Day 6, to Glastonbury

(Don’t miss the updates to days 4 & 5 which have now been made)

Breakfast at the Angel Guesthouse was heaven. Porridge, followed by a huge fry up, followed by homemade Rhubarb and Ginger jam on gluten free toast. Chris, the landlord, assured me that there was only one more (long) hill before we descended onto the Somerset Levels.

The Garmin had other ideas, which involved taking us up every hill it could find in the area, on narrow roads with a thin strip of muddy grass down the middle of them (and hedge clippings on either side, covering what little tarmac there was). Unfortunately, in an attempt to avoid the worst of the debris I ended up going too slowly – and I actually fell off whilst picking my way up a steep bit. It wasn’t much easier going down the hill either.

Finally, we came out on the A Road to Taunton and, blissfully, that took us happily to a café. Getting out of Taunton was another story though. We actually went around the ring road. Twice. As we tried to get around road-works we were inundated with heaps of conflicting instructions from the Garmin and from the diversion signs (including one, worryingly, which seemed to be trying to direct us onto the M5).

We eventually found a less than conspicuous sign which reassured us that we were actually heading to Glastonbury, and took us onto the long awaited Somerset Levels.

It had been sunny all day, so getting lost was actually not such a bad ordeal – and, sorry Garmin, maybe you were right and maybe we should have followed your instructions. Who can say?

One of my favourite experiences of the day was a recycling lorry with cheering bin-men who are obviously friends of cyclists trying to get from Lands End to John O’Groats. I wish I could have had a photo taken with them. We saw them twice (given our multiple trips around the Taunton ring road).

We also stopped at a bird sanctuary – but we didn’t see any interesting species. Actually, we didn’t see any birds at all.

The day ends in a lovely Air BnB, and a land lady who (unbelievably) is letting us store our bikes overnight in her living room. I should be ashamed to admit that I have accepted this offer.

Stats

43.7 miles (187.25 miles total), 1,425ft ascent, 1,625ft descent