Prevailing Winds

It’s been quiet here as I’ve been on a cycling holiday, staying a few days in Saffron Walden in North Essex with a friend, then heading north through Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire, ending up at Hull.  I had thought that by going south to north I would be helped by the prevailing south west wind, but the wind turned north east, which meant going head to head with it through the flat, treeless, unhedged farms of Lincolnshire, or being side-swiped along embankments above wide deep drains.  I’m used to a hilly landscape so this was novel - very fertile, and also very dry.  The skies were astonishingly blue and cloudless and sunny and the local news was full of the drought and fire warnings and the disaster this dry spring has been for crops.

I’m not going to do a travelogue, so here are some highlights:-

Pretty rolling countryside around Saffron Walden.  There’s a fine-meshed network of little roads and lanes in this area near Stansted Airport, and agreeable villages with English names like Starling Green, Little Green, Cutlers Green or Ugley Green.  The cow parsley,  hawthorn and horse chestnut and bluebells were blooming, and houses were hung with bunting and Union Jacks marking the Royal Wedding in cheerful patriotism (as compared to BNP style resentful nationalism).   Not many tourists - my friend who lives here says they land at Stansted Airport and head to London, so it’s nothing like as busy as the Cotswolds. 

On May Day we went to a village which was celebrating with  children dancing round a maypole, hula hooping, line dancing, belly dancing and a dogs’ obstacle course, which the dogs, ranging in size from King Charles spaniel to mastiff, couldn’t see the point of at all.  They barged through the hurdles or left the track altogether, and wouldn’t go through a nylon tunnel unless pushed in at one side and hauled at the other by their owners.  We sat in the sun drinking beer and eating burgers or home made cake and enjoyed the do, which was evidently organised by the lively village pub.  The barman played the concertina for the maypole dancing. 

 

The women’s toilet had a suffragette theme. 

Heading north of Cambridge I got on to Lode’s Way.  This is a brand new route - opened September 2010 - that takes you through the fens and round and over the great drains.  Very dramatic and wide-skied and watery. 

A long route - 70 miles - from Ely to Boston.  The National Cycle Network 1, in order to avoid the busy A roads, goes back and forth through this endless flat country.  A line of hedges in the distance seems like an oasis, a clump of trees - poplars mostly - like civilisation. I found it an exhausting push in the blasting north east wind, taking ages, fearing as my shadow got bigger and wobblier that I’d still be cycling in the dark.  But I got to Boston just before twilight and stayed there the next day to recover - no hardship as Boston is an interesting market town with a good church and heritage centre.

Boston to Lincoln - the genteelest thirty three odd miles of cycling path you ever saw, called the Water Rail, part old railway route and part road beside the River Witham.  It’s quite new, and is full of boards telling  you the local history of the river folk who once depended on ferries and barges.  There is also outdoor sculpture, which on cycle routes in my experience is usually big abstract things or huge pieces of disused industrial machinery.   Here they went in for representative so you get sheep and cows made out of old metal or a big wooden pike or pigs, which were attractive and fun. 

Also, by then the wind had turned south so I was blown along northwards under cloudy skies.

North of Lincoln it starts getting hilly again.  I went over the grand Humber Bridge and ended up at Hull, where I did a bit of the Philip Larkin trail.  He lived by Pearson Park for most of his time there, a Victorian park, with statues of worthies, strolling areas by flower beds and big playing fields.  Hull has plenty of cycle stands and is flat - Larkin himself used to cycle a lot there.  I’ve been reading his Letters to Monica and though no-one made mountains out of molehills more than he- the thought of looking for somewhere to live would hang over him like a trial for murder, and he announced his efforts at cooking like he had discovered DNA - he never made a fuss about getting a puncture or breaking down.   Perhaps he was lucky?  However, the sense I had of the city is that the centre is very hemmed in by ring roads and busy arterial roads.  I constantly found myself among fast moving traffic.  

Modern times

I went out one day to Holderness, the peninsula east of Hull along the Humber estuary, to Spurn where the houses are disappearing into the sea.  The roads out there are fairly quiet so I returned on the A1033. Approaching Hull, the A1033 turns into a motorway but there is a good cycle and walkway beside it.  I had just got on to that after cycling 68 miles and was looking forward to getting back to the city and eating fish and chips, when I let out a yell as I was suddenly thrown sideways, landing in a hedge.  I got to my feet and examined the cycle.  The seat post had sheared straight off, leaving a raw sharp stump of metal.  I was not seriously hurt, only mightily bruised on the leg that took the impact, but the bike was unridable, at least not by me since I can‘t ride standing up. 

However I was, as they say, lucky - I hadn’t been going fast downhill in traffic, hadn’t had an artery cut by the post or been impaled on it and only had a five mile walk beside a dual carriageway to get back to Hull.  So I started pushing the bike on this unprepossessing journey, past flyovers and endless terminals and docks with occasional sights of the origami tower - well I called it “Hull Cathedral” but it seems it’s “Holy Trinity Church”.  I got to the Hull railway station where a taxi took me and the cycle back to where I was staying.  I was near the end of my holiday, saddle sore and sick of cycling and although I could have got the bike repaired and carried on further north, I caught a train the next morning back to Edinburgh.  How many of my trips have ended with me pushing my damaged cycle out of Waverley Station to the cycle shop to get fixed and a new collection of bruises.

The following day I took the cycle to be repaired.  This kind of accident does happen, I was told, but with this new improved seat post with its better fitting to the seat (highly padded) it shouldn’t happen again.  Really, England is a fine place for cycling - you’re never too far from a pub, a guest house and a railway station.

Comments

[Flesh]

Nice! This is intriguing. I tend to stay off bikes, confirmed pedestrian. But having walked the Essex Way (I live in Essex) I've come to find the East too flat to walk - you can see so far in every direction that the mystery goes out of it. It's possible to feel quite trapped, even. Maybe speed would help... The fens by bike might be fantastic.

Here's my last walking/camping thing:
http://fleshisgrass.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/south-west-coast-path-burton-bradstock-to-dartmouth/

PS I don't like the Cotswolds much. Prefer stuff that goes up to stuff that goes down. Yorkshire Dales excepted, I guess. Oh I'm just talking bollocks...

[Rosie]

I had already read your account of your coastal path walk, which looked great. I've seen a bit of that coast on a cycle trip in Dorset once - a most beautiful cycle with steep climbs to ridges and then long cycles along the ridges, and, of course, that beautiful coast and lovely villages.

I must say I can't imagine walking in places like the Fens and Lincolnshire. It is so flat and seems endless. For cycling I prefer rolling country - Dumfries and Galloway is perfect, with a mixture of woods, river valleys and coast.

I won't camp any more though. I have done it, but it doubles the load on the bike.

[I love Denmark]

Love the pictures, especially the ones of the cat in the toilet. I have had many adventures on my biking holidays, most recently I have taken the kids on a biking holiday. My youngest goes in a trailer at the back of my bike, and my oldest child is a real good rider now, so manages to keep up with me and his dad. Biking gives an amazing sense of freedom and should not be under estimated.

[denmark cycling]

It is unbelievable to think that there are so many nice roads to cycle around in the area surrounding Stansted Airport. The photos are fantastic, love the ones with the Union Jack flag on.

[Jeff's (Cheap mountain bikes) Maxis]

Beautiful pictures, North Essex seems very quiet, never been there. What is it like?