My appetite for loaded riding was now thoroughly piqued, and following the relative success of my shakedown attempt to put the tent up in the wild, I figured now might not be a bad time to try a proper shakedown ride.
I was considering it practice for some ill-defined self supported tour later in the year - it's still very unclear when, and indeed if, travel restrictions will be lifted, but I now have accumulated a tonne of holiday time at work which I no intention of letting to waste. If I'm not to take a solid month off early in 2021 (now there's an idea...) then I'll need to find some use for it this year, even if it means staying in the UK. I might head up to Scotland, if I can bear the midges.
Up until the Saturday morning, I was still undecided on my plans - the weather looked a bit changeable, and I wasn't entirely sure where I should head for. Over the last few months in my local wondering I've spotted a good further collection of sites where I'd though "hmm, reckon you could camp here". There were some particularly promising hidden-away spots north of Bedford, out to the north west Northamptonshire way. This area is pretty sparsely populated and little-trafficked anyway - for the first wild camp I generally like to minimize any chance of being stumbled upon (I tend to become much more blazé towards the end of the year/tour). Actually I've never been disturbed, even when camping in silly places like under a cycleway.
So over the afternoon I packed up the camping gear and sketched out a route. I decided to take the stove, just so I'd have coffee for breakfast. I cooked a load of homemade pizza and packaged it up. Gratifyingly it all packed down very compactly - not even filling two panniers, with extra clothes. But it took a bit longer than expected, and it was getting close to 5pm before I was ready to leave. My plan was to get to Alconbury, the last village which would have a shop (yeah, it really is quite sparse) to buy some beer before 7.30 when it closed (no way I'm wild camping sober! ...or indeed carrying it all the way from home). Then I should arrive at a good camping spot about 8.30. At this time of year I'd have enough light to see until 10pm or so, so the timing should work out well.
For the following day, I was leaving it pretty open where I'd end up. I did make a mental note not to head towards Leicester, which is subject to a local re-lockdown following an unexpected outbreak, and which otherwise would be a tempting target.
This is everything, including stove, fuel, and three litres of water! Ready to go...
Jon AylingTo Kathleen JonesHaha, yeah it's a consequence of the weird floorplan of the house where there's nowhere sensible to store the bike outside, but there is a large storage room and small garden, but you have to go through the kitchen to get to it! So wheeling the bike through the kitchen has become at least "normalised" :-D Reply to this comment 3 years ago
I'd picked out a route that would be more direct, and take in slightly less off-roading, than I'd normally take in order to cover the ground a little quicker. First step was to take the usual route up to the first reservoir of Grafham Water, which has now been re-opened to the public. From there I would high-tail it through the suburbs of Huntingdon to reach the convenient shop at Alconbury, on the edge of the A1.
Bizarrely, my camera suffered the exact same fault as I was crossing Everton village, i.e. in the same place as last time. Fortunately it then recovered again - weird.
Crossing the Everton estate farm towards the Greensand, which you can see rising back up towards Potton in the distance.
From St. Neots I made quick progress to the village of Hail Weston and across the fields towards the reservoir. I was now free to take the great cycleway right along the waterside, avoiding the pretty dreadful road that is the alternative. Gratifyingly the reservoir was deserted apart from a few fishermen out in boats; less so, it seemed to be breeding season for every midge in a five mile radius, and all then streaming in the wind into my open mouth as I turned out onto the dam. I genuinely considered putting on my mask early to avoid inhaling lungfuls of the little blighters!
Bridleways past farms near Hail Weston. The sign is there to ask cyclists to give way to farm machinery - given the size of the tractors and combine harvesters, I'm not generally going to try playing chicken!
This allows me to cross directly over the dam at the head of the reservoir. Not pictured: millions of midges, apparently blowing in the rather brisk wind from the marshes on the right.
Grafham water is filled by pumping water out of the Great Ouse - as well as being an important water source for an area that can become surprisingly dry (for England), in wetter times it also acts as a buffer to avoid flooding in the Ouse valley
Reaching the visitor centre at the northern side of the lake, I paused briefly only to top up my water at the facilities - the rest of the centre was closed, which was unsurprising given that it had passed 6pm. I expected my route from here to be fairly straightforward - through the village of Grafham to Brampton, a suburb of Huntingdon which is now unluckily surrounded on three sides by the enormous interchange of the A14 Cambridge highway and the A1 Great North Road. The junction, which has just been finished and is over a mile wide, is a great improvement in terms of road design - the highway used to pass through the very centre of Huntingdon on a gigantic raised flyover - but I cannot imagine has been very popular in Brampton, otherwise a very plush village. From Brampton I planned to take bridleways around the back of the racecourse to cut a direct route north - rather than bothering the centre of Huntingdon as I usually would.
I thought about stopping in the community shop in Grafham, but decided I had plenty on time to reach Alconbury so pressed on. I passed a "road closed" sign on the quiet Brampton road, but didn't think much of it - half the time it's easy for cyclists to squeeze through, and I was even overtaken by another guy on a bike going the same way, which seemed a good sign. I was a bit disconcerted then to see him five minutes later heading back towards me, gesturing the way I was going and mouthing "Closed mate!".
I cursed a bit, but as I approached the closed section - right before the grand new bridge that takes the minor road over the highway junction and into the village - it was clear they were performing some serious works on the highways, and nothing could get through. Normally I might try and sneak through, but as I stood and contemplated, a truck carrying maintenance gear pulled up and I realised this wasn't the time.
Ever conscious of the time - I had less than an hour before the shops closed - I headed back. Instead of going all the way back to the village, I took a chance and cut north into the nature reserve alongside the woods. I'd ridden on the other side of this, which is a bridleway, before and figured once I'd crossed the woodland I could pick this up and (somehow) cross the highways. I rode slightly sheepishly through the woods, as it seems officially cycling isn't allowed - though there was no-one around to bother.
Within ten minutes I popped out onto the bridleway - which deposited me within earshot of the A1. I was completely off my familiar routes now, and the roads are so new they didn't feature on my GPS map so wasn't sure how I could cross - I know if I headed south I'd just hit the roadworks I'd had to avoid. So I rather blindly headed north, and hoped some means of crossing the highway junction became clear. In theory I think this was a "bridleway diversion" but basically I was just on random farm tracks now. It was with some relief that I saw an elaborate junction up ahead, with a bridge I could use to cross the eight lanes of traffic.
Finding my way down to it unobstructed, I gratefully crossed this one carriageway - the A14 west, as it turns out - but was met on the other side with the dispiriting sight of a fast sliproad leading down to another motorway-grade road (the A1). There was one other turn on a minor road, signposted to Woolley (which I had no idea where was and turns out to be nowhere nearby). Anything was better than ending up on the highway - not illegal, as it happens, but highly inadvisable - so I took this. I was immediately rewarded with a brilliant, brand new cycleway running alongside the already empty road. After some back-and-forth when I headed south thinking I would call it a loss and head back into Huntingdon - I saw the opposite signs indicated this cycleway would take me direct to Alconbury. What a stroke of luck - I had no idea it existed!
I had less than 20 minutes to get to the shop before it closed. I sped along, thinking that I now might just make it. With 10 minutes to go, I spun down Alconbury high street and pulled up outside the still busy local shop.
Lost in the nature reserve outside Grafham, searching for a way around the roadworks that had closed the straightforward road. And I was aiming for less off-roading...
A brand new cycleway built to let cyclists traverse the gargantuan junction of the A1 and A14 near Brampton. I had no idea this existed - it's so new, the crossings aren't yet powered up and not all the signs are finished - but it would take me directly to Alconbury.
The Shift parked up in Alconbury when I popped into the shop and procured beer, G&T and jaffa cakes. I've given up locking up the loaded bike in small villages - it would frankly be comical to watch anyone try to ride it away.
Signs of appreciation for NHS and key workers. The one in the foreground is a reference to the Vera Lynn song, and is strongly associated with the second world war. While the wartime analogies with the pandemic have been greatly overdone (and I'm no sort of royalist) the invocation of this in the Queen's address to the country struck a note of solemnity and hope greatly in contrast with the government's repeated fumbling.
Lovely old hand-painted pub sign. Sadly, the pub has closed - and recently too - as has been the fate of many free houses (independent pubs not owned by breweries).
Feeling that great sensation of elation which only seems to occur when you narrowly avoid missing something, I pedaled slowly out the village and headed west towards the Northamptonshire border. I would take quiet backroads, instead of the punishing off-road sections crossing fields that I'd previously explored on this route. There was virtually no traffic - I think I was passed by one vehicle, and that was a classic car pootling along, adding to the 50s vibe.
I soon reached the track that would take me across the fields between the cereals, now waiting for harvest and golden, and made more so by the low evening light. There was nobody on the road or track as I slowly wove the bike into the fields.
Llamas! This is near the wildlife park in Hamerton, but I actually think these are just in a farmers field. I'm guessing they're farmed for the wool...
It was roughly half eight - there was still plenty of evening light, and so I did my usual camping procedure of sitting down on a pannier, sipping a G&T, and watching and waiting. I find you quickly get a sense of whether a camping spot really is as secluded as it first appears, and therefore whether you're likely to be bothered, by sitting still and silently for half an hour or so. It's never totally silent - except when I was in the forest near Karlskoga in central Sweden, where it genuinely was so sepulchrally quiet that the only sound was my own heartbeat. But if you see no-one, and start to find the sounds of the critters nearby loud - the birds and some lowing cattle were the most prominent sounds here - then you're generally alright.
Satisfied that it was a good spot, and somewhat loosened up, I put up the tent (with somewhat greater ease than last time). Then it was time to eat my stock of pre-made pizza and watch the light fade as I drank my hard-acquired beer and listened to the hilarious Dead Authors podcast.
I stayed out until 10 or so when the light began to go, and then retired inside the tent. It was such a sheltered spot I wasn't too worried about showing light, so read for a while - then (with the exception of my crummy pillow deflating several times during the night) slept pretty well - though it was surprisingly cold.
I was awoken by bright sunlight and poeming birds. Thinking I'd overslept, I checked the time only to realise it was only 4.30am. It's easy to forget just how few hours of darkness there are at this latitude, at this time of year - I didn't really intend to get up until 7 or so. I dozed in the tent for a couple of hours, then levered myself out. My breath steamed in the air as I took the tent down for plausible deniability of my camping activities - it must have been around 6°C. Once the tent was down I set up my crappy, but serviceable, solid fuel stove in a patch of sunshine, made coffee and warmed up.
Taking down the tent, with all my camping kit behind. The sun was bright and warm, but it was still cold in the shade.
I took my time sipping coffee and contemplating the day - there was no hurry to move off now. As mentioned, my plans were pretty flexible and I had an entire day of promised good weather. I had sketched out a tentative route that would take me to a landmark that was usually on the edge of my day-riding range: Rutland Water, an even bigger reservoir (in fact, the biggest in England) that feeds most of the East Midlands and is surrounded by recreational trails in much the same way as Grafham. The reservoir sits right in the middle of the eponymous county of Rutland - a pint-sized county, one of the smallest in the country, but full of interesting terrain. From there, going west to Leicester was out, but I could head the other way to the lovely and little-known town of Stamford. Finally, I could continue into the wilds of Lincolnshire - a large and distant county which I've yet to visit in this journal; head to Peterborough; or, if I was knackered, take the train from there.
So my first step was to get to the reservoir, where I hoped to buy lunch. I'd plotted a route that took me through Northamptonshire, near to Oundle, following many of the off-road tracks I'd discovered previously. I seemed to have suppressed some of the difficulty of these tracks, as I immediately found my way hacking through long grass and crumbly surfaces - but at least the scenery was good. In places the track disappeared entirely, and I simply made my way across the field, passing the farmer driving a horsebox the other way - as usual, he was wonderfully untroubled by my presence.
Horseshoe left decorating an old wooden bridge on the right of way. As obscure as these tracks are, the deep ditches are still bridged.
After crossing the main Oundle road, instead of heading into Oundle itself I cut north of the town through the extremely plush little villages of Tansor and Cotterstock. A lot of Northamptonshire feels somewhat provincial and sometimes deprived - Northampton itself and Corby definitely give the impression of having seen better days. But the island of countryside between Oundle and Rutland is prosperous on almost Oxfordshire levels. The yellow stone buildings also have something of a Cotswold vibe.
Seeing a church, I was immediately back to my usual tricks and searching for a water tap in the graveyard. It was a hot day, and I was very glad to find one - after fiddling with the *two* taps that controlled the water flow, I refilled my water bottles.
After leaving the river valley, it wasn't long before I picked up the off-road tracks that I'd previously taken towards Apethorpe. From there it was a few miles on backroads to the large village of King's Cliffe, which I had passed through many times before whenever my route took me through this part of Northamptonshire. For some reason I'd got the idea that King's Cliffe marked the end of the island of gentrification surrounding Oundle, but approaching from the south (rather than via the industrial estate which I otherwise always managed to enter by) I realised I was very wrong about this indeed, and if anything it's even plusher.
King's Cliffe lies at the foot of a range of wooded hills that are all that remains of the previously extensive Rockingham Forest that form the border with Rutland (there was also apparently a "Marquis of Rockingham", which has to be one of the great hereditary titles ever bestowed. Perhaps they should reprise it for Mick Jagger?). Now all Forestry Commission land, it has some excellent cycle routes - and is also a potentially great place for a camp.
A familiar looking view of the fun off-road section cutting to Apethorpe
King's Cliffe high street is easily as fancy as the villages to the south. The property for sale on the left (a converted two-bedroom Methodist chapel) could be yours for offers in excess of £425K. Nice though.
A lovely pub. What amuses me about the wiki entry for King's Cliffe is all the notable resident bar one are from the 18th century before - with the exception being "Fenech-Soler, an English electropop band". I wonder where they practiced?
I winched myself up the hill into the forest, passing lots of joggers and others out for a Sunday-morning cycle. Crossing the busy main Lincolnshire road A43, I wound my way through tiny roads and villages that mark the edge of the county. I was really quite hungry and tired now - I'd snaffled most of the food I was carrying, so pressed on with speed to get to the reservoir, where I was pretty sure I'd be able to acquire lunch.
The great cycleway through Fineshade wood, part of the wider Rockingham Forest
Most of the wood is a Forestry Commission plantation now. Some might say that these wide access routes would make an excellent way to get deep into the woods for a secluded camp...
Entering Rutland. It may be one of the least-known and smallest counties in England - and a somewhat doughnut shaped one at that, as the enormous artificial Rutland Water occupies most its centre - but it's also one of my favourite. Lovely rolling terrain, very pretty - but not excessively gentrified - villages, and no large towns at all. Motto: "multum in parvo", or "much in little".
The villages themselves are now built on steep slopes - something you certainly don't see in Cambridgeshire, and would be rare in Beds/Herts, even though they are hillier. This reminds me of villages in the south west where I grew up. To my surprise, I pulled the loaded Shift up these without *too* much difficulty.
On the final climb out of the Luffenhams towards Edith Weston, the village on the south shore of the reservoir, I spotted a cyclist turning into the lane going the other way from my. It was my work colleague again! I stopped him, had a little chat, and remarked "fancy seeing you here!". "Eh?" he said, clearly confused. Ah. Not my workmate. After clearing up the confusion (he "gave that up years ago!") I continued, somewhat embarrassed, on my way.
I passed the big military base outside the village - home of the army dogs corps, apparently - and before I knew it was coming into the full carpark. The reservoir is a bit of a recreation hub, but I had no idea how busy it would be - especially considering that Leicester, the largest nearby city, is (supposed to be) under a local lockdown. The bad news for me was that it was (i) extremely busy and (ii) nearly all the cafes and snack stands were closed, including the lovely Italian-run place that had made me a sandwich early in the morning after a previous camping trip. Fortunately one was operating, so I joined the queue to buy a (very dodgy, but still acceptable to my famished stomach) "Cornish" pasty.
The reservoir itself. Rutland Water is big - the biggest reservoir by area in the country, about 15 by 5km - and is entirely artificial, having been created by the flooding of an entire valley (the "Vale of Catmose") and most of the village of Hambleton.
I like these giant utensils outside the nice Italian cafe which I'd previously visited. Sadly it was closed, so I had to settle for a very inferior pasty.
I decided to take my lunch to a more secluded place by the side of the reservoir - but it was packed! I have a suspicion that quite a lot of these people will have travelled from Leicester, as well.
View over the water and the semi-sunken Normanton Church. The reservoir is pretty huge - one the biggest artificial lakes in Europe - and is filled from the Nene and Welland rivers. The whole of the Vale of Catmose was flooded in its creation in the 70s, including most of the villages of Hambleton and Normanton. A ridge of high ground - "Upper Hambleton" - remained above the waterline, and is now a large and strangely-shaped peninsular that extends into the middle of the lake. The very popular recreation track around the perimeter and peninsular is a full 40km long.
The top of the flooded Normanton church, with the Rutland Belle pleasure boat - which does circuits of the lake - out in front. Right in the background you can see another limnological tower, as at Grafham Water.
I sat and ate my lunch, and people-watched - it was very busy, and it felt a bit strange to be within earshot of so many strangers (I caught some wonderful overheard conversation - "well, they realised what it was doing to her body, and now she's banned from all those websites", and "they've got those titanium wheels, but they can't afford a bell!").
The latter was in reference to the quantity of ... ahem ... rather amateurish cyclists, who were riding about 4-abreast and getting in the way with the sometimes oblivious walkers. As I rode the 4km along the shore and dam, I started to see the problem - never mind social distancing, every moment I had to watch out to avoid flattening someone.
So even though the road was fairly terrible, it was with some relief that I pulled onto it after crossing the dam and escaped via the village of Empingham at the lake's eastern extremity. From here there were good back roads that I could take east to Stamford, which seemed like a good early target. I was buoyed up by the food and didn't feel tired any more, but if I was really exhausted I could get a train back from there.
Working my way along the low dam at the end of the reservoir. Cool high cirrus clouds streaking the sky above.
Busy pub outside Stamford. Pubs have now opened, though the protocol is very weird - no standing at the bar, separate tables, and staffs in full perspex masks.
Stamford is a lovely little town, and surprisingly grand - like a pocket Oxford. It's very little known, even in the local area, which is surprising - it could be a real tourist draw.
The streets get narrower and more curious. The amazing 18th century building for sale on the left - in "need of complete renovation" (and with no planning permission!) - could be yours for £350K. It is a great location, mind.
I was in a bit of a quandary where to head for next. Despite the day being hot, I had plenty of energy and water, and certainly wanted to continue on beyond Stamford (which I have reached before on one - long - day ride).
A tempting target was the huge, and relatively distant, county of Lincolnshire. Lincolnshire covers the entire eastern lobe of England between Norfolk (the Wash) and Yorkshire (the Humber). A predominantly rural county, it can have something of a cut-off sense to it (the A1 is sometimes jocularly known as the "Lincolnshire Bypass"). While it shares a small border with Cambridgeshire, it's sufficiently far away that I'd only reached it on a 100-mile plus day ride once.
My plans were somewhat scrambled when I passed a sign just before entering Stamford - indicating that I already was in Lincolnshire. I really had no idea, and it slightly took the wind out of my sails for heading into the unknown. But it still seemed like a more exciting route than going directly south to Peterborough. Instead I figured I was continue to the east - with the wind behind me, no less - towards the regional centre of Spalding.
Spalding lies in the fens that extend around the Wash from Cambridgeshire through Norfolk and into Lincolnshire, and I was fairly sure was on the mainline back to Peterborough. This would mean descending from the hilly country of Rutland back down to the very low flatlands - adding some variety to route.
I had plotted a decent route along quiet lanes all the way to Spalding - but unfortunately leaving Stamford I had to follow the very bad A1175. I rode on the pavement/sidewalk - not strictly legal, but if it comes to avoiding injury on a bad road, I have no qualms. Soon I was out in the deserted Lincolnshire countryside. The roads became much straighter and the countryside flatter, and arable again.
St. Leonard's Priory. This doesn't look like much, but is extremely ancient: the priory was *re*-founded by William the Conqueror in 1082, from a priory that had been on the site since 658 and destroyed by the Viking invasion.
An example of some ragged thatch. As I've mentioned, it costs a small fortune to re-thatch a house, and this really needs to be done every 10 years or so. I guess a lot of people end up in thatched houses and then put off having it done...
I picked up a great off-road cut through. All this navigation was done from the OS maps I have loaded into the GPS - part of this was an experiment to see if I could improvise decent routes on the GPS alone. (Paper maps are the gold standard, of course, but I've got the whole of the UK on the Garmin).
Flying the Lincolnshire flag. While every county now has a local flag, many of them are of surprisingly recent origin - the Lincolnshire one was the result of a competition on BBC radio Lincoln in the 2000s! Nevertheless, it looks pretty good. I've mentioned this before, but there's a real cultural distaste to flying the England flag or (less strongly) the Union flag - it's considered a bit gauche at best, or a sign of bigotry at worst. In contrast, local county flags (or skull & crossbones, rainbow flags, or those in support of the NHS) are considered fine and a bit of fun.
As I worked my way towards the little village of Greatford - the area is quite unpopulated - I suddenly found myself going over a level crossing over a huge four-tracked railway. That must be the East Coast Mainline - and it was heading away from where I was going, up to the north-west! Hmmm, this didn't bode well. After some fooling with the GPS, I realised that (i) my GPS maps do not include railways ... why? and (ii) the mainline couldn't go to Spalding. I was sure that Spalding did have a station, but I doubted now whether I could get back to Peterborough from there. If I had to take the train to say, Newark, then Peterborough, then home it would turn into a epic, expensive and unnecessarily virus-exposing journey.
I hesitated a bit, squinting at the GPS screen in the bright sun, before making the executive decision to continue east until Market Deeping in the fens, before turning south and returning to Peterborough. So sorry guys, it's yet another ride when I end up in Peat-Bog-Horror. What can I say - it has excellent transport connections?
Heading over the very flat fen towards Market Deeping, I passed this impressive combine getting started on the field. Three farmers were stood nearby - they pointed me out as I was photographing it, and we shared a wave.
I soon crossed the Nene over this old bridge to Deeping Gate, and - to my astonishment - crossed into Cambridgeshire. It really is a huge county - I had no idea it extended 15 miles north of Peterborough!
From here I followed back roads, now intermittently signed as part of the Peterborough "green wheel" cycleroute. Peterborough is actually quite a large city, many times larger than Cambridge - though most of it is suburban sprawl. I had to traverse this, which wasn't the most exciting of ride, though it was reasonably well signed.
It was with some exhaustion that I arrived in the now-familiar Cathedral square in the centre of Peterborough. It was around 5pm, and sadly most the shops were shut (I could have murdered a Pierogi - Peterborough has a large Polish population, and this has lead to some excellent innovations in the takeaway food available). Actually the town centre wasn't looking at its best, with quite a few drunks wandering around and rather listlessly asking for change, and people in doorways. Peterborough certainly has some deprived areas and some big-city problems.
There was no reason to hang around, so I headed straight to the station - I'd just missed a train, but half an hour was no problem to wait, so I donned my face mask and sat on the platform. The moment I sat down, all energy drained out of me, and I almost drifted off to sleep. I'd covered over 100km with a full camping load, and still had more to go.
Quiet back roads heading straight over the fen south to Peterborough
It was a major effort to push to climb up the hill to get back home. I sat at the bottom, just inside the RSPB, and wolfed down a very large pack of crisps, just to regain some salt and energy. I made the last few kilometres - and was rather glad to have a soft bed waiting at the top of the hill.
