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Day 5 Cheltenham – Bromsgrove
Weather – Average to poor with light drizzle
Dr Pepper – Poor: Several German cans spotted.
Terrain – Kinda average.
Campsite – Highly Recommended: Blackwell Court International Scout Campsite, Agmore Road, Blackwell, Bromsgrove, Hereford and Worcestershire, B60 1PX (May be scouts only).
This was a generally uneventful day as we didn’t cover much distance and landed up at the campsite we should have been at yesterday. Initially we were hoping to make up some distance but losing time getting out of Cheltenham and the lure of having a nice fire and getting to the campsite early put paid to that.
We got up pretty early since we were on somebody else’s land and headed off in the direction we thought was north. After a while the road no longer corresponded to the map but as you do when there was no-one around to ask, we ploughed on until we met a Cheltenham sign pointing pretty much where we had just come. We literally sat at this junction for 10mins unable either to locate our position on the map or decide whether Cheltenham was still where we wanted to go or we had missed it and should continue. With our compass unable to assist at this point (it was worse than not having one at all!), we chose Cheltenham and followed the most bizarre series of signs to a place I have ever seen. Despite crossing the M5 five times (no joke) we still had no idea where we were until on the outskirts of Cheltenham we eventually found our position on the map and found ourselves close to where we thought we were last night. To this day I have no idea where we slept that night so perhaps we will try to solve the mystery if/when we return next year. What I do know is that I think we were still south of Cheltenham when we thought we were north of it, so headed away from there thinking that way would be south. At least we had time to spare on this day and by this time we chose to go to yesterday’s campsite rather than risk going through Birmingham today and risk not having anywhere to stay.
Finally on our way we crossed into Worcestershire and after that mix up we covered a lot of distance quickly with not too many hills, the highlight of which was a stop for Dr Pepper all round and the largest burgers I have ever seen in my life for lunch at a roadside café outside Evesham.
Back on the road this section was more hilly but we went into Warwickshire briefly before returning to Worcestershire on the A435. We managed to use up all our extra time with frequent breaks for rests all they way up the road.
On the second day we had found out the benefits for not stopping when I stopped to take a picture on the A30. Lister and Martin continued cycling slowly while I cycled as fast as I could to catch up, and it took 15 mins before I saw them again wondering where I had got to. It showed us that the best way to cover distance fast is continuous cycling even if it is slow, and after that most of the photos were taken on the move, which accounts for the blurriness in some cases!
Knowing that we would be having a nice fire that evening although we had already bought dinner at Evesham we were on the look out for somewhere to buy some drinks as we passed Redditch and approached the campsite. We thought we had struck lucky when we saw a Tescos from the road but there was no access to it and once again not wanting to cover any extra distance we had to carry on. Finding the campsite was not easy as there were no signs to it and it took us a while to navigate the small roads using our large-scale atlas, although the warden told us that it is well signposted from the main roads.
On arrival at the campsite we were surprised and impressed to find that the extremely pleasant warden was not only fully sane but was actually expecting us. Before the trip I had written to each site and of the fortnight this was the only one to be expecting us, even realising that we should have been there the day before. The warden was very interested in our trip and we gave him the whole story as he showed us a site where we were even more impressed to find had a fire already lit for us (In fact the previous occupants had not long left) and best of all an enormous woodpile about 10 yards away. We were again the only ones on the camp and the facilities were excellent with hot showers and clean toilets. The only disadvantage was that there didn’t seem to be any flat land on the whole campsite but everything else was spot on and we would recommend it to anybody, we were charged £7.80 for the night.
The warden directed us to a nearby Post Office and Martin volunteered to put the tent up while we went and bought the drinks and some other unhealthy stuff like marshmallows to eat later. Blackwell village had an interesting mix of old village cottages and shops and new big houses with Mercedes outside, this is obviously where a lot of the big businessmen from Birmingham come home to! The two photos above were taken at the same time: I just turned around on the spot so as you can see it was still light by the time we had a great fire going. Those of you who know us will know that Lister and I love a good woodpile and we had a great time chopping up logs with bigger logs from the best woodpile I have ever seen.