An unexpected interlude

I'd planned to spend a couple of days with my folks, then continue on my way. The first day I sorted and dried out gear, cleaned Horse and then took him into town to be re-shoed with new brake pads.  I repaired the back tyre, which turned out to have two holes, followed by a long siesta and a general battery-recharge . The next day we nipped into town, and I picked up a new camera, more porridge and some rice for the next leg of the trip.

Dad didn't feel too well as we drove home, and later in the morning he staggered in from the garden looking very ashen-faced. We took him to A&E where we were told he'd had a heart attack. He spend the next week in hospital, until they could fit him up with some stents. "Is there anything you need dad?" "Can you bring my pint mug in? The cups in here are like thimbles!"

So there was a ten-day interlude in Nuneaton, and this would seem a good point to give the place a plug. It's really friendly! What's more it has great cycling credentials. Graeme Obree, the Flying Scotsman and world record-breaking cyclist was born in Nuneaton! He's the Flying Nuneatonian! Other luminaries include George Eliot, famed for her novels and sprint finishes, film director Ken Loach, comedian Larry Grayson and no nonsense Mary Whitehouse.

Dad came out on the 21st November, a new man. We managed to sneak a couple of hour's fishing at Draycote Water the next day, much to mum's displeasure, then the day after I hit the road again.

Day 16 Stone to Nuneaton

Another early start in the dark. I raided the batteries of the dead camera and the headlamp was invigorated. Within half an hour I'd reached Sandon Lock with over 4km on the clock, then the towpath reverted to type. At one point a herd of cows had broken through the fence, so the grass was nicely cut, but pugged with deep hoof prints; I juddered along, teeth rattling and dreaming of suspension forks. I crept along slowly but surely towards Fradley Junction and the turn-off onto the Coventry Canal some 30km away.
It was another clear day, with a nip in the air: the first cold start since Loch Awe. For a couple of K's at Great Haywood, where the Staffordshire and Worcester Canal branched off, the towpath was perfect, then it was back to mud as I headed towards Rugeley. An improvement heralded the arrival of that town, but I had the first puncture of the day, the fifth of the trip. The path then deteriorated for a while, and became two thin ruts and the wheels were spoilt for choice. The front wheel took the lefthand rut while the rear went for right, and I went flying into a hedge. It was an improvement on landing in the canal.
A little further on was an ugly factory, with walls that rose straight out of the canal, like some moated fortification. Beyond this the towpath came good and I bombed along to Handsacre where I pulled off and crossed over a bridge to try and get a coffee at the Crown Inn. It was closed, so I headed back onto the towpath and sped along, soon passing an ugly factory rising straight from the canal, then spotting skid marks where some idiot had fallen off his bike. With a rapidly developing  sense of deja vu, I checked with a dog walker: "Yes you'll soon be in Rugeley". Bloody hell I'd gone the wrong way up the towpath and added an extra 4km to the day. I pedalled and cursed my way back to Handsacre. The pub was still shut.
20 minutes later I was at Fradley Junction and went into the Swan Inn. The chef wouldn't be in for another 40 minutes, but the barmaid was brilliant and made me a pile of sandwiches. At the junction I turned onto the Coventry Canal, though it's also known as the Birmingham and Fazeley Canal at this point thanks to a confusing series of ownership changes. At Whittington I had another back wheel puncture, then it was on to the Tamworth canal interchange at Fazeley. The Coventry Canal headed north-west then swung south through Polesworth where progress became somewhat intermittent: I had four punctures in as many kilometres.
To make matters worse, ominous clouds were building up: Storm Abigail, Britain's first named storm, was gathering. I don't know why we'd started naming storms; it just encourages them. With imminent inundation a distinct possibility I pumped as much air as I could into the tyre as I could and set off like a thing possessed. A kilometre later, just through Mancetter I had to  repump, and right where I stopped there was an info board about this being the spot where 4000 Romans slaughtered 70000 Iceni and pals led by Boudica. No wonder I was getting so many punctures, bloody brooch pins and spear points everywhere.
The next pumping got me twice as far,and I could pick out the distinctive outline of Mount Jud on Hartshill Ridge. It has a classic Mount Fuji-like outline, not bad at all for a slag heap.The next pump took me three kilometres and I began to wonder if by some miracle the tyre was healing itself.  At the Cat Gallows Bridge in Nuneaton I turned off the canal, and 5 minutes later reached my parent's home, bang on 5pm, a ten hour day for just 84km.
Day stats 84km  165 Metres of ascent
Off road 80km 
A road 0km 
B road  0km 
Unclassified road 0.5km Doesn't include the deja vu section!

Day 15 Acton Bridge to Stone

I woke up early, and despite the dark decided to get cracking. After the usual tea and porridge I was on the towpath by 6.30, cycling carefully by headlight. It was slow going, and by 7am I'd done less than three kilometres. Saltersford tunnel was followed by Barnton Tunnel, where a gate on the path over the top was most bike-unfriendly. I tried rearing Horse up onto his hind wheel but it was too narrow so I took off the panniers and still couldn't get through the 180 turn. Eventually I had to push him up a steep muddy slope, slipping and sliding down the far sideband bending the mudguard stays when we hit the fence at the bottom. The trees and brambles were festooned with small black plastic bags, hanging like scrotums and swaying in the breeze. At least the path was clean.
Not far beyond was the Anderton Boat Lift, though I passed it without noticing and only realised when I saw an info board. Skirting Northwich it was all very industrial, with chemical plants, salt works and scrap metal yards. At the Tata Chemical Plant I had a puncture. With the puncture-resistant tyres I was expecting to have to remove some bygone relic of the industrial age, but it was just a thorn.

 I'd managed just 13km in two-and-a-half hours, and now the towpath was the consistency of my breakfast. An hour later things took a turn for the worse. I tried to avoid a bramble that was lying in wait and the front wheel dropped into a section of bank that had seen better days. In the blink of an eye I was in the canal, and out of it a little more slowly. Luckily it wasn't a particularly deep spot, and it was as if someone had drawn a line straight down the middle of my body with one side completely soaked. Apart from a wrecked camera and notebook everything else was fine, and the weather still mild so I blew dry in a couple of hours.
At Middlewich I had another puncture, then the towpath came good near Kidsgrove, and I pulled off for lunch at the Red Bull. I could have done with a pint but not wanting to risk another dip I settled for a half. Just beyond Kidsgrove was the Harecastle Tunnel, at 3000 yards, one of Britain's longest. Overland through some parkland led back to the Trent and Mersey Canal, and a great towpath through Stoke, and all the the way to Stone, where I stocked up on food for the night, and set up camp in the dark by a set of locks. 

I cooked up a great stir-fry meal, then took stock. I was bruised down one side, had one dry sock left and the camera was comatose. I'd be at my parents' house in Nuneaton the following day, so a couple of days there and I'd be scrubbed up, and I'd buy a new camera. I turned in at 7; I'd been on the go for 11 hours and was done in.


Day stats 71km  328 Metres of ascent
Off road 70km 
A road 0km 
B road  0km 
Unclassified road 1km

Day 14 Adlington to Acton Bridge

Leeds and Liverpool Canal

Up at 6am, no rain. Hung the wet clothes on some bushes in a vain attempt to dry them while I packed, then put wet clothes on. Fortunately the weather was still mild. I was away by first light, and the towpath was great compared to the Lancaster canal, just a 100 metres of quagmire near Red Rocks. I tried unsuccessfully to find a phone box in New Springs to let the girlfriend know I hadn't drowned, and soon reached Top Lock and a big flight of locks down towards Wigan. The towpath had now reached new heights of excellence: it was paved, and carried on like that for miles!

Towpath heaven near Wigan Flashes

Trans Pennine Way

I left the canal at Pennington Flash and spent the next couple of hours hanging around trying to get my phone fixed at a repairer in a nearby newsagents, before leaving them with the phone and cash and heading across country to join up with the Bridgewater Canal. 22km of backroads, B roads and a tiny bit of A road led through Culcheth, Glazebrook and into Lymm, where a bike shop miraculously appeared just as the hematoma on the tyre wall looked ready to burst. I was offered a higher-priced puncture resistant tyre, which looked like a good move with all the towpaths to come.
A short stretch of the Trans Pennine Way took me alongside the canal, where I nipped over a fence to have a look at the towpath. It wasn't too bad.There was an extensive notice listing all the things you couldn’t do on the canal. It would have been more economical to list the things you could do, and just say everything else is banned. Cycling was one of the proscribed activities, or at least on this section of canal. It’s one of the few canals in the country not to have been nationalised and is owned by The Bridgewater Canal Company. There were enough tyre marks in the mud to suggest the bike ban was not widely respected, so I unloaded Horse and threaded him through the wooden fence, loaded up and set off in a westerly direction, skirting Warrington.The

Bridgewater Canal

towpath was a another mixed bag, with some short sections of grass and mud which several times built up in the front mudguard and brought me to a halt. I soon became proficient at scooping it out, always hoping it was mud and not something of canine origin. The path was often narrow, but there was a decent gravel base and I made good progress.It was perfect compacted gravel, and I was flying along, and in what seemed no time at all I was over the footbridge where the Norton Arm branches off, then under the M56 to the Preston Brook Tunnel. 15 k’s of the canal already done and I was now heading south on the Cheshire Ring.I led Horse along the track above the tunnel, and saw The Tunnel Top pub. By now it was past four o’clock, and I’d

Preston Brook Tunnel

need to find a camping spot soon. I could get some water from the pub, and they’d probably have beer there too. Inside there were a couple of chaps at the bar, quietly drinking a pint. They didn’t look as though they wanted to talk, but when I raised my glass and said ‘Cheers’ it was enough to break the ice and we had a good chat. They thought my trip would be a great way to see a cross-section of the country and see the changes in people and places as I headed south. As I was bereft of technology one of the chaps pulled out his phone and checked the weather for me: it didn’t look too bad at all until Friday, giving me three days of possibly dry cycling. This was great news as the daily soakings had been getting on top of me. After another half hour of cycling into the dusk I found a great little posse tucked in a corner formed by a stone bridge over a farm track, and a thick hedge. I ws pleased to have knocked off 74k's despite the couple of lost hours trying to get the phone fixed. I cooked up the last of the dried meals I'd bought in Windermere, and had an early night.

Day 13 Scorton to Adlington

Into deepest Preston

Escape from Preton

I’d seen a weather chart on the TV the night before, and there was a line of windy depressions spread across the Atlantic, all rubbing their hands together in glee. I set off in the rain, following the NCN6 for 10k's before joining the canal at Catterall. The towpath was less than than ideal. It was just grass, and often I'd find the wheels tuning on the spot, like hamster wheels. There would be section  of compacted gravel either side of a settlement, then the towpath would revert back to grass, or even worse, mud. By the time I reached the Whistle Café, on the outskirts of Preston, it was nearly midday, and in well over three hours I’d only done 27k’s. The towpath finally came good, but I had an immediate puncture and an alarming swelling on the tyre wall. Preston turned into a nightmare. First I had to find a bike shop, then I had reach the cycle paths on the south side of the city. In a pattern that repeated itself right down the country, there were good bike signs to the edge of the city, none in the middle, then then they would reappear on the other side. It was frustrating couple of hours in hosing rain. Eventually I connected with the NCN55 and finally escaped Preston's grip just as the rain started to ease.After some more misleading signage I finally made it over to the Leeds and Liverpool Canal in the gathering gloom and renewed rain. I switched the headlamp on and continued, determined to get a few miles

River Lobstock

beyond Preston. After about 8km I spotted a perfect camping spot in a wood next to the canal. I needed some water though, so cycled to a nearby a road where I saw Frederick’s Ice Cream Parlour, so I l went in for a coffee, happy to hang around there until it was fully dark. I went to the loo to fill up my water bag and managed to drop my smartphone, which hit the tiled floor with a resounding crack, skittered away and bounced off the skirting board. Once the tent was up I had a look at the phone; it showed no signs of life. I was gutted; my wee connection with family and friends, and my Strava logging had ground to a halt.


Day stats 61km 324 Metres of ascent

Off road km 

A road km 

B road km  
Unclassified road km