Travellers’ tales: Side to side across the UK by bike
Ness Point, Lowestoft, is the most easterly point in the British Isles. It’s only 110 miles from the Hague in the Netherlands but 310 by lanes and cycle tracks from Cardiff. That was where we, a dozen members of Cardiff-based Spokes CTC, were headed.
Our route followed the verdant Waveney Valley through Suffolk to Bury St Edmunds, then over the rolling downs to Newmarket and Cambridge. We followed the floodplain of the Great Ouse to Bedford, then crossed over the M1 to discover the dystopian future in Milton Keynes.
From there, we cycled to the dreaming spires of Oxford and up the Thames Valley, almost to its source in the Cotswolds. Finally we plummeted into the Severn Valley and crossed the old Severn Bridge back to South Wales.
Six days of cycling meant a leisurely pace and pleasant impromptu coffee and lunch stops in the many lovely villages and towns along the way. We saw little traffic, apart from in major towns.
We were only held up by marvelling at the medieval wool churches in East Anglia, by the strings of thoroughbred racehorses crossing our path near Newmarket Heath, and by the GPS-guided delivery pods trundling around Milton Keynes like obedient dogs.
Our route crossed 12 OS Landranger maps and could have been extended to St David’s Head. But with several septuagenarians and one octogenarian in the party, all on ‘analogue’ bikes, we decided that our side-to-side ride had gone far enough.
A tale to tell
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