Day 48. Portsmouth. Sept 23 2001

What a way to wake up. Leaping up at the first sign of light, exhausted from a night of nightmares, frantic to pack up a tent before you are noticed, so far from where you planned to be that you’re not even sure how to get back.

Neither of us slept much last night. I was plagued the whole night with terror dreams and thoughts that brought so much stress I was amazed the tent did not pulsate in rhythm with my heart. If we couldn’t find a campground last night what made me think today would be any different? Or tomorrow, or the day after? Would the rest of the trip be spent furtively setting our tent up after dark only to hurry away when people might be around?

Yesterdays events had shattered my morale and not only was I not eager to be biking, for the first time in the trip I was well and truly ready to go home. But having a ticket in hand is a powerful motivator and we had a ferry to catch the next day. So reluctantly we set out retracing our route back to Portsmouth.

The day loomed gray and cold ahead of us with chilly winds cutting at us. We stopped to break our fast at McDonalds .

While we ate, outside lest the unkempt appearance of unshowered bikers cause problems with the management, a great gray cloud blew over us, certain to bring rain and misery. But within seconds it had passed us by entirely and blown itself out to sea. One great thing that affects this region is weather that shifts so quickly you can watch the transformation with your own eyes. You can see a storm cloud build itself out of nothingness far out in the water. You can watch it blown in and buffet the shore and you can see the sunlight beyond. In Calgary we joke that “if you don’t like the weather wait five minutes” but compared to the rapid changes they experience here, our weather is tame.

After a breakfast made of bacon, buns, hash browns the size of my hand and, on Heather’s part, eggs, we set out once more. We had decided to head towards the second of our target campgrounds of the previous day. It was marked on Portsmouth’s eastern shore and by looking at the map I realized we had come nowhere close. So off we went, more cautiously this time and took a left turn I had dismissed the previous night because it seemed to lead into an industrial area. Fifteen minutes later, voila, we were on the eastern harbour. But the eastern road, on which the campsite was marked, was right against the water, no place on its eastern side for camping. So we set off south, very excited, as you can imagine, to find a sign announcing the south sea caravan park. Unfortunately the name proved to be accurate, it was at the far southern tip of Portsmouth, nowhere near where the campground we were heading to was marked.

After an extra hour or more following the elusive grail of a campsite, we found the south sea park, set up our ten and went to sleep.

We slept until noon, until the building heat in our tent forced us to go outside. The day was very windy, whipping the tent about dramatically but the wind died as the day advanced. Though tired we decided to go for a walk to see Portsmouth before we departed on the morrow. Portsmouth is a strange town, not sure if it is a tourist destination or a working harbour and not really able to reconcile the two. The innards of the town are the worst gray that England is famous for worldwide. Rows and rows of industrial housing stretch for miles, straight streets with high walled buildings and no breaks for greenery make parts of Portsmouth seem more like a prison than a city. Electrical wire and telephone wires tangle overhead like a net to keep even the birds from fleeing the monotony.

The first question the streets of Portsmouth raise is "how?" How can people choose to live stacked in cartons with no parks, no trees, nothing joyful at all? But then, very suddenly, you break out of the straightjacket streets and find yourself on the waterfront. Here are all the missing parks. Ponds with paddleboat, parks with trees, buildings with elaborately carved masonry, a sunken garden protected by a wall of hedge, a rose garden surrounded by ramparts and even now, in the chill of autumn’s beginnings still in bloom.

The people of Portsmouth must surge out of their homes and workplaces down to the waterfront, running to escape the cage that is the city.

We walked most of the waterfront, pushing our bikes beside us. We halted for a rest at the harbour castle where Henry VII is said to have watched his prize ship, the Mary Rose, founder before him. From here we has an easy view of the strange circular forts that Henry had sunk into the waves to protect the port. Each was a tiny self contained little isle, roofed over to keep from being washed away shore side to break waves and invaders that never came, at least not in Henry’s time or for many hundreds of years after. How foresighted of Henry that he provided England with perfect antiaircraft defenses for the Second World War, the only time his forts fired their guns in anger.

I would like to have gone to the maritime museum but we were both too tired and I had seen it on previous trips. With rigging looming before us we turned back and returned to our camp.

I could not help thinking of Edna and her dream to be a helmswoman, stuck in landlocked Calgary. She would not have been able to resist the lure of the rigging I’m sure and can see how it would have been a magnet to those wanting to escape the dreariness of city life. How shocked they must have been to discover that ship life was no better, only different and in most cases worse. I wonder, do recruits to the world militaries now discover the same thing?

We pedaled home slowly, painfully but delight to actually have a home to go to. Strange how hedge walls and a paid fee can make an empty pier of land seem so secure and strange too how the rules of society have been so ingrained in both Heather and I that to stop outside sanctioned boundaries should make us so uncomfortable. Why should that be the case? How we are sleeping tonight is really no different than the night before, we are ensconced in a tent and sleeping bags, people can still wander about us all night and despite our fears no one is likely to disturb us outside campsite boundaries, pounding on our tent and demanding that we leave. They are probably more scared of us than we are of them! Everyone we have spoken to here says the police too are unlikely to bother us, at least not for a single night and we were so hidden that they would scarcely have been able to find us. But a campground stands for a public sanction of our activities, a guarantee that society will enforce our security. Even if the guarantee is only thought and has no real force it builds mental walls that shelter us…or do they trap us as well.

Next Entry: Day 49. Cherbourg. France!!!
Previous Entry: Day 47. Bedhampton

Day 37. Southampton. Sept 12 2001.

Kerry and Simon dropped us off in Southampton today as Simon had to visit Colin to have his teeth done. We didn’t go expecting to find much of interest, mostly a day of browsing through shops and strolling casually. I’m afraid the city lived up to our expectations. The whole day felt very grey.

We visited the town quay and ate a packed lunch on the Southampton waters, watching the ferries to the Isle of Wight dock. From there we walked to the maritime museum. Southampton’s past contains an era when it was a great port for cruise ships and this was showcased in this small but intricate museum. Now, few major cruise ships dock here, and almost none for a transatlantic crossing. It's sad really that such an elegant way of traveling must be lost from the world. Southampton was also the major departing point for the Titanic and so there was a Titanic exhibit.
What it is about the Titanic that captures the human imagination is so intangible it eludes me. Eerie to see the collection of titantic items from surviving passenger’s pockets. I know that people steal from hotel rooms; great liners must have been the same. But who does it when their grand hotel is sinking?

From the museum we walked along the old town walls, disappointed that the museum of archeology was closed. These we followed up into the central shopping district, which surrounded the main surviving gate of Southampton, the Bargate. We browsed through some bookshops and Heather bought herself an introduction to yoga. We tried to buy a good road map of France, our new destination, but we couldn't find one that showed us the location of campgrounds, kind of important information the way we are traveling.

Finally we were picked up by Kerry and taken home. Tonight we dined with Paul and Tessa and Thomas and Megan Orman and stayed well into the night.


Next Entry: Day 38. Old Sarum
Previous Entry: Sept 11. 2001

Day 35. Marchwood. Sept 10 2001

Today was to be spent traveling all over the New Forest in the company of Nick and Maxine Middleditch. Unfortunately Nick was unable to get his car fully insure and so we spent the day at their home in Marchwood, a small town in the greater Southampton area.

Before we left Brian and Sylvia's we had the opportunity to meet the neighbors, who commented salaciously on the fact that we have not opened the curtains on our bedroom since we have arrived. The truth is that we couldn’t be bothered to open and close them every day, but now, knowing that all the neighbors are peering into our windows the curtains will most certainly remain closed.

Nick and Maxine house was small, a perfect little place.We got the opportunity to use the Internet and we sent out a mass email. We were lucky to be online at the same time as Edna, and we kind of chatted across thousands of kilometers. It was thrilling to speak to her but sent thrills of homesickness through us.

After Emily and Sam (the children) were sent off to bed and we had chatted awhile with the Middleditches we decided to go home. Nick took us on a little drive into the very quaint town of Eling with it's very small marina, tidal mill and many pubs.

It was lit in a soft yellow light that made it seem like a town from ancient history with flame for streetlights. In Eling we were delivered to an Aladdin’s cave of candy. A store that appealed to sweet teeth with a collection of old style candies and new style chocolate bars. Our purchases started off light but rapidly grew.
We spent the night watching movies and gorging ourselves on our new candy until we were sick and we did it all with curtains firmly closed.

Next Entry: Topless Women Ride Free
Previous Entry: Day 34. Lepe

Day 30. Wimbourne still. Sept 5 2001

We slept late, as seems to be our want, then, panniers left behind, we biked back to Kingston Lacy.



It’s a small manor house, but new to us, so we explored it quite thoroughly. The detail work on the heaters, the banisters, all the minute parts of a house that plebs and the rich would normally leave undecorated is amazing, but almost saturating, until the whole display is lost in a saccharine coating.

The paintings were on a similar scale. One room, the dining room, was covered in Rape scenes, which makes one more than a little suspicious. We saw paintings by Titian and Van Dyckand a copy or rough draft of a Velasquez that made Heather gasp so loudly people nearby were alarmed.

The paintings of nude women were more than a little disturbing. Proper women did not pose nude so the artist had to use male bodies as their guide. All the women look like East German weightlifters with breasts.

Especially...interesting... was the painting of a woman fondling her breasts hanging in the lady of the house’s washroom.

Many of the artifacts were collected in “Grand Tours” of Europe, which made me think of our “Grand Tour” which will have few such artifacts but hopefully a big impact.

I was delighted to find, in the collection of Egyptian oddities a statue of the god Hetep baqet, a god of the moringa tree which I can add to my collection of tree gods.

In the gardens we we found an obelisk and sarcophagus stolen from Egyptian sands and many pathways.

  The paths in one section were so well set up for enjoying each others company that they must have been designed with that in mind. Though how they managed to get up those in victorian skirts is beyond me. Necessity is (I suppose) the mother of invention.

I have come to believe that the world needs an aristocracy so that people will sponsor the beautiful things. I only hope to be one of them!!!

However, still a member of the plebian class I , with my paramour, returned to the campsite for our much anticipated dip. The water was warm, at least a good half degree above freezing, and my insane wife plunged in head first while I waded in with trepidation. We enjoyed the water, cold as it was, until freezing temperatures drove us to the warmth of our tent.

Next Entry: Day 31. Holbury
Previous Entry: Day 29. Wimbourne

Day 28. Sept 3 2001

A stay at home day for the most part.

We took a trip up through Shaftsbury, a city on a plateau with spectacular views all about.

You can see the ancient defensive motivation while at the same time enjoying the beauty it produced.

The major thing we did todays was watch Colin fly his gliders. We climbed a narrow track directly opposite the Stourhead folly tower. We stood on the grassy sides of a steep hill and launched delicate winged gliders into the buffeting wind and the listened to their eerie howl as they climbed the currents of air.

  They were spectacular as they seemed to glide effortlessly above the greenery but looking at Colin and the beads of sweat on his forehead as he struggled to keep his craft aloft dispelled that notion.

 
Colin cracked up one glider while landing and brought the other craft into a perfect landing.
Then, with the wind picking up, we abandoned the hilltop for the safety of Colin’s driving. He took us on the poor mans tour of the Stourhead gardens, peering in from the road we saw the grotto, the lake, the replica pantheon and could only dream about having that money.

The rest of the day was mostly quiet, spent in conversation with the Ormans and each other.
We had a long conversation about what it means to be Canadian and what vitues Canadians hold dear. Both Heather and I found as we talked that we loved how the new generation of Canadians had been brought up with the a belief that we have a right to access all cultures and not only study them but experience them to their fullest.

We also felt proud that we are striving to be ethnicity and nationality blind. As a country built of immigrants it would not behoove us to be so worried about the states and nations we have left behind except to admire all that is good in our mother cultures. I say this knowing it is not fully true but that it is a goal that we would even think about striving towards makes us feel good.

What I have written makes no sense, so I must mean every word of it.


Next Entry: Day 29. Wimbourne
Previous Entry: Day 27

Day 27. Sept 2 2001

Woke today at noon. Yesterdays rest let us stay awake deep into the night, watching British television and American movies. So we were exhausted this morning. In all honesty I would have preferred spending a day lazing about the house preparing to move on. But we have not come all this way to lie about, so the day was spend sightseeing.

We traveled first to the hill fort atop a local landmark known as the bul barrow.



The sheep flocked here despite hoof and mouth disease and since there was no warning to stay out we felt fairly comfortable around them. It was a beautiful site, drenched in history and a heavy mist. I would have loved to stay longer but we had other things to see today. So we we had a whirlwind tour of the Dorset countryside, with hardly enough time to take it all in.

Finally, on a long plunge down towards Rolls Mills Colin decided that our daytrip was not complete unless we saw the mill in all its glory.

We traveled past the tranquil waters leaving Hayley and baby behind in the land rover and ran into a short balding old man who proceeded to take us on a wonderful tour of the little mill. He delighted in showing us how each machine worked and reciting the history of the place as an antiquarian would recite names and places of ancient battles. He was a descendant of the millers of Sturminster and he loved the history of the place. I delighted to discover that every year the little mill pond flooded, rising eight or nine feet and spilling into the mill. Every year for a thousand years the mills here have flooded and instead of complaining or trying to devise a solution all they have done is take the day off.

Midway through our 45 minute tour Colin remembered wife and baby and ran off. I’m sure he had some explaining to do about what happened to our LITTLE visit to the mill.

It began to mist again as we pulled in from our trip and my mind is now, as it has been since the mist began, atop an ancient fortified village, dancing in the rain.

Next Entry: Day 28
Previous Entry: Day 26

Day 26. The Sea Sept 1 2001

Colin took us out in his boat today.

Though our voyage on the ocean waters was brief it was exhilarating and soothing. Our trip amounted to merely dipping our our toes in almost infinite waters, yet it was easy to see how the ocean had inspired poets through the ages, from Homer to Melville.




The ocean is something so primal that it seeps between heart and gut and grabs hold. Perhaps the memory of it is so deep in our cells that we can never forgets and the sound of crashing waves call us home.



Perhaps the similarity between sea and blood calls out to each other and the rhythm of the sea controls the beating heart. Whatever the attraction it is easy to understand the despair the sea can also evoke, for what writer can find the words to convey all that the infinite sea can define with its mere existence.





Drinking from the wine dark sea was tiring and when we returned to the hard shore our exhaustion was great and we slept through the afternoon, a rest that would have grievous consequences on the nights sleep.

We met Hayley’s parents and found that Hayley's Father and Colin are two men cut from the same cloth. They are both thrilled by anything that is man-made and fast and preferably more than a little dangerous and they love hashing out tiny details.

We drove about Dorset countryside alot today, a most beautiful country. On our trips we passed the Maiden Castle, a native hill fort conquered by the Romans which I would dearly love to explore but for which we did not have time. We did, however, manage to stop at the giant of Cerne Abbas, a great chalk figure carved out of the turf on a hillside, outlined in white. He was well muscles and brandished a club and no one could say his true age. He also sports an enormous phallus, which made him the butt of many jokes but also a fertility symbol of some power and, we were told, was usually populated at night by great herds of beasts with two backs.
We had the strange and slightly surreal experience this evening of watching what was deemed an important football match between England and Germany. Given the energies involved, and the intense emotion, I can only be glad that the two formally warring powers have chosen sport as the ground for their future conflicts.

Next Entry: Day 27
Previous Entry: Day 25. Dorset Steam Fair

Day 25. Dorset Steam Fair August 31 2001

I imagine that, if there is a hell, it strongly resembles the Dorset Steam Fair. Great monstrous engines painted in garish colours billow foul smelling black smoke that hugs the ground.

Enormous steam organs all in competition with one another to create a a cacophony of deafening noise playing . Mud and hay and flint trampled underfoot while overhead threatening storm clouds rolls.

We wandered, until exhausted, past booth after booth at the massive outdoor fleamarket that accompanied the fair, never finding anything to buy but astonished by the array of goods for sale.

  The midway was great, a place where we could glory in the basest delights of a carnival. A strange mixture of flashing lights, pulsating music and blatantly erotic images made the fairgrounds pure mischievous fun to walk along, commenting on a twenty foot tall paintings of women slipping off their clothes or munching fistfuls of popcorn and cotton candy.

It truly is at night that humanity is at its best. All that is ugly is hidden by the dark and a million lights in a hundred colours transform an ordinary paddock into a fairyland of glimmers and flickers where everything has wings.
This evening we sent messages home in a massive missive to friends and family only to discover that the computers, because we were sending it to so many people, have interpreted our messages as junk mail and filed them away in everyones trash.

Tomorrow is Andrew and Angela’s wedding and Heather is regretting missing her brother’s big day. In fact I think we are both missing the people we left behind tonight. We are tired after the lights and the music and ready for bed.

Who would have known steam tractors had such a following?

Next Entry: Day 26. The Sea
Previous Entry: Gravity Works. Letter Home

Gravity Works. First Letter Home

Hello everyone

Wow! What a week or so it has been. The Brave Traveller (in case you have forgotten, that means Heather) and the Fearful Voyager (Brendan) have had an amazing time biking across the wild reaches of Eastern Wales and Western England. Where to begin the strange tales of all that we have seen and done? I suppose I should start at the very beginning, it is the very best place to start. (Apologies to Julie Andrews)

We left the comforting shores of Parkgate Farmhouse one sunny morning, after being stuffed to the gills with a good solid English breakfast. We set out strongly and confidently; ready to face anything England could throw at us. We biked down the short hill to Picklescott, the nearest town, turned right and stopped. Ahead of us was the Long Mynd, a great big hill that no amount of confidence could carry us over easily. So we got off our bikes and pushed, and pushed, and pushed. The Long Mynd is not called “Long” because it sounded cool. Panting and sweating we pushed our bikes to the summit, looked back across at the amazing view, hopped on our bikes and rode them down like mad people, thrilling to be moving without exertion. Only to hit the bottom of the other side and…push. Yes there was another hill, there is always another hill. In our time here we have begun to truly understand the mechanics of hill and to understand what gravity really and truly feels like.

When we hit the bottom of the second hill we had hit the town of Clun and that was were we stayed. We found the youth hostel, a quaint converted mill that we had almost exclusively to ourselves. The Hoof and Mouth disease, while terrible for the economy of Britain, was a boon to us that night. We went to bed proud of achieving our goal and once more confident that we could face the morning. Morning dawned, sort of, through a thick veil of misty rain. We bundled up in raincoats so hot that we were soon soaked with sweat anyway, got our bikes out of the closet where they had been stored and biked up to Clun Castle. It was a beautiful ruin, rising majestically along the Welsh frontiers, but it was a little hard to enjoy half drenched and looking up at the hills surrounding us knowing that we had to bike over them. We took a deep breath, got on our bikes, rode to the edge of town, got off and pushed, and pushed, and…

Two more hills, and one tenth the distance we had intended, we stopped again, this time in the town of Knighton. Here we prepared to bike on King Offa’s Dyke. Here we discovered that what the British mean by “Bikable” is “Yes you can take your bike on it, you’re bloody crazy, but you can.”


We did not bike on Offa’s Dyke. Instead we found out that the hostel, every bed and breakfast and all the campgrounds in Knighton had been closed down because of lack of tourists, that night hoof and mouth did not serve us well. Too tired to do anything else we caved in and got a hotel room for the night. Despite the pain of being parted with more money than we wanted both of us greatly enjoyed watching British television to the wee hours of the morning. We also washed out our bike shirts and swore we would never let them get so stinky again (ha ha ha ha ha).

From Knighton we went to Kington, a fairly easy ride, from Kington to Vowchurch, the worst day yet. The Fearful Voyager, feeling a little less fearful and remembering that he was supposed to be a historian ventured to suggest that since there was a landmark called Arthur’s Stone near a campground we should head that way. So off we confidently biked (We hadn’t yet learned that confidence is a really bad way to begin) and travelled down the Wye river Valley. We got to the place where our campground was supposed to be, only to find a hill. “Well” we confidently (see, bad plan already) said to ourselves “its only a hill.” So up we went and up and up and…well you get the idea. Once we reached halfway point, after being chased by the dogs, we thought to ask and we found to our delight (that is sarcasm by the way) that not only was there no campground, there never had been a campground nor were there any plans for one in the future. “Well” said the Fearful Voyager, feeling fear returning but still having a little confidence “There is still Arthur’s stone.” So, the Brave Traveller in agreement, they went up and up and up, three or fours miles up a 25% grade they went up, only to find themselves no where near Arthur’s anything and no place to stay for the night. They biked around for another hour in desultory fashion, before giving up completely, biking off for the night and running smack into…Arthur’s stone. All I can say about this national monument is; only go in a car.
The Fearful Traveller now keeps his suggestions to himself. However we did complete that day by biking to the best campground we have seen and the farthest days travel we have yet put in.

We travelled to Monmouth after Vowchurch, along the way accidentally discovering Dore Abbey, a beautiful, though decaying, abbey that once dominated the entire Golden valley. Once in Monmouth we decided that here was a good time for a day off and we explored the small riverside town that was once the home of Geoffrey, the medieval monk who first wrote down the legends of King Arthur. Monmouth was very interesting. We toured first their church, which was very well maintained and full of brilliant examples of ironwork and carving. Then we explored the Nelson Museum. For those who don’t know Lord Admiral Nelson once saved England from the French and has never been forgotten. In fact this museum was more religious shrine than anything else and went a little overboard with their carvings of “the apotheosis of Nelson.”

Finally we visited the regimental museum were a slightly more realistic impression of war was presented. Both BT and FV were impressed with the description of the people of Monmouth during the Civil War “They supported both side so long as they were left alone.”

From Monmouth we went up (Yes, up once more) to the small town of St Briavels, where we spent our second night in a hostel. This time the hostel was a converted castle. The old rooms had been left intact and the Fearful Voyager got the experience of spending the night (fearfully) in the Hanging Room, where prisoners were executed (no ghosts, only snores). It was amazing to see what castles were like before the plaster left the walls and they became merely stone ruins. The Brave Traveller was very put out with having to share a room with ten or so snoring teenage girls and the Fearful Voyager missed his Brave Traveller so they resolved to avoid hostels in the future, besides they cost about ten times a campground.

After St. Briavels we bike down (WOHOO DOWN!!) into the Wye Valley beside the forest of Dean. Here we ran into, no not literally, Tintern Abbey. What an unbelievable place. To stand on a green lawn surrounded by a forest of stone columns and look at open blue sky. To look up columns larger round than two people can stretch their arms and see them holding up… nothing. That is something of what we saw at Tintern. The Brave Traveller found the experience almost spiritual while the Fearful Voyager, noting that the founders of the massively ornate place had broken away from the mainstream church in search of simplicity, saw a monument to hypocrisy in stone. Either way a good place to stop. We ended that day by coasting into the town of Portskewett (say it aloud, it sounds as funny as it spells) and we rested looking out to the massive bridges we had to cross.

The next day we headed into Bristol, crossing the mouth of the Severn on an enormous bridge that thankfully had its own lane for cyclists. The ride into Bristol was long and arduous, up the Avon Valley, and we discovered that the youth here simply love to cover cliff faces in grafitti. Then, after stopping for some good English food in the form of Kentucky Fried Chicken, we proceeded to get absolutely and totally lost.
Bristol was an ugly horrible city that squatted on the countryside like a cancerous blemish and we could not wait to get out it. We biked up the fetid New Cut of the Avon River and, absolutely against our will we found ourselves in the garishly overdone downtown core. With some direction from the tourist agency we found our way, through a slum of a neighbourhood, to our campground. We set up our tent, cleaned ourselves off and discovered…Bristol wasn’t that bad. In fact it was quite a nice city. It is amazing what knowing where you are staying can do to a bad attitude. In fact we discovered that our campground was right along the “Floating Harbour” that made up the center of Bristol and we ate our lunch on the beautiful quayside. In a short walk from our site was the industrial museum, with many displays on the quay side, an old revolving bridge, the trendy student section of town, the beautiful water sculptures erected for the millennium celebrations, free email (with terrible keyboards) in fact everything that would make any budget traveller visit amazing, thus producing our only regret for the trip, that we didn’t stay in Bristol longer.

From the unholiday centre of Bristol where we were delighted, we travelled to the holiday center of Bath where we were not. Bath is a city well aware of its reputation as a holiday town for the rich and it was the only place we found that there was a charge for maps to the campgrounds and B&B’s. Bath is a town dedicated to money and its tourist attractions are things such as the museum of Costume, displaying the extravagances of upper classes for five hundred years (men will be interested to note that the entire display of male costumes for the time was a single wall). The Brave Traveller loved this part, the Fearful Voyage would rather die than return. Bath would not have been so bad if the facades were maintained but there was an air of “let it be” so that despite its Corinthian columns and intricate carvings the wealthy face of Bath looked like nothing more than an industrial city.
However the Fearful Voyager did find some joy in the Bath complex itself. Here was the place the tourist industry shined. Reconstructions of Roman temples and actually facades lined the walls. Here the historian could actually reach out and touch history, walking where Roman legions and Roman prostitu…I mean Roman matrons, had walked thousands of years past. Everything from a beautifully carved Gorgons head that had once graced the temple to Minerva, to gravestones and more than 12 000 coins from all the eras the baths were in operation. The BT and FV even “took the waters” and drank from the ancient spring (disgusting with a bouquet of sulphur and a fine earthy texture).

From our day in the main tourists venues of Bath we next travelled to the seedy underbelly, the canals that had once served the industrial trade. If you ever decide to bike England bike the canals. Here Bath was redeemed and we spent the day on beautifully even surfaces, passing ornately decorate longboats and the most amazing backyards in the world. (O.K. I haven’t seen every backyard in the world).

After the Canals we biked to the ancient castle of Farleigh Hungerford, where we listened with disgust and fascination to the tales of the Hungerford family, who had burned each other to death, locked their wives in isolation for many years and done all the things a healthy noble family does.
But by this time we were ready for a nice warm bed and we pedalled with great enthusiasm to Colin and Hayley Orman’s house at Rolls Mills where we were warmly received and given the bed we longed for, only to find that we didn’t quite feel at home in a warm comfy bed any more. I kept tensing up all night, thinking the hard ground beneath me was collapsing.

Colin and Hayley took us out for dinner, travelling in 45 minutes what would take us two days to bike, and we discovered to our shock that cars now terrify both of us. I was dizzy and spent the whole ride clutching at the panic bars (or was it merely Colins driving?) It has only been a week away from cars, what shape will we be in a year from now? We have also had the first opportunity to see our wedding photos, and we would recommend Gordon Hunter for any such occasions even if he was not our father. We also have the opportunity to watch the wedding video of events at Parkgate and the Brave Traveller is doing so even as I write. I am too fearful to watch; I know how I look on video!

We are enjoying our trip immensely but we find we miss everyone far more than expected. We hope to see you soon (meet us in Italy) and look forward to sharing more of our adventures with you all. We hope to write before we leave Rolls Mills Farmhouse so until next time…

With lots of love
Brendan (The Fearful Voyager) and Heather (The Brave Traveller)

Next Entry: Day 25. Dorset Steam Fair
Previous Entry: Day 24. Sturminster Newton

Day 23. Frome. August 29 2001

Where is Frome, you ask? It is on our path and it has a campground, beyond that you don't need to know.

It has been a very slow day today, with only one stop for sightseeing.

We woke to a veil of mist rising from the mill stream behind our campsite. It was surreal. Like waking from dream into dream. The buildings, only a few tens of feet away, were shadowy ghosts floating on the morning clouds. So unreal was it that I drifted between sleep and consciousness without being aware of the threshold. When finally I woke for good the sun had burned off the fog, leaving only a layer of very real water to coat the inside of our tent. The pages on which I write have become larger and as soft as tissue with a surfeit of water. I will have to take care.

When finally we were able to leave we biked, not far at all, to the castle of Farleigh Hungerford, a picturesque ruin with a history, though not one as strange as the brochure would have you believe.

 

The castle was not a true military fortification but one that had been fortified because it was the fashion of the times. The ruins were impressive but the history here was in the inhabitants. One place that was starkley disturbing was the crypts, where some 4 men 2 women and two babies had been interred. At their deaths they had been encased in form fitting featureless metal casks then entombed. The tombs having long ago disappeared the casks were all that remain, silent faceless containers of death that lay most eerily.

The other sites of interest were the towers, were a wife of the Hungerford family had been locked away in isolation for four years and the gatehouse which from outside was marvelously preserved and looked ready to receive noble visitors. Unfortunately we had missed by only a few days a great medieval tournament.

From Hungerford we biked to Frome, a short but very torturous journey. All together we have covered less than a tenth of what I was hoping to cover in the last two days. Nor have I been able to shower. The last place had only cold water and in Bath I was too tired. I will admit that this great traveler is looking very forward to a bath and rest.

Next Entry: Day 24. Sturminster Newton
Previous Entry: Day 22. The Seedy Underbelly of Bath

Day 22. The Seedy Underbelly of Bath. August 28th 2010

We spent most of today cycling through the byways of Bath, far outside the tourist zone. If only the public face was as beautiful!

We began in less than lucky fashion and continued in that vein for the rest of the day. We woke from our sleep to the sounds of a familial dispute several tents down. Then, after we began, we were stopped by a ring on Heather's bike breaking down. Fortunately the accident occurred just opposite a bike shop. Actually that’s more than a little suspicious...

Tired already, having hardly gone anywhere, we decided to lunch beside the locks of Bath. Enthralled by the raising and lowering of the boats we decided to take a chance and follow the canals as far as we could. Possibly the best choice we could have made, thought it didn’t take us far, mileage wise. The canals were great. It was such a calm and simple way to travel that it hardly felt like traveling at all. The houses that backed onto the canal, though as plain as the rest of Bath from the front, had taken great pains to beautify their backyards and we passed waterfalls, elaborate stonework and great arches over splendid gardens. There were swans and ducks filling the water and canal boats of vivid colours lining the quays. Even as we left the city the beauty did not stop, instead becoming more tranquil and pastoral. It was wonderful not to have to fight traffic and instead drift along at a leisurely pace that almost matched the boats. But it was not to last.

Eventually we came to a place were the path ended and our poor luck picked up once more. We were told, by a map and a friendly biker, to make our way up a steep hill where we would find a footpath that eventually led back to the canal. The guide, and the map, proved to be wrong. We spent an hour following a path that slowly dwindled to nothing, with no sign of the Canal or another path anywhere. We were forced to double back, where we found that there was small tunnel beneath the canal to a well-defined path on the other side. We biked the last portion of the trail in exhaustion. The canal, while still pretty, had lost its charms and we turned off it at Bradford upon Avon and headed wearily towards our campsite, a small colony of artists between towns. We stopped only to watch the spectacle of a burning barn.

I hope our luck will be better tomorrow.

Next Entry: Day 23. Frome
Previous Entry: Day 21. Bath

Day 21. Bath Once More August 27 2001

You become very aware as you walk the streets of Bath that this is a city for the rich. Everything here screams it, from the massively overdone colonnades and the unhealthy dwelling on the days of Jane Austin and grand galas. The poor and middle class who inhabit the city are merely there to fill in the blank spaces.

We began our tour with a stop at the Museum of Costume, a museum that shows fashions through the ages. Women’s costume I should mention. Men are mentioned at one corridor where a brief glance takes in more than three hundred years of upper class clothing. And that is the way that it should be.

From the costume museum we meandered through the city’s famous landmarks, hearing and reading the name "Beau" Nash thrown about as though anything not approved by the long dead gentleman was too déclassé for words. We toured the assembly rooms where debutants came out and money was thrown about like confetti.

We saw the famous circus and the royal crescent and were less, as I said yesterday, than impressed.

It wasn’t that I object to lavish architecture or to the spending of money, if you’ve got it flaunt it, but what struck me about these places, with the exception of the assembly rooms, was how plain and industrial it all looked. Every column, every apartment seemed stamped from the same mould. Should I ever become rich, god willing, I would like something a little less factory issue. The one outstanding building was the Abbey, a beautiful place with a flavour all it's own.

From our wanderings, and after a brief respite at a fast food restaurant to remind us of home, we traveled to the bath, itself. Here Bath really shines.

At times we truly stepped back to a time when the bath was a mystic centre of power. When we stared into the outflow of water under its arch, in the blast of heat and the red minerals, it is like you are looking into the mouth of hell.

The awe of the Romans and the pagan Celts is palpable.

It becomes shocking to see the decadent use the 18th and 19th centuries put the waters too. All that was holy died as the rich bathed their ills.

We did, as all must, sample waters from the sumptuous fountains in the Pump Room and then retired to our tent, bellies rumbling discontentedly.

Next Entry: The Seedy Underbelly of Bath
Previous Entry: Day 20. Bath

Day 19. Bristol August 25 2001

I had expected today to be a day of pure biking, there was nothing I wanted to see between Chepstow and Bath. Instead it turned into a day of half and half. We left Chepstow late, almost at noon, and crossed the Severn River Bridge.

We didn't feel we could make it all the way to Bath in a single day so we traveled up the Avon River Gorge to a marked camping site. We couldn't find the site and asking directions only got us even more lost. We biked up the New Cut Avon, a disgusting mud slurry, thought some very underprivileged neighborhoods. Somehow we found ourselves in downtown Bristol and angry with the horrible posted directions. The tourist information office pointed us in the right direction and we finally found a secluded, though expensive, campsite.

We walked along the river front and to our surprise, once our frustration had passed, Bristol was revealed as a stunning city. We ate just outside our camp, sitting along the river Avon and watching the boats. Then we walked along the quayside towards downtown. All along the quay were boats of every shape and description, from a boat that was a refuge for old hippies to sculling boats and canal boats. We passed in front of the industrial museum; gawking like the tourists we were at the great electric and steam cranes. We walked along the cobblestones in front of the youth hostel and straight into modern Bristol.

Bristol had attacked the millennial celebration with a vengeance and their bronze fountains and great mirrored sphere were strangely beautiful surrounded by gothic churches and 18th century docks.


From the millennia center we walked up to the cathedral were all of Bristol’s youth hung out in the evening.
The cathedral was unfortunately closed but we got our walks worth by walking along the front of the council building then down to the waterfront once more. Along the way we passed three bachelor parties, a bachelorette and quite a few notices announcing pending nuptials. It seemed that in 2001 all of Bristol was in love and it was nice to be surrounded by it.

The people at the campsite next to us were very friendly and chatted with us until it was dark. Heathers charm is still in full force. It seems everyone we encounter and speak to for a few moments feels compelled to share their entire life stories.

All in all I am more than pleasantly surprised by the city of Bristol. I had expected it to be a harsh and industrial stop on our journey, a place to rest out heads and bodies and nothing more. Instead we find a place that we would like to spend more time. But I am looking forward to the resort town of Bath, despite the holiday, and if Bristol is good then how great will Bath be?

Next Entry: Day 20. Bath
Previous Entry: Day 18. Chepstow