Day 41 – Norton to Bath
Actual distance 28.58Km or 17.76miles (or the length of 16,811.8 bathtubs)
Total Ascent 386m (or the height of 7.88 Bath Abbey’s)
We were lucky last night and the fire service did not get called out whilst we slept! It was raining lightly when we woke, so we headed into the station to have breakfast in the hope the rain would stop so we could get the tents down in the dry. However, sadly the weather had different plans and we got incredibly wet packing up!
Typically the rain stopped as climbed in the car to head back to Norton where we finished yesterday. Our route today was dominantly along the Fosse Way again. Most of the Fosse was on tarmac, with occasional stretches on gravel paths. There were a few marked ups and downs, but we made incredibly quick progress towards Bath.
At about the half way point for today we looked for somewhere to find a loo and saw a sign to a hotel. It turned out the hotel was a luxury hotel and spa for dogs based at Bath County Pets. It was pure heaven for the kids. Aware they had been missing for a little while, we went to find the girls. The bathroom was through the dogs lounge room, and at least 9 beautiful, incredibly friendly dogs all needed a lot of fuss from the girls as they passed through, and they were in heaven cuddling the dogs when we found them! In Bethan’s words ‘best bathroom stop ever!’.
We left the dogs and set off on our last stretch of the Fosse Way, down a nice hill then back up a very steep stretch before it flattened out. We then found the fantastic very steep 2km descent into Batheaston with 7% and 12% inclines for us to fly down which was immense fun!!!
At the bottom of the hill we joined the canal path on the Circuit of Bath clockwise to the Dundas Aqueduct where we finished for the day. Amazingly we completed todays route before lunch (and before 13:00!!!). We therefore headed into Bath for a few hours, and enjoyed wandering around the shops, buying fudge and finding a pub for a drink! We even managed to get school shoes for Hattie!!!
This evening we are being hosted by Jonny and Jenny from 1st Masefield Scout Group. They have been amazingly generous and opened up their home to us, fed us an incredibly tasty dinner and their daughters have even kindly moved out of their bedrooms so we can all stay. We are so very grateful!
James, Cara and Emma returned this evening having been home for James’s interview today (which apparently went well). We were also visited by Kirst this evening, one of Phil’s friends from university, and it was really lovely to catch up with her. An all round good day!
