April arrived, and brought cold weather, so the first opportunity was the last two days of the month. I headed north on a novel route through Bentley (near Stanmore), which seems to be on a large hill, and squeezed between Watford and the M1 on a cycle path towards St Albans. A mix of quiet roads and a few nice cycle tracks made for easy going.
From Meriden, just after Watford, delightful quiet lanes of cycle paths led to the ancient part of St Albans, or Verulamium if you are Roman. Just a few lambs and calves to keep me company as I rode past sweeps of bluebells; it was lovely. As is St Albans. There is a preserved Roman theatre at Gorhambury Park, but (I found out too late) you have to pay to get in. Well worth the £3 entrance fee I reckon, if you don't have to be somewhere.
After a very satisfying lunch in St. Albans, I continued north on a fairly horrid A road with a rubbish shared cycleway to Harpenden, before joining the Harpenden-Luton greenway for a bit. That was fine; maybe an old railway line? Then followed the Chilterns Cycleway on typical lumpy, quiet Chilterns lanes through woods and open farmland. A little village hall cafe and bric-a-brac shop in Hexton was pretty well the only place to stop if you don't count pubs, which all looked very shut. The choice was limited but it didn't matter.
One of the two ladies asked where I'd ridden from. "Twickenham " I said modestly, expecting amazement: but no, she asked if I was part of Audax UK. Her partner is a member and has done Paris-Brest-Paris and London-Edinburgh-London.
After Hexton, gentler hills led north east in the general direction direction of Bedford, which I never actually reached, but turned west along the Greensand Way, which is an on-road cycle route. I was getting anxious about finding a shop to buy something for breakfast, but found a post office & general store which did the job. After that, of course there was a succession of bigger food shops.
I'd identified a possible pub for an early evening meal, the Stone Jug at Clophill. Arriving a few minutes after six, I expected it to be empty, but it was packed with people and dogs. A drinkers' pub, there was an excellent choice of beer, but no food except pasties, pork pies and sausage rolls. Just fine.
There was a slight timing problem: a pint goes down rather quickly after a longish, hilly ride with a loaded bike. Etiquette for wild camping suggests that you arrive near sunset, which is at 20.23. Arriving at 6pm means at least four pints would be possible, but I thought better of it.
I still hadn't found a camping spot. The Bedfordshire countryside is highly managed, and everywhere seems to be fenced off, except a few gaps in field hedges, where it might be possible to camp on the field margins. On the map, I'd spotted a wood in Access Land, meaning not private, and criss-crossed by footpaths. That worked out okay, although on a bit of a slope.
The forecast was for a dry but freezing night, so I pitched the tarp to keep the frost off. That all worked fine and I slept well, wearing a pannier-full of clothes. I was up and packed away before dawn, about 6am, and was treated to beautiful frosty scenes as I made my way back to the road and the sun rose.
Continuing on the lovely Greensand Way with gentle undulations, sharing the road with a few deer and grouse (grice?? A brace of grice?), but very few cars. It was a while before my fingers thawed out, but the rising sun soon dispersed the mist and frost. Breakfast near Ampthill, my chicken baguette from the Post office, and then on to Woburn before a second breakfast at Leighton Buzzard.
Soon I took a cycleway to Dunstable, home of the famous bed supplier, Dunstable Beds, then the Dunstable-Luton Greenway, which runs parallel to a "busway" like a tramway only with, er, buses. The buses glide by at about 50 mph in a grooved road only just wide enough for their tyres. How do they do that? I think it may also have been the same disused railway line that formed the Luton-Harpenden greenway, which I followed next. All pleasant cycling on smooth tarmac, but a bit samey. A few lanes took me to Hatfield, then - another disused railway line - the Alban Way back to St Albans, and a well-earned and much needed lunch.
The route back home from St Albans was a mixture of wonderful and dreadful, with nice bits around Bricket Wood and Rickmansworth, and some other bits I should have paid more attention to in planning the route. After a sub-zero start, the weather was sweltering in the afternoon, 20 degrees C, and the cycling clothes which were just warm enough yesterday were extremely warm today. The tea stop was a corner grocery store in Uxbridge. Nice to be back camping again, and with longer days, although there is still rather a lot to carry. Perhaps in summer I'll need less.
