Sunday 23 November 2014

Tuesday 9 September: day three – Mortenhampstead to Glastonbury

74 miles. 6:42 hours of cycling. Average speed 10.2mph. 

We helped ourselves to large quantities of bread, jam and tea in the Sparrowhawk kitchen and set off at about 8.20. Steep climbing straight away then a very nice rolling drop into Exeter where in warm sunshine we had coffee and croissants in the cathedral close. 

The climb on to the Blackdowns was very hard (I walked a bit of it) but to my surprise the hills were completely flat on the top – absolutely lovely cycling.
 
We dropped down to Corfe hoping to get lunch in the pub but were too late. We pressed on and eventually had a very poor lunch at the Nags Head Tavern overlooking the A358, the dual carriageway which links the A303 with the M5. 

We had to travel about 400 yards along the A358 and decided that we would not try to mix it with artics going at 60mph so we walked the grass verge as far as the Langport road. 

The ride through Langport to Glastonbury ought to have been completely flat given that it is on the levels but there were a few surprisingly hard climbs. 

We arrived at Glastonbury at about 7.00 and checked in to the Glastonbury Backpackers at the Crown Hotel. This is not a good place. Loud rock and roll in the bar, drunken landlord, not as clean as it should be and very cramped. We shared a tiny room with two Canadians of about the same age as us, one of whom stayed in bed for the entire time and was either suffering from too much travel or was stoned or both. He was certainly very spaced out. 

We had an unexciting curry for supper.

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