Thursday 26 May 2016
Day Six starts out very early, very wet and very grey. Fortunately we don’t appear to have been robbed or attacked overnight (I am only half joking) and so we pack up (quickly) and head off (also quickly).
It’s almost impossible to capture the otherworldly weirdness of last nights campsite through a lens but let’s have a go…
Enough said?
Our route today is long again but much flatter. Hopefully it will be a good one and set us up for tomorrow which we already know is going to be the longest and hardest day yet.
We still haven’t picked up any gas (doh!) so we have to go out in search of breakfast (and, crazy I know, but some gas perhaps?). We rack up 20 quickish miles and settle in at the fantastic McCormicks in Nantwich
It is hard to imagine a kinder, friendlier man than owner Peter who not only promptly delivers an epic sausage and bacon baguette with a vat of tea he also debates politics with us and donates a fiver to our sponsorship…..what a top man Peter!
No gas to be found in Nantwich so we press on and shortly stumble across Aqueduct Marina Chandlery who sort us out with what we need and ensure that we can have tea in the morning…..yay!
The miles fly by and we really speed through the countryside pausing only to pick up lunch at Sainsburys in Knutsford and then pausing again about 10 miles later to eat it.
We have become used to cycling through the open countryside and so it’s a bit a of a shock when we spend about 10 or 15 miles skirting between Widnes, Warrington, Wigan and all the other “W’s”. It’s the most unpleasant bit of the route since we left Lands End and we are really glad when we leave it all behind and arrive at Charity Farm.
As the name suggests it’s a farm with camping facilities which are best described by a non camping, middle aged Londoner as “agricultural”. All that matters though is that we are here (we are!) the showers are clean and hot (they are!) and there is a pub within walking distance (there is, The Cornerhouse)
All in all a rather uneventful day so I thought I would perhaps tell you about some of the little niggles and irritations we have accumulated along the way (mine are called Marc and Dan……boom, I thank you!).
Dan’s calf seems to have settled down and returned to a more healthy colour and it doesn’t seem to be holding him back at all. By the end of each day Marc’s right knee becomes sore but also seems to sort it self out. I have moved from sore knee to sore Achilles and now to sore shins. I didn’t even know you could get sore shins! Perhaps it is linked to the whole “lady ankles” scenario (for reasons I am still not clear on we held an impromptu “who has the most fetching and shapely ankle” competition which I won a bit too easily!)
Of course the ailments of which we cannot and probably should not speak all take place in the “downstairs” departments. There are two important considerations to made before saying what I am about to say…
I am unable to inspect my own downstairs departments without fashioning some kind of complex mirror system and to be honest my packing was more geared towards different types of weather than it was to that kind of self exploration
I have no desire or interest to ask Marc or Dan to inspect those areas, or I hasten to add vice versa, even if they are medically qualified.
Despite these caveats I am nonetheless as confident as I can be that everything down there is utterly destroyed and unlikely to ever return to normal.
Two guest bloggers tonight, firstly ….
Just a short addendum for the day from me Marc. A massive thank you to my 2 compatriots on our epic adventure…i am having the most amazing time, hard as it is, but seeing the beautiful countryside from an amazing viewpoint, and knowing we’re raising a huge wedge of cash for a very worthy cause…thank you all of you for being so amazingly generous…you know who you are. Would recommend to anyone wanting to undertake a challenge. M X
And secondly ….
Hi
I’m okay
Dan