Bikepacking the Old Chalk Way – Part 2 – Cycling Past 5,000 Years of History

Welcome to part two of my four-part bikepacking adventure along the Old Chalk Way, a 358-mile journey from Lyme Regis on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast to Holme-next-the-Sea in Norfolk. This historic route loosely follows Britain’s oldest road—the Greater Ridgeway, a prehistoric pathway dating back 5,000 years—traversing rolling green hills, farmland doubletrack, tarmac back lanes, woodland bridleways, and forestry fire roads.

In this episode, we start of by visiting Stonehenge, a world-famous prehistoric monument shrouded in mystery. After taking it all in, we ride across Salisbury Plain, where unexpected military exercises force a slight detour—just another twist in the adventure!

The journey then leads us to Avebury Stone Circle, Stonehenge’s lesser-known but arguably nicer cousin. Finally, we join the Ridgeway proper, setting up camp for the night beneath a breathtaking sunset, fully embracing the wild camping experience.

Join me for another great leg of this historic journey, packed with ancient wonders, rugged trails, and the freedom of the open road!

morning slept a little bit better last night although you can’t tell by looking at me i think the hay fever is making me look worse um yeah so plan today is try and do about another 60 miles which will um get us past um Salsbury plane through the military training area hopefully it’ll be open if not we’ll have to divert then Stonehenge uh have a little look at that and then we’ll be on to the Ridgeway ridgeway um and um we should get past uh Wantage uh just before Gurick on Tempame’s Gorick or Goring I can’t even remember it’s too early in the morning one of the two it’s called one of the two um just before that uh and then we should set up camp and then the next day we’ve got to go into Guring or Gurick i can’t remember what it’s called i’ve got to pick up another SD card i’ve bought a new one um so I’m going to pick that up and then uh we’ll do I think it’ll be about 70 miles um into Luton and um I’ve decided I’m going to stop in a travel lodge because I’m struggling a bit with the power situation also i could do with a bit of a shower it’s good job you can’t smell me um and then yeah we’ll stop there overnight and that should set me up for the rest of the trip really um yes so I’m going to have a cup of tea bit of porridge and then we’ll set off it’s still quite early it’s not even 6:00 a.m yet but the the birds are up so I’m up so let’s get going and I’ll see you in a minute right we’re off if I can remember the way I got into this place never fails the water from this church looks a lot more respectable than the water from the church the other day as well actually Behind me we’ve got Stonehenge i don’t know if you can see it it’s quite far away um we just crossed the busiest road I’ve ever bloody seen i was literally waiting there for like 5 minutes just waiting for it to c be able to cross i mean look at it and if you see all these cars coming down this road it is insane i guess they’re all on their way to work um yeah beautiful morning one thing they don’t tell you about Stonehenge is a housing estate right next to it not a lot of people mention that not sure if it’s like military housing i think it could be as we ride by the base result no red flags that means we can ride through and don’t have to detour so while it was open to get in the route that I wanted to go on is closed luckily for me I can go this way so I think we’re okay hopefully we’ll be able to just go around and there’ll be no further closers right we made it out alive it’s quite the signs are quite confusing I think um it’s not always clear so if you do come through here just make sure that you’re 100% certain before you start entering in a firing range um it’s just a shame really that we live in a world where we have to fence off a massive area just for military training it’d be great if we lived in a world without any military and they just opened up that area to the public and just said you know you can wild camp here you can wander you can go wherever you like wouldn’t that be amazing if they just opened up that area and just said you can sleep here you can explore you can do whatever you want here ride your bikes it doesn’t matter just enjoy it but we don’t live in that world do we so I messed up slightly i was looking for this shop um it’s like the only shop for miles around looking for this place called Towns End and I went for this place called Alington I think it’s called anyway turns out I rode straight past the shop um because I thought it was in towns then and uh yeah did a couple of extra miles that I didn’t plan on doing um but I decided to turn around and go back because it’s so hot i was hoping they’d have sun cream and they did never been so excited about something and I managed to get some more water and food and stuff so hopefully because once you get to this point there’s not really any shops for a while so yeah so it was worth the extra couple of miles to just turn back and get what I needed so this next climb is a bit of a beast if memory serves me correctly i’ve done it before when I did uh Kings King Alfred’s Way i didn’t film that one yeah it’s a bit of a killer and also I’ve just remembered from that that that there those hills there that I told you were the Ridgeway they’re not the Ridgeway it’s some other hills i fell for that last time it’s definitely not the ridgeway um so yeah we I think we go over those hills down the other side and ride for a bit and then join on to the Ridgeway made it to the top it’s time for a little bit of uh bum maintenance this one is from 2021 when I rode the GB Divide so I’m not sure whether it’s going to be a bit crusty but we’ll just try it out hopefully it’ll be sufficient i’m getting a little bit of a sore bottom so hopefully it will sort of fend that off for a little bit i don’t know what that is i think it might be like a burial mound or something it’s like a little pyramid so this is a it’s like a mini Stonehenge i actually prefer it to Stonehenge it’s much nicer and quieter and you can get right up close to everything so I’m a bit disappointed just thought I’ll stop off at the pub i’ll have something to eat i thought I see a burger on the menu i was like “Yeah I’ll have that.” The queue was huge there was like one guy on the bar and I thought “Oh it’s all right i’ll just order this food.” Ordered my drink got me my drinks and then he was I ordered the food and he was like “Oh no you can’t eat outside so I was like “Oh I won’t have any food then i don’t usually drink so I only really wanted it to go with my food.” And um yes I had no food and then I realized that you can sit out the back so I thought I’d order some food anyway the queue was even bigger and I thought you know what forget this um so I don’t really rate that pub don’t know what the food’s like didn’t get a chance to eat yet so we’re about to head on to the Ridgeway this is like the official start of the Ridgeway ridgeway obviously the greater ridgeway starts in line but the Ridgeway starts in um I forgot the name of the place now the side must have gone to my head look at these snails clinging to the only bit of shade on the whole ridgeway we’re now officially on the ridgeway and it’s very hot and it’s going to be tough it’s actually quite hard going i’ve done this a few times before and it’s always been raining it’s really hot and it’s always been really hot like the the chalk just reflects all the heat back up off you anyway I’m going to stop moaning and just try and get on with it we got about another 25 miles to go the Ridgeway is just such a harsh place to ride in when it’s hot i mean there’s like no trees no trees whatsoever apart from those down there but yeah you you’re out in the open most of the time and it is just it is just brutal sometimes and the uh the trail is quite tough going it’s not a lot of it’s not very fast and you don’t get far um yeah I’m glad I got that sun cream and yeah if you’re riding the Ridgeway and it’s hot make sure you bring enough water i’m hoping I’ve got enough this behind me is an Iron Age hill for goes all the way around apparently I shouldn’t have come up here just climbed up this didn’t need to i was just following a couple of guys like I keep catching up with them and they keep catching up with me um they’re doing the King Alfred’s way and yeah I was just following them without looking where I was supposed to be going anyway we got to go back down this hill and then some other way i thought he was going to be on the ridgeway from now on but apparently not i don’t mind it cutting out bits of the ridgeway if it means it’s going to be quicker and easier going like the ridgeway is really I find it really quite hard but yeah that bit up the top that I thought it was going over is a lot harder than this it’s like that classic ultran cyclist shot isn’t it sitting outside a petrol station stuff in your face i’m not sure how well this is going to hold up but we’ll try it back on the ridgeway time to climb back up so I decided to stop a bit early we did 55 miles um but I seen this place and I was like “Yeah I’m stopping here.” cuz then actually so yeah I thought I’m going to stop here i just double checked like where I was going to stop because on the map it looked like trees but actually I double checked it and um it was a field so I don’t think that really would have worked anyway um so the plan is stop here i’m actually ahead of schedule if I do 60 miles a day I will be like 40 miles ahead of schedule actually um and then tomorrow we’re going to go to Guring on Tame’s i keep calling it Gurick for some reason um going to go and have breakfast there’s this cafe that’s sells amazing pastries and makes nice coffee so we’re going to go there and then I’ve got to go to the uh like the village store there to go and pick up another SD card because I’m running low on memory card space so yeah we’re just going to stop here i’m going to have some food and stuff i’m going to wait a little bit and then until it gets a bit later when I know no one’s going to turn up and kick me out and then uh we’ll put the tent up so that’s as good as sunset you’re going to get i was hoping for a little bit better but what can you do every time I come back in it just makes me appreciate life the simple things in life a lot more like when you turn on the tap and water comes out or you plug something in and you can charge things up electricity comes out like the the comforts that you take for granted um it always makes me realize how easy we’ve got it