Day 10 - Uphill and Rainy

This morning started off promising in terms of the weather. We were able to sort the bikes out and pack off Lynn, Jaimie and the kids, and we set off on our 66 mile bike ride heading for breakfast in about 15-20 miles. Within 20 minutes the heavens opened and that lasted for pretty much the whole ride. Today was always going to be a fairly tough ride as we were heading into the hilly south and it didn't fail us - we hit a huge hill as soon as we started which really helped the old muscles warm, and all the way to breakfast we had some good(?) hills. After breakfast we headed for Bristol and again the hills did not fail us as we passed through Chepstow and headed towards the Severn Road Bridge. This was definitely a highlight of the trip, as just riding across the bridge and the views were amazing... really glad we got the chance to go across the bridge. We hit Bristol city centre, which seemed a very nice place and somewhere we would like to visit again, after asking a couple of people to point us in the right direction and out the other side of Bristol we had got through it and were heading towards lunch. Before I continue, it must be stated that the signposts in England are not as good as those in Scotland. This is really noticeable and doesn't help, as you end up stop/starting throughout the ride. The rain did stop as we passed through Bristol and the sun came out for a bit. We stopped at the Travellers Rest for a pub lunch; they had stopped serving but still gave us lunch to help us on our journey. The landlord also donated £20 to us. The support we are having and the donations have just continued throughout this journey which is fantastic. From here the support guys headed for campsite at Glastonbury as we did, however there were a number of huge climbs to tackle and then a wonderful descent into Wells which made the climbs almost worthwhile, and it did lift our spirits to push on to the campsite. We arrived at the campsite at about 5pm ish to the tents already being put up... which, after the ride and hills, was really really welcomed.. not forgetting the nice cuppa as well. The campsite (the Old Oaks touring park) was fantastic with excellent facilities and we would definitely recommend this to anyone. We went into Glastonbury for the evening and had great pizzas at Gigis - again definitely recommended. Damian (as usual) over ordering head on, but on this occasion the gannets finished it all off. We then went to the pub for a bit of rescue remedy, otherwise known as beer. (Dave keeps going on about him driving and drinking so I have pointed this out here). None of us had been to Glastonbury before and we all really liked the town and would like to head back there again. So all in all, a tough wet, muggy and hilly day - but we did it. We covered 66 miles in 5hrs 13 mins riding time at an average of 12.6. Tomorrow we will be very near to the landing spot of Lands End ... we will be in Devon at a place called Dolton. Apologies for the deay in the blog updates, but we are having problems with phone reception... pigeons are on order! See you tomorrow. The smiley milers.