, and I saw not a soul. After I'd got the tent up and was sitting, quietly sipping in the dark, I did see a light of a torch way back at the wood stacks. I don't know if this was an eccentric rambler or a forestry guy, but I was quite invisible and let them go by.

The sun going down behind the pines in Sherwood forest. No sign of Robin, Maid Marian, Friar Tuck, or any of that gang.

Today's ride: 121 km (75 miles)
Total: 532 km (330 miles)

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