Wales trip Day 2 Tenbury to Ludlow then Trawnsfynydd campsite

Breakfast in the Bridge Inn was in front of a huge HD television screen showing us the Olympics opening ceremony from Paris – eventually I saw they had left the remote around so I turned it down. Two other couples came down for breakfast, one an older man in a bright orange Hawaiian shirt with a younger female partner. The food had the same slightly unhealthy feel to it.

I got up to Ludlow by a surprising and pleasant back route to pay my visit to J who lives in what I think used to be called a warden-controlled flat in a block. The street is steep but I could pull in and park the bike next to the big metal gates into the carpark of her block. Jane came out but wasn’t able to open the gates with her fob so I had to manoeuvre the bike to one side, grateful that it is relatively light. I wondered if there was a fault or whether she had the wrong item. In the end someone else let me in and gain I needed to park the bike in a narrow space.

J told me that she is very happy where she is living. She asked me about my family, then again a few minutes later and then a third time. I had a gradual realisation of her mental state. We went for lunch in a cafe next door, a lovely place but we arrived an hour earlier than she had booked. Because of the noise for much of the time we each read separate sections of the newspaper which she went out to buy. With flashes of some of her earlier character, she asked me some sharp questions about a book that I had written. I shouldn’t accept passively that the publisher is rubbish at publicity, she said. After lunch we went back and chatted for a while in her flat. I asked her what her plans were for her memoire which she had sent me a few years back in order to discuss publication. She seemed utterly surprised that she had written such a thing and asked me to send her a copy. Age and chronology became a little disturbing for me. First, she informed me that she would be 84 at her next birthday, not 90 as I had thought she had told me. Then she told me that she had moved into this accommodation 16 years ago. I was shocked to do the sums that revealed that she moved there when she was the same age that I am now.

When I prepared to leave, it was clear that J couldn’t open the gate so again another resident came and opened it as she beckoned me to get through before it closed. And after a quick goodbye I was off, turning right up the hill toward the town centre.

Then the real holiday, perhaps, started with being on the bike, leaving Ludlow and heading north west towards the campsite I had booked in Trawnsfynydd. I found the time with J quite upsetting, partly to see her own mental decline from her days as a sharp-minded academic and secondly how her age and faculties might map onto my own. So the cool air and sunshine of my ride was good to clear my head a little.

Details
Tenbury to Ludlow and then to Trawnsfynydd

My camp was Camp Stesion. It is in the Snowdonia national park and has beautiful vistas that it took me quite a while to really notice and appreciate. Once I unpacked I headed off 20 minutes to a supermarket at Portmadog for provisions. The campsite has simple facilities with a nice style – shower rooms with corrugated steel walls, for example. It was quiet apart from a group – two young couples – that started playing heavy beats at 10pm, leading me to get out of my sleeping bag and go over to ask them to stop. They did but talked and laughed for most of the night. They had two large suitcases on wheels as their luggage.

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My bike on holiday
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Sunrise or sundown?
Campsite in Transfynydd (approx)
Simple facilities that are just right

Wales trip – day 1 riding from Cambridge to Tenbury Wells Friday 26th July

Adze map of whole trip

First, here’s a map of the whole trip.

From my notes: To start the trip I needed to carry up a bag full of travel items on the train from home in London to the garage in Cambridge where I keep my motorcycle and where I’ve been keeping most of my camping equipment. So, on the first day of the trip, I rode from Cambridge to Tenbury Wells in Worcestershire. The ride itself isn’t much fun, starting on the super busy A14 out of Cambridge before becoming the M6 east of Birmingham and other motorways to the west. There were roadworks and many 50 mile an hour speed limits but I wasn’t overly concerned to be riding a little slowly. The total distance is a little under 150 miles. I forgot to mention that I had bought and fitted a Puig adjustable screen extender as I thought that it might make these long motorway miles more peaceful. I have to say that I didn’t notice any difference, in fact, if anything there was a little more turbulence. It looks odd on top of a rally style screen so I may remove it.

Details
Cambridge Garage to the Bridge Inn Tenbury Wells 148 miles

Tenbury is a small old market town and every address seems to be in Teme Street, the Teme being the name of the river that runs by the town, because there is just one street. I stayed in the Bridge Inn which is just by the river. There is a small beer garden just by it. The High Street, Teme Street, is very pretty with a few hostelries (the locals clearly don’t use the Bridge Inn much) and took about 5 or 6 minutes to walk to the end of and back. The Bridge Inn itself is pleasant, with a newly refurbished feel to the bar and the rooms. Staying in pubs could be noisy especially on a Friday night as this was, but on this occasion the place was extremely quiet. It was being run by two young and enthusiastic people, one of whom told me that he had only worked there for a week. I chose to eat dinner there and the pub’s speciality was burgers of various varieties. I chose one with pastrami – tasty but with a lack of vegetables or healthy ingredients. Not my usual diet but something in me, perhaps a kind of laziness, draws me toward highly processed food when travelling.

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The Bridge Inn
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Not healthy but tasty
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Tenbury High Street on a Friday evening
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The river Teme