Yesterday we noticed that there is a Sainsbury's "Local" just along the road from our hotel, so we pop in there to buy our picnic lunch, before making our way out of Droitwich. We haven't seen much of Droitwich really, even though we had a rest day yesterday, as that was taken up with travelling by bus to Worcester to get the washing done (no launderette in Droitwich), and sleeping!
We start off cycling on country roads, every now and again stopping to take a photo. When we've been cycling for some time I spot a sign for an historic monument, Hartlebury Castle and museum. It isn't the castle that interests me, however. It's the big sign for the free-entry cafe!
We cycle down a long tree-lined drive and come to the main buildings. It's quite hard to find the cafe - Reg goes off in search of it, because now that we're here, we're not going anywhere until we've had some refreshments.
The man in the cafe is probably in his late 30's. I comment that everything seems newly painted and fresh. He explains that "we" (him and his wife perhaps) only took over the business a few weeks ago.
The cappuccino is really really good and they have green tea for Reg. There is a delicious looking chocolate cake on the counter. I don't know why I order it, because I don't need it, as we had a cooked breakfast at our hotel in Droitwich, It serves me right that the chocolate sponge is actually a bit disappointing.
Most of today is on beautiful canal paths and an old railway line. This should have been a real pleasure, and we do enjoy the beautiful scenery, but the drawback is that you cannot cycle very fast along canal paths. The surface overall is quite good today, but you still have to take great care, and there are other canal path users to consider,, mainly cyclists and dog walkers, and the occasional narrowboat user soaking up a bit of sun.
Every so often our path goes under one of the bridges that span the canal. I have to get off my bike and walk underneath these bridges, because of the rounded, low, bridge arch, and the proximity of the water to the path. Sometimes we have to go up and over the side of the bridge, which means walking up an extremely steep slope (usually too steep to ride up) with our heavily-laden bikes.
There are also C-shaped "bike gates" every now and again, I guess to ensure that motorbikes don't come whizzing along the canal. It's not easy to get through these special gates with our pannier laden bikes. The result of all this is that our journey today takes much longer than we anticipated, although we have already learned that canal cycling means slower speeds.
We stop for lunch by the canal; it is so peaceful. There's a great temptation to have a nap, but it might be hard to get going again! We press on, and finally in late afternoon we leave the canal path behind and are back on the road for a few miles. We spot a pub and stop for a break and a cold drink. It's starting to rain just a little.
We are due to leave the road and join an old railway path, but Reg's Garmin has decided to play up and won't show us the way. The Garmin has behaved brilliantly during the trip, up until this point. Luckily Reg has his Android Tablet as back up, and eventually we find the railway path. Any visions of it being similar to our wonderful Bristol to Bath railway track should be dismissed at this point. The surface we cycle on is extremely uneven, and muddy with stones embedded into the ground (bumpity, bumpity, bump!) with huge pools of water to cycle through every now and again,
Although it's still daylight it's very dark along the path as overhanging trees meet each other above us. The path has its own beauty, but it's actually quite treacherous it parts. We cycle as fast as we can as by this time in the afternoon we just want to get there. Also we hear thunder! We can tell it's raining, but very little falls on us because of the dense overhanging trees.
After several miles we reach the end of the path and realise the rain has become quite heavy.. We don our coats and I fiddle with my cycling overshoes. The Garmin is back on track and takes us past the Wolves Football Training Academy - quite an impressive building - and on to our Premier Inn in Wolverhampton.
The male receptionist is lovely and tells us to take our bikes into our room with us - luckily we're on the ground floor. He comes to help us by opening doors while we wheel in our bikes. It's 7.00 pm.
We are wet and tired - but the good news is that there's a restaurant next door. And the even better news is that there's a bath!
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