416 Miles / 670km
Wow. What a day. Today I was ready to quit.
Well the morning started out fantastic! I got up early but with out needing to leave straight away. Updated my blog for the past two days and finally replied to some messages. This morning was a nice chilled relaxed morning where I didn’t have to shoot off so early from the place I was couch surfing.
Carol, one of my hosts, made a (great) British fry up this morning… i cant think of a better way to start a Sunday. Yep… bacon, sausage, eggs, tomatoes, fried bread and black pudding yum! I was full and (not really) ready to get back on the bike for what I thought was going to be a nice ride, less miles, and easy roads and kind weather……
“Kind weather”…. no such bloody thing here in the UK. More on that in a sec.
This morning I left Gobowen around 9am. And headed to the Aqueducts! A cycle path took me alongside the canal and over the first aqueduct where Tony had driven to catch up to me and take some cool photos of me on aqueduct (they’ll follow soon) I then came up to ride by the train station before hitting the canal cycle path again and riding alongside many canalboats and tons of dog walkers…. ahh Sundays! A few miles up the canal I come to a huge Aqueduct… The Pontcysyllte Aqueduct. I was pretty skeptical about riding alongside such a narrow path, with the canal to the left (also super narrow) boats coming down and then the thought of a sheer drop the other side. The most dodgy path Ive been on but thankful for no winds making it a fun pass over! And thanks for the one bit of still winds and clear-ish skies!!
Now for the dreaded afternoon. After the Aqueducts I followed the canal path toward Llangollen which was beautiful. I came up at Llangollen to hit the town briefly and stock up on snacks for the day and then hit the A5 for the rest of the ride!
I debated staying in the town and grabbing a cup of tea because the weather looked like it was bout to turn, but decided to push on as I was planning on taking it slower today and didn’t want to have to rush later on in the day. 10 minutes down the road and BAM… hailstones. And then wind. wind. wind. lots of wind. I was cycling into the wind for the next 40 miles along the A5! The rain came and went and came and went. I was soaked, I was dry, I was cold, I was sweating. I was not having a good time. The wind in my face constantly was testing me, and with a few explicit shouts into the wind to make my feelings clear on how I felt about it I was fighting the urge to just pull over say fuck it and google the nearest train station. But that would have been the easy route, and I’m just day 6 into this and its just some wind… hmmmm. I kept going anyway – cursing into the wind, and can honestly say this was worse than day 3 where all I had was rain. This tested me mentally. Physically I was feeling surprisingly good. But when you are peddling to go down hill… YES DOWNHILL… that is the most depressing feeling. There were times when I got off my bike to walk down hill because it was quicker. And I forgot to mention my bearings on my peddles have messed up. Ive got a constant cranking noise coming from the bike… and it sounds like its gonna break. Its Sunday I’m never gonna find a bike shop open so I’m hoping to push through till Conwy on Monday!
…and then theres a RAINBOW! 🙂
I get to Betws-Y-Coed, Ive done most of what should have been the easiest part of the route today. I knew from my map that from here to Pen-Y-Pass I was looking at a 10 mile mostly uphill ride to the hostel. I’m absolutely mentally drained at this point. The rain is back and the wind is still right in front of me. I’ve hit Snowdonia National Park and Im heading for a few more miles down the A5 before I hit the A4086 towards Pen-Y-Pass! The ride is surprisingly okay, I think having the 10 mile countdown always gives me that extra bit of energy. It took me a good 1.5 hours to do the last stretch but I make it the pub (which was my marker for my turn off) – also a pub I hoped Id reach hours sooner and could have actually eaten and drank beer there (Theres some cool history involving the first Everest Expedition hikers mapping out their routes in this very pub) more on that tomorrow! At the pub I knew it was 1.1 miles left. I mostly walked this stretch, as you can see from the map above it was quite the incline! my watch died on me as I was checking into my hostel. Happy to be warm, and in one piece and have a bed for the night! The weather is wet and gross for tomorrow but I’ll be hiking up Mount Snowdon tomorrow anyway!
Glad today is done. Tomorrow is another day.
Good Night
