Day 40- Stroud to Norton
Actual distance 31.28km or 19.44miles (or the length of 3066.7 fire engines!)
Total Ascent 448m (or the height of 33.2 standard fire engine ladders!)
It was an early start this morning in a slightly overcast Stroud. A-level results accompanied breakfast, which were a slightly mixed bag of expected and less expected news. The clouds soon burned off and we headed out with an ambitious plan to do enough today to allow James to get to his interview tomorrow. We therefore switched from a walking day to a cycling day.
We headed out on the cycle path along a disused railway. There were a couple of bridges early on that echo’s brilliantly! The path was well constructed and flat, meaning we reached our first stop of the day only 25 minutes after we headed off! We popped in to say hi to Mike at his place of work. Mike is a Leader with Tetbury Scouts and has kindly helped liaise with Gloucester Fire and Rescue Service about our stop tonight. He even offered to cook a BBQ for us!
Having said hello (and used the facilities!) we rejoined the cycle path to Nailsworth. We then jumped on the road and turned up a steep drag. Unfortunately the hill caused Cara’s chain to slip, causing her patella to dislocate and then relocate. Sadly she was in a huge amount of pain from this and was unable to continue on the journey. James helped Cara to walk around to a garden centre that was slightly further down the road and our support team came to collect them.
There was quite a lot of up and down today, but despite this, fuelled by several snack breaks the team managed to keep up a very respectable speed. We had planned to stop at a pub for lunch, but unfortunately pubs were few and far between. We had only made gluten free sandwiches, and despite being hungry, the gluten eaters in the team didn’t fancy sharing them!! We therefore looked again at the map to review possible options for food.
We made it to the Fosse Way and spotted a hotel on the map a little way down our route. The first part of the Fosse Way we encountered was a gravel path with several ruts and pot holes lining the route. Then we found the ford! Phil was almost convinced to try cycling through it, but came to his senses and pushed his bike over the little bridge like the rest of us. We continued down the Fosse until we came to a turning that looked on the map like it led to the hotel we had been aiming for. However, half way down the track a lady in pink pyjamas stopped us to tell us we were on her drive and not a public path! We turned around and headed back the way we had come, but decided to push on a further 3km to the next pub on our route at Norton instead of further backtracking to the hotel. Hopeful that Norton would be good for a late lunch we called our support team and arranged to meet them there.
We reached Norton only to find the pub was shut for refurbishment! By this time the children were too hungry to continue, so we called it a day and loaded the bikes on to the car. We headed for Tewksbury and had a slap up meal deal at Tescos! We then mooched around the town (which is very pretty with loads of antique shops), finally found a pub, then headed to our hosts for the night- the Tetbury Fire Station.
We were welcomed by Jake and Neil from the fire station whip who showed us round and made us massively welcome. Once we had pitched up safely in their enclosure, Mike, who we had met earlier, arrived and started setting up a massive spread and working the BBQ. Fed and watered, Ollie and Hattie got to try on some of the equipment and learnt about some of the kit the fire and rescue team use. They had an absolute whale of a time! Then it was time for showers and a little gym time for Ollie who is now considering being a firefighter (with maybe a second job running an ice cream shop!)
