We enjoyed a nice breakfast with David and Peri, to be charged with energy for another long day with a lot of biking. Peri showed us her beautiful garden with passionflowers and red burning wine leaves, and we handed her our Saint James shell like an award for the best hosts.
David wanted to accompany us in the beginning as he likes to bike the sportive way. So for the first time Don Quichotte and Sancho Panza on the bikes became the three riding musketeers. The fun fact is, that although we were on our e-bikes, he always was way ahead of us because he was not charged as we were with all our luggage.
Within Bristol, through the suburbs and parks, we could still easily catch up with him, but once we were out of town he was going in his own speed. I tried to follow in his wind shadow to save battery, but by doing so we had lost Robert out of sight and I returned to the last intersection where he should have turned left, but he must have slipped through within his own slip stream. So I called him and he was already missing us. I biked towards him to guide him into the right direction.
We were getting closer to the river Severn, but on the first bridge named “Prince of Wales” metal horse riders like us bikers were not allowed. So we had to take the second Severn Bridge. The access from the southern side of the bridge was closed for bikes, but the northern ramp offered access to a bike and foot path. I gave David my GoPro to film us during this passage from England to Wales because we had no footage of us together on our bikes.
There was a mark on the bridge when we actually entered Wales. David crossed with us into Wales and we hoped to find a place to get some lunch, but we didn’t and he decided not to go any further into this strange Welsh biotope with us. So unfortunately we had to say goodbye and find something to eat by ourselves, which was more difficult than we thought at this time of the day. We tried hard to find something in Caldicot, but most places were closed and the one open had a long waiting time. We ended up at a Turkish Döner place.
We zig zagged our way through the chessboard of farming fields following the National Cycle Network Route Number 4 along the coast to reach Newport. The great symbol of this city is the Newport Transporter Bridge, which was unfortunately under renovation. It’s a listed structure, which was built as a steel construction with a gondola travelling from one river bank to the other in order not to hinder the high mast ships from getting into the river Usk.
We were on the Celtic Trail and landscape and light was just beautiful in the late afternoon sunshine, which passed through the patches of blue sky between the clouds on green fields and oak trees in autumn colours. Getting closer to Caerphilly we were back on an old railway track. But this time we didn’t know that we were trapped in it, because once you entered this National Cycle Network bike trail they wanted to make sure it stayed traffic free from any other rowdies trying to misuse this empty path with their motorbikes. Therefore they had constructed metal barriers in all kinds of shapes to hinder them from passing through. But they hadn’t counted with bikers with heavy bikes like us, who were charged with luggage and stable bikes nearly looking like motorbikes.
So here we were fighting to thread our bikes through these unnecessary needle eyes, which was sometimes nearly impossible. At the end we had to take off our front bags and make a back flipped wheely, trying not to break our mudguard, to lift the bikes over these obstacles. This we wanted immediately to add to the lady’s questionnaire about the National Cycle Networks, but those people are just not around when needed.
We reached the castle of Caerphilly in the twilight and beside this beautiful crenelations skyline against the last light at the horizon Robert discovered the statue of Tommy Cooper, who he remembered from his childhood on Dutch TV and who was born here.
From now on we had to drive through the dark night and we realized that those long summer days were over. Entering Pontypridd was quite difficult, because a very car friendly urban planning had made highway bridges reaching like octopus arms into the narrow valley, reaching out for their prominence in between the old medieval houses.
We were still able to check in on time at the Blueberry Hotel and unloaded our bikes with all the bags through a back door in a stairways, which was painted in black and immediately started right behind the door. Robert couldn’t see a special single step in the dark and fell over it with his hand full of luggage. He just fell so unfortunately on his wrist that it started bleeding immediately.
Knowing that Robert can’t see any blood I grabbed the first aid kit right away to cover it up as fast as possible. He turned pale anyway, but now he had this funny kids motive plaster, which was a gift from the singers at the Rotary handing-over ceremony of my presidency, bringing him a smile in his face after the first shock.
Therefore “The Tumble Inn” of Weatherspoon’s was the perfect name for us after our experience to be our dining place with a first fresh beer.
