Diary - Day 33

Our 33rd day on the bikes, nearly 2500 miles on the clock and we were back heading to the west-country where it had all begun nearly 5 weeks ago. It had all the makings of a very good day and nearly was, but yet again the weather prevented it from being brilliant. We began in Land's End hoping that the winds would come from their usual direction of South-West. Well they did for 2 days but since then we had been battling headwinds 80% of our time on the bikes
so it was no great surprise when the South-Westerlies came just as we were heading in that direction. It is a common theme of long distance bike rides for the participants to complain about their weather misfortunes, but I doubt if we did this for every year for the next decade we would not have so many difficulties on any one.

Having negotiated the New Forest, which looked like the photo below (damp and windy), we found our way to Ringwood and popped into the brewery to see Diana Kitcher.


Diana gave us a tour, chatted about the brewing business and gave us a few tasters. Ringwood was quite an impressive Brewery, a fair bit bigger than I first believed, employing around 55 people and covering a sizeable local area. Ringwood appear to have focused on the locality
and have not put the same effort into bottling and selling far afield. It doesn't seem to be harming them at all. Their 'Boondoggle' is worth a try for sure.

After lunch in a cafe just down the road we headed out to Blandford Forum through a selection of windy roads, then moved on towards Cerne Abbas. We turned away from there, and the giant which I have still yet to see, and went towards Dorchester as we needed food and toilets. Coming out of Dorchester we went past Maiden castle and ended up at Hardy's monument. Not Thomas Hardy the writer as it would be common to assume, but Vice-Admiral Thomas Masterman Hardy of 'Kiss me Hardy' fame, i.e. the fella that heard Nelson's last words. This is what the view is like from the base of the monument:

After quite a few days of moderate hills and flat ground we were back into the world of inclines and declines and these became quite serious along the coast towards Bridport. We made our way to the Three Horseshoes, a very attractive and popular pub, which was run by a couple that Sam worked with a couple of years previous. Very convenient indeed it turned out, we were given meals and beer as well as beds for the night. Absolutely spot on, we ended the day on a high then. The weather in the evening had turned out very well after a shaky start and we were hopeful of a decent day tomorrow..........


Day 33 review

Mileage - 90+
Ales drunk - lots, mostly in the evening
Weather rating - 7/10 - rubbish start but it was nice in the end and despite the wind we were quite happy.