Autumn tour in Essex

En-route to another adventure

Finally, some dry weather after a pretty rubbish summer.  I had a couple of free days, so decided to try out Essex for size,  a solo for camping trip.  I had a long ambition to try out riding in Epping Forest, so that was the first ten (it's big!) miles.  Then north in quiet lanes to a campsite on a farm, Pightle Farm, at the corner of Essex, Cambs and Herts.   Also the highest point in Essex, I was disappointed to find out later.

That was the plan.  A variety of trains took me and my bike to Wood Street at the south of Epping Forest and I set off into the beautiful forest, wide avenues between oak trees full of autumn colour.   There are many paths and some are better than others.  After finding myself on a very muddy, path where my wheels kept sliding sideways, I did a bit of walking then a bit back on the road, before finding a better path, wide and gravelly.   It's beautiful,  but I should have picked my route more carefully.

Epping Forest tracks

Epping itself marks the north end of the forest, and was full of queues of traffic, and lots of families shopping for plastic Halloween tat.  It was 1pm and I had nearly 40 miles to do before sunset, so it was a quick lunch outside Greggs before setting off into the countryside.

From there on, it was like a different world.  Up the west side of Essex.  No traffic, small lanes, no towns, no cafés (there was a solitary Londis), and beautiful countryside with the odd lovely thatched cottage here and there.   It had an off the beaten track feel.   I expected it to be hilly but it was more rolling countryside, quite high up with extensive views.  I went quite close to Stansted Airport at one stage, but I only sat two planes landing, and no Airport traffic.

Essex lanes and villages

A very enjoyable,  relaxed day of cycling with quiet weather, no wind, mostly cloudy but with the odd sunny spell lighting up the colours.  As dusk fell, lights started coming on in the thatched cottages,  making them look even more cosy.  I got to the farm just before sunset (4.30pm), pitched the tent and high-tailed it to the local pub, the Red Cow.  It looked pricey, £30 for a main course, so I had bought a steak slice for my tea, but when I got there, they were offering Tuesday fish & chips for £10.25.  Delicious.

Last light

I spent a happy evening ear-wigging the other customers swapping stories, (one of whom was a Dolly Parton tribute singer, and another was a close friend of Steve Marriott of the Small Faces), and re-hydrating, before heading back to my solitary dark tent.  The campsite closes on 31 Oct and I was the only customer tonight.  Except ... I had company.  I disturbed a mouse when I returned.   It clearly had designs on my steak slice.

Day 2: Wednesday 

My camping spot

In bed by 8pm, and slept till 7am.   Not bad.  I thought I heard the mouse again, so made a noise like a lion and scared him off.  Anyway, I'd hidden the food.  Steak slice for breakfast (not as nice as it sounds), packed, washed, and away by 8.30.

The plan today is to - you've guessed it - head back south, via a few towns I liked the sound of, a bit further east, to Shenfield, the end of the Elizabeth line.  Same weather: no wind, grey skies, 14 degrees maximum.

It was decidedly hilly.  After riding seven miles to Saffron Walden, I'd clocked up 200 metres of climbing.   Saffron Walden is a nice town with plenty of important looking old buildings.   More hills took me to Thaxted, a real gem of a place with beautiful old buildings.  It reminded me of Shaftesbury with its hilltop church.  It even had an ancient cobbled Street, like Gold Hill.

Ye olde car park at Saffron Walden

Thaxted

Still Thaxted

Elevenses was at Great Dunmow, which wasn't quite as great as its name after Thaxted and Saffron Walden.  After Dunmow, things looked up.  I was back on the high plain, on quiet lanes wriggling across the fields without any apparent logic.  Easy riding to the outskirts of Chelmsford, and then the last ten miles was back on the lanes, a few colourful woods and pretty villages.   I expected Shenfield to be just a built-up suburb of Brentwood,  but in fact it looked an attractive place, probably up-and-coming with the arrival of the Elizabeth line.

Cycle lane to Wittle, near Chelmsford

Blackmore

Arrived at Shenfield Station just before 3pm, hone before 5pm - well done TfL!  It has been a very enjoyable exploration of parts of Essex.  Highly recommended if you fancy trying it: there are alternatives to camping in Saffron Walden, Cambridge, or Royston, all nearby.

Tour de Lincolnshire, day 5

It was a good night in my campsite with en suite pub.  I was wakened from a deep sleep by a roar from my noisy neighbours at RAF Coningsby,  off on a midnight assignation, but otherwise, I slept well on a very warm night, with a few light rain showers.  The rain had blown away by morning  and the sun was out as I struggled to pack the tent without anything flying away in a fresh westerly wind.

My route today is an arc north and west to Lincoln, via Market Rasen and nowhere else.   I had very definitely left the flat fens now and was in the Lincolnshire Wolds, nice mixed countryside and quite hilly.  Breakfast in a caff on the main Lincoln to Skegness road, very busy on a Friday morning, and then up on the high (ish) hills along the ridges with great views all the way to Lincoln, at least 20 miles away.  The main feature was the gusty wind, which was often in my face, so I was pleased to leave the wolds.   I passed through Scramblesby, which would have been a great site for an RAF base, or perhaps an egg farm.   So many place names ending in -by, meaning village, from the Danelaw days of the 9th -11th centuries.

High-level route - The Lindsey Trail

At lunch at Donington-on-Bail, I met a tandem couple in a lovely post office cafe; both built for low air resistance, very small and wiry but full of stories of their cycling.  The chap recommended a steep hill in Lincoln city to me, but I wasn't all that receptive, I'm afraid. 

After lunch I headed up to Market Rasen, another town with Market in the title.  Nice scenery on the way there, but still very windy,  and when I got there for early tea, hot and tired, I found I couldn't face eating anything.  It was a shock - I've never had that problem before.  Market Rasen didn't live up to all the other Market... towns I've visited on this trip.

Not one, but two surprise fords

#2

Probably a foot deep

There was nothing for it but to slog onwards to Lincoln, mostly into the wind.   It was flat, and the high hedges meant there was not much of a view, but every so often they created a wind tunnel effect.   It was a 15 mile endurance test.

Eventually I got to Lincoln, and it is a gorgeous city.   The cathedral is huge, difficult to photograph but lovely in the late afternoon sun.  There's a castle, and a whole olde world area of shops on cobbled streets, including Steep Hill.  So steep I didn't dare cycle down it with a loaded bike.  At the bottom is the modern shopping area centred on the river, with no less than three Wetherspoons.   I didn't have time to try them all.

Cathedral 

Part of the castle

Steep Hill

Riverside

This is the last day of my trip.   I'm getting the train home this evening, having ridden myself to a standstill.  I feel that I've covered a lot of ground in Leicestershire,  and less so in Lincolnshire,  but I've also ridden up the Lincolnshire coast, so I know that bit from 2013.

I've enjoyed exploring some different countryside,  and visiting some towns that I'd heard, and some I hadn't.   I loved the roads with almost no traffic, and the very friendly people everywhere.

Post Adventure

Stopping train to nowhere

I got an advance single on a quiet evening train direct to London,  and my bike and I were all sitting comfortably ready to leave, when we were all told that the train wasn't going, due to overhead line damage.  Plan B was a slow train to Nottingham, then a slow train to Loughborough, and then an even later train to London... arriving 00:30.  It even made the news: Rail Chaos Causes Travel Nightmare, according to the YorkMix website.   Three rather rushed platform changes and boarding three busy trains with a bike and panniers was not part of my plan, but it somehow worked.  I forced my legs to cycle home through a quiet London, still warm at 1am and a very pleasant way to end the tour.

Day 4 · Day 5

Tour de *Lincolnshire*, day 4

I'm in Lincolnshire!  My route today:   first 50 miles; flat.  Then a few hills.  It's all fens, straight roads, a few ditches draining the land, views for miles.

With a following wind, I'd soon knocked off seven miles to an awakening Spalding:  nice town centre and a good breakfast cafe.  The sky gradually became overcast as I rode north east, another twenty miles to Boston.  It was nice - not featureless, but I didn't feel the need to stop to take any photos either.

Spalding

I've ridden through Boston before, while riding up the east coast.   I recognised the church tower from miles away, like a lighthouse across the fens.  Boston has a nice spacious town centre, and I discovered a quaint 'old town' just by the river and the church, with narrow cobbled streets and little old pubs.  No time to try them though.   The old town gave way to an old railway line,  now a cycle trail, the Water Rail Way, aka NCN route 1, following the river Witham all the way to Lincoln.  

Boston

Old town

Water Rail Way

I followed it north, part tarmac trail and part road, all the way to  Woodhall Spa, about twenty miles which seemed to go by quickly with nice views across the land and the river.  Also a few invisible fighter jets above the clouds, from RAF Coningsby.  Probably stealth fighters.

Stealth fighters

At Woodhall Spa it had started to drizzle, and I found an old time cafe, with old time crockery and prices.  It was a nice town, a bit reminiscent of a seaside town but without the sea.  Plenty of reasons to visit.

After a long ride in the fens, it was nice to have some different countryside.  I left along a wooded lane and was then back on open farmland meadows and cornfields.

I'd found a campsite in a pub for tonight (well, in the pub garden): the Red Lion at East Kirby.   I had to pitch the tent in the rain - not ideal - but the campsite had good facilities including an onsite pub with good value food.

There was a wartime RAF base at East Kirby, with Lancaster bombers, and the (disused) airfield is still here.  There's also an aviation museum with a Lancaster bomber.

Day 3 · Day 4 · Day 5

Tour de Leicester, day 3

I went to bed in my hilltop tent after a fiery sunset.  The night was cooler, and I was woken in the dark by what I think was a rabbit behind the tent, giving a yip-yip-yip alarm call.   In the morning I headed north east towards Melton Mowbray, 20 miles away.  I wasn't hopeful of finding breakfast, but just outside the pretty village of Wymeswold there was an industrial park with a cafe & bakery, serving a mouth-watering pain au raisin.

Sunset

11s

I was back in the "crinkly" landscape of the Leicestershire Wolds, zig-zagging in and out of the Soar valley.  The Soar is the definitive river of Leicestershire,  rising just over the border to the south west in Warwickshire,  and soaring downhill to a big exit to the north east, where it soon gets absorbed by the river Trent.

Leicestershire villages

I had nearly completed a circle around Leicester, as I saw signs to Frisby again, but instead I chose the delights of Melton Mowbray,  a big town with a nice feel - plenty of pedestrianised shopping, also Ye Olde Pie Shoppe where no doubt you can buy a souvenir pie or two.  After a two-course elevenses, I headed east and north across the rolling countryside, and the county border, to Grantham, in Lincolnshire.   On the way I passed through Woolsthorpe,  where Isaac Newton invented gravity in the plague lockdown of 1666.

Apart from a lovely entry to town - several miles downhill followed by a riverside cycle path - I found it a bit disappointing.  After a late lunch in Morrisons, I was ready to head off - but where to?

It's funny how days can differ.  Yesterday,  I was all in after 50 miles, but today after 50 miles to Grantham,  I felt I could manage the 25 miles to the next potential campsite, south east in Bourne.

After an initial climb out of town, the trend was downhill, south through little villages and more harvest scenes, combine harvesting, baling the straw, muck spreading and then ploughing.  Busy time for farmers (and the cows, I imagine).

Lincolnshire

Tea stop

The last few miles to Bourne were off-road, starting with a dodgy track and then a better forest track, which made a nice change from the empty lanes.  I saw more people in the forest (three) than I saw on the roads between Grantham and Bourne.  I may suggest this to the organisers of London-Edinburgh-London,  as it would make a nice change from all those boring roads and add a bit of spice to the route, especially at night time.

I rather dashed through Bourne as it was getting late.  There were two campsites on the other side of town, quite a long way out as it transpired, five miles on a long straight windy road.  I stopped at the first, and it was lovely.  The campsite manager, also called Simon , was very welcoming, showed me to a sheltered pitch, and even offered me a ready meal to cook for my evening meal.   I declined, but he also suggested an excellent pub just (3 miles) down the road.

84 miles in all, and 1000m of climbing, so a big day fully justifying a big evening meal and plenty of re-hydration.

Day 2 · Day 3 · Day 4

Tour de Leicester, Day 2

It rained overnight but I was dry, warm, and mostly asleep.  By the time I got up,  the rain had stopped, leaving a grey, cool morning.   I had a very reasonable English Breakfast in Hinckley, which nearly cost less than the coffee, then set off north, along the west side of the county, next door to Warwickshire. 

Shenton

Yesterday I was on NCN63, 64 and 6.  Today I was on NCN 52, part of which was named the Bosworth Way after the Battle of Bosworth.  Hinckley was OK but the next town, Market Bosworth,  was lovely, if rather up-market and car dominated.   Sitting in a car park enjoying my meal deal, I noticed that I was at the very spot where Richard III was disinterred, before being transferred to Leicester cathedral.  I hope his parking fees were waived.

Market Bosworth 

Tranquil lanes among golden corn: I came upon two hares in the road, who didn't know what to do about cyclists.  Eventually,  one (the adult?) scarpered into the field and sat still, ears lowered as if to become invisible,  but the other ran away along the road for quite a while.  I rode slowly but it took him a long time to realise that the hedge was a better option.

The next village, called Heather, had a scarecrow festival, and it was lovely to see whole families, including teenagers, enjoying visiting the various sites and ticking them off.

Grace de Dieu trail

Woodhouse

After Coalville, an old mining town, I had quite a bit of off road, still on NCN52,  now called the Grace de Dieu trail, hairy in parts but manageable, and a nice change.  I popped out near Shepshed and then rode to Loughborough for tea.  Loughborough has a lot of greenery and pedestrian areas in the centre so it's a pleasant place to visit.

However it was hot, it was teatime, I was tired, and I was only just over halfway to my planned destination, Melton Mowbray.   I'd heard bad things about the hills there from the recent Wayfarers group tour there.   I decided to stop short in Barton-on-Soar, where I enjoyed a nice pub meal next to the river, before struggling back up to my hilltop campsite.

Barton and its neighbour, Quorn, are both lovely towns, not too far from Leicester,  so maybe theycare commuter towns.  

Today has been another day of lovely riding on peaceful roads with bucolic views and some very enjoyable towns and villages.  I was struck by the lack of people everywhere:  I guess they are all at work or on holiday.   It makes a big change from our local area.

Day 1 · Day 2 · Day 3