Land’s End to John O’Groats – Day 9

May 23, 2024 – Heath House to Chepstow

Ride stats:
https://cyclemeter.com/8c43cf9d11bd7f12/Cycle-20240522-0915-03522

As the weather forecasters predicted, we woke up to the pitter patter of rain on our tent flies…
Despite my opening dialog about taking down the tent in a fashion that would allow me to keep the inner tent dry…the rain had abated just long enough for me to strike the tent.
After breakfast and coffee under the overhang of the restroom area, Nigel and I headed out just after 9am.

The first 10km’s or so took us past many farm fields, as the rain came and went. The scenery changed significantly as we approached Cheddar.
As lovely as the town was, we didn’t stop, and continued through town and up through beautiful Cheddar Gorge. As nice as it was in the rain, I could only imagine what it was like on a sunny day…I guess I’ll have to go back to find out…

The serpentine ride up through the gorge was fairly steep, and there was a fair amount of traffic during that climb up into the Mendip Hills National Landscape.
My anticipation upon getting to the top was that we’d be in some type of wild lands…but instead, we topped out onto a huge plane, flanked by farm fields for as far as the eye could see.

After a few more kilometres, the route took us into a more forested area and eventually down a nice, long descent through Compton Martin and a brief ride by Chew Valley Lake, through Chew Stoke and eventually into Chew Magna, where we stopped for a coke and some nibbles.

Continuing north, we decided to do an end run around Bristol, as we didn’t want to get caught up in the quagmire that big cities can be…and big cities were just not the reason I wanted to do this ride.
The ride across Severn Bridge into Chepstow was quite amazing…the bridge is absolutely massive, and took about 15 minutes or so to ride across. We were very happy to be on a completely separate pedestrian/bicycle path, which allowed us to safely enjoy the views as we crossed.

Prior to getting to Chepstow, Nigel called ahead to book us a couple of rooms at the Beaufort Hotel and Pub…and it was a great decision!
After a short stop at the local Lidl for some dinner takeaway, we headed to the hotel.
The hotel staff allowed us to spread out our tents to dry in the adjacent dance hall (where a class had just finished) and provided a secure place to park our bikes for the night.
The rooms were quite nice…espcially for the bargain price of 40 pounds each.
After grabbing a pint in the downstairs pub, we retired to our rooms for a muchly-appreciated sleep in real beds!