Brecon to Bourton-on-the-Water

After a stormy night, the morning began optimistically early (for me). After a breakfast stop in Brecon, I set out on another lovely day, the roads and the trees all freshly washed and sparkling in the sun. I followed the rough course of the Brecon Canal heading west and was doing quite nicely until I suffered a puncture to my front wheel. I found a safe, quiet and sunny place to replace the inner tube and got moving again, but before I knew it half the morning had disappeared, as it somehow always does. I was also down to no spare inner tubes at this stage, which always worries me. And I was in a distinctly rural setting, albeit a very pretty one. So imagine my surprise and delight when a solitary building, by the side of the very quiet road I was following along the Usk valley, turned out to be a bike shop! In I went and emerged with 4 (four) new inner tubes for a tenner. Bargain.

Duly reassured, I continued to make good progress through green and very pleasant countryside, past the very prettily situated town of Crickhowell – with its old stone bridge and backdrop of verdant hills – and on until I reached the larger, and equally impressively sited, town of Abergavenny. With many empty miles ahead, I opted for an early lunch here, which I enjoyed outdoors in the sunshine, watching the shoppers come and go. I thought Abergavenny had a nice feel to it. As with many towns these days, it’s centre was completely given over to pedestrians, making it a quiet and welcoming place to be. A busker added to the positive vibes, although a couple of homeless people begging from shoppers rather cancelled that out. It is always a sad sight, especially so, I felt, in this modest sized country town. 

With many miles to go, I hit the country road to Ross on Wye. I have to say that the next 2 hours offered some of the very best cycling you could hope to find anywhere. The quiet road was an absolute delight with lovely, sweeping, gentle ups and downs that took me through the attractive border country into England at the village of Skenfrith. I missed the announcement, if there was one, but realised that the signs were now only in one language, which is a giveaway that you have left Wales.

Skenfrith itself, just in Wales, is a gorgeous little place. As well as a sturdy stone bridge over the river that marks the border, and a fine looking Inn on the Welsh banks, there is a very unusual old church which stands alongside the ruins of a substantial castle. The village is small, so these highlights are hard to miss, and you are free to wander around at will. So I did. 

Ross on Wye is a fine country town worthy of further exploration. I had just time to enjoy a coffee and a cake in the steep high street and admire the buildings around me, before striking out again along a combination of lovely back lanes and then a rather more busy B road to the small town of Newent in Gloucestershire. Newent has a collection of old buildings and a narrow main street that causes problems when you have bicycles, parked cars and double decker buses all in the same place at the same time. Which we did. So, as much as I am glad that I came, I feel that Newent might now be left alone for a good long while to come.

There are many pleasant miles of country lanes beyond it and I used them to access the first bridge over the River Severn upstream from Gloucester (which only offered big dual carriageway options to me). That was on another B road and it took me very close to the Cotswolds on the other side of Severn, with views north towards the Malvern Hills, glowing in the afternoon sun. I got across the A38 without major incident and headed along a busy unclassified road to Bishops Cleeve, which lies nested against Cleeve Hill, the highest in the Cotswolds, and fiendishly steep. I didn’t honestly fancy a trail of impatient cars following me over that at the end of a working day. You could be sure that there would be impatient idiots wanting to overtake when it wasn’t safe. So instead I took the lower route around the north side of the hills to Winchcombe, adding on a few miles; but enjoying mostly empty lanes again. Another cyclist, Michael, who was commuting home, told me I had done the right thing and that he takes the same route for that reason.

Winchcombe is a very beautiful small Cotswold town and next to it is the estate of Sudeley Castle. It is all quintessentially English and difficult not to like. This whole area is lovely on the eye; but attracts money, being relatively close to both London and the West Midlands. It is the towns and villages, with their thatched buildings and enticing pubs, that make it special, however. The landscape is pleasing, but nothing out of the ordinary in of itself. In combination with the local honey coloured stone buildings and walls, and a general lack of eyesores, however, it is deservedly admired.

I may have avoided Cleeve Hill, but the climb from Winchcombe to Temple Guiting was punishing. I got all the way up in the fading light and was then really only a few miles of quiet lanes away from my destination. It seemed like much more as the sunset turned to darkness and I resorted to my lights. It felt like 9.30pm when I arrived. It was not quite 7.30pm: not bad for 96 miles and almost 6,000 feet of ascent. The pub where I was staying served up a succulent stew, and a couple of pints of Directors, and to cap it off bread and butter pudding with custard, and an extra jug of custard just to be on the safe side! I went to bed happy.