I’m a Tourist – Get me out of Here!

Reducing one’s carbon footprint seems the fashionable thing to be doing this season. Reducing the amount of money one forks over to First Great Western railways is also an admirable endeavour. Here’s my contribution to both of these causes.

London to Bristol by bicycle.

It’s only about 100 miles as the crow flies, but considerably longer via the A4 and Kennett and Avon canal towpath. Departed Twickenham at 9.15am, arrived Bristol Temple Meads 8.25pm. The blue satnav recording shows the less than direct but reasonably cycle safe, route.

Extremely good progress to Reading, then 10 – 15 mph head winds all the way west to Devizes. I was somewhat glad to be able to drop down onto the canal, and out of the wind after a fairly hard slog.

The towpath from Devizes through to Bath was more mentally that physically tough; having to use the ‘force’ to pick out the path in pretty much pitch darkness (note to self – single LED head lights are rubbish).

The satnav recorded the moment when it all nearly went horribly wrong, with the towpath making a sharp break to the left. Lucky there was some run off before the edge of the canal:

The Bristol to Bath cycleway rates a mention. It has to be one of the best cycle facilities I’ve seen anywhere.

I’d been unable to locate it on the way in from Bath and found the A4 road route to be a real ball buster; up and down serious inclines all the way into Bristol. The cycleway however,follows the track bed of a derelict railway, so although it’s less direct, it takes the most gravity efficient path, complete with cuttings and a tunnel. It’s also tar sealed. Some real foresight went in there.

As always, it’s quite amazing what human body can do with a relatively small amount of fuel.
In fact, it seems to start working better 4 or 5 hours after you stop feeding it.

The best British place name seen on tour has to be Halfway. It’s sole claim to fame seems to be that it’s exacly halfway between Hungerford and Newbury. That’s almost as an orginal naming scheme as North and South Island.

Above – Halfway, Silbury Hill, Dusk from the summit of Caen flight; Kennett and Avon canal.

Expanding Twickenham Rowing Club’s known world, we paddled a double up to Guildford and back this weekend.

The route took in the Thames to Sheperton and the previously unexplored Wey River Navigations to Guildford.
Allowing for a few wrong turns and an ice cream stop, that’s 52 miles in 18 hours over the two days.

The Wey Navigations are a canal; normally the preserve of narrow boats and definitely not the natural habitat of racing boats.

Discovering the intricacies of steering a boat designed to go fast in a straight line through the tight bends of a canal was somewhat interesting. There’s about 2 meters clearance on each side, if you’re lucky, with plenty of tight squeezes and hairpin corners. The boat seems to have a magnetic like attraction to the reeds.

The story behind the River Wey is worth mentioning. The navigation is over 350 years old and was one of the first canal projects in England.

Back in the 1960’s the whole navigation was donated to The National Trust. The Trust are a charity; they’re also very nice people who let us park our boat at their offices in Guildford. In fact, we met alot of nice people on this trip; even the Fosters drinking youths loitering around Weybridge Town Lock who helped us with the lock doors.

The locks on the Wey are oak doored, hand operated affairs; true to the seventeenth century design. To control the water, you use a very clunky looking steel lock handle; it’s the sort of thing you probably wouldn’t be allowed to carry around on the street in London. Opening and closing the gates requires good old fashioned elbow grease. Lifting the gates and dumping several dozen tons of water is actually quite satistifying for some reason.

The times on the first and second days were remarkably close, with the guys claiming a narrow vistory over the girls (although there was mention of the guy’s leg been downhill). The break-neck average speed of 2.9mph was safely under the canal’s 4mph limit.

Distance above Teddington Time Girls Boys
Dapdune Railway Bridge 24.93 17:35 10:58
Stoke Lock No 5 23.43
Bower’s Lock No 6 22.23 16:20 12:00
Triggs Lock No 7 20.03 12:35
Worsfold Flood Gates No 8 19.33
Papercourt Lock No 9 17.83
Newark Lock No 10 – The Surprise Lock 16.93 13:45
Walsham Flood Gates No 11 16.43
Pyrford Lock No 12 15.43 13:55 14:20
Basingstoke Canal Junction 13.43
New Haw Lock No 13 12.83
Coxes Lock No 14 12.03
Town Lock No 15 11.33
Wey River Thames Lock 12:00 16:38
Desborough Channel Upper Bridge 10.43
Walton Bridge 9.6
Sunbury Lock Cut Bridge 8.16
Hampton Court Bridge 4.86
Kingston Railway Bridge 1.86
Teddington Lock Cut Bridge 0.4
Teddington Boundary Stone 0
Twickenham 08:30 19:29

Time on Thames 03:30 02:51
Time on Wey 05:35 05:40
Total Time 09:05 08:31