Quantock Analyst
So it's August, and I'm down in Darkest Somerset for the Ki Federation Summer School. I usually hire a bicycle from the guest house when I'm down here for any length of time,so that I can get out and about and see a bt of the countryside...
...Which I seem to have done today: at a rough guess, fifty miles of it.
Off to a civilised start, after a late breakfast and an hour or so fettling the bike, to Highbridge & Burnham railway station:
I went from right to left, trying not to bang my head on the giant PH letters hanging in the air above the guest house. And missed the 11:55 train, which I had hoped would trundle me to Bristol for a nice, relaxing cycle ride along the disused Somerset & Dorset Railway line to Bath.
Next train, anywhere, at 13:30.
Out with the map, and on with the thinking cap... Fortunately I had a bicycle, and therefore some degree of mobility, and there's a patch of countryside the other side of Bridgewater that I haven't yet explored, and all of it is reassuringly flat.
The problem with this brilliant idea is that there is only one way to get from Highbridge to Bridgewater: seven miles of deeply disagreeable A38, high-speed traffic and tyre dust punctuated by dismal rows of imdustrial brick cottages and giant steel sheds.
And at the end of it, Bridgewater.
I took a meal there, and loitered for an hour in Costa Coffee wth a cup of tea to let my digestion settle down, and then set off to discover if the River Parrett Trail is suitable for cycling...
The answer turms out to be that bits of it are, and bits of it aren't: and parts of it 'round Perry Green are Public Footpaths, not legally a right of way for cyclists - and punctuated by stiles and wicket gates that are a barrier to bicycles.
All this exploration cost me about an hour or so before I admitted defeat and hit the road for Cannington, a pleasant not-so-little village that's too small to be a town. Or maybe just too nice. Whatever.
The road from Cannington leads North to Combwich, an average sort of village with a giant mudbath in the estuary of the River Parrett that is now a harbour for small boats. It has the remnants of a large jetty- freestanding steel-and-concrete pilings and a huge retaining wall which, by the age of the concrete, appear to be a bit too recent for the Second World War: my guess is that the harbour was developed to imposrt construction materials for Hinckley Point 'B', the power station further'reound the coast.
If so, the lorry traffic on these country roads wouldve been intolerable.
Combwich marks the start of a proper bridleway section of the River Parett Trail and, after a bumpy half-a-mile, it opens out into a passable riding surface on the flood defences, and worn but servicable gravel road beside it, out of the stiff onshore breeze.
I chose the road: I'm lazy. It was pleasant enough, and I kep worrying about mowing down the butterflies - mostly peacock butterflies, but Red Admirals were out too - and, once, a dense patch of irridescent dragonflies.
That was a surprise: I thought Dragonflies hatched and grew in clear, clean running water and the whole area is reclaimed salt marshes: I kept passing smartly-labelled tidal sluices (the local word is 'Clypse', which might have etymologial links with 'clepsydra', a type of water clock) - they are electrically operated now but were originally a float on a lever which closed the sluice at high tide, reopening it at low tide and allowing drainage ditches to flow out. Some, I'm told, are only open for an hour a day so it's surprising to see biological evidence of swiftly-flowing and well-oxygenated water.
The gravel track stopped at a gate, and a large dense herd of bullocks. They looked at me with bovine curiosity, and absolutely no hint whatsoever of the thought of moving.
Banging on the gate made no impression on them and it took a stream of imprecations in the local Late West Saxon to clear them far enough away to get myself and my trusty steed into the field...
A field with a long green lane forming the trail, and several dozen bullocks on it, hemming me in against the gate.
Deep breath. A moment to consider a choice phrase in the familiar local dialect which will assert my authority, and deliver it in ringing tones:
GET OOORRRF MOI LAAAND!
I saddled up and pedalled off along a clear green laneway, carefully dodging all the cowpats.
The River Parret Trail continues North, to Penning Island (which is nothing of the sort, it's just another field) and Stert Point Nature Reserve, where there are wooden hides (closed due to nesting swallows) and an imposing wooden tower with an observation deck.
Up I went, binoculars at the ready, and opened up the observation hatches to admire the mud. Miles and miles of estuarial mud and no sign of any of the birds listed on the conveniently-placed observation posters... I spotted a seagull and (I think) a redshank but I think that the whole exercise of birdwatching is best left to birdwatchers and other unnatural creatures of the ungodly early morning hours.
Down again, and time to look at a map and head for home... I'd thought of heading further 'round the coast to Hinkley Point, and on the somewhere like Stogumber on the West Somerset Railway: but that would mean another twenty miles and a Serious Quantock. I've been up those hills, and taken immature delight at steaming effortlessly past a family with teenage children, all of them on carbon-fibre-and-titanium mountain bikes and jolly miffed to be overtaken by a decidedly Edwardian figure on decades-old sit-up-and-beg touring bike...
...But not today: I'm not that fit and energetic on Day 1 of Darkest Somerset. I took a decidedly milder route through Stockland Bristol (which probably gets a lot of misdirected mail) and Otterhampton Hill, which has old red rock and is, therefore, a Quantock. But a reassuring enry-level Quantock, free of two-hundred-foot ascents up 1 in 4 gradients.
And so back down to Cannington again, and into beautiful Bridgewater just in time to miss the train. But this time, as I was heading back to Mark instead of Highbridge, I could cut out the A38 and head directly NorthWest: up through Horsey, Bradney, Bawdrip, Cossington and Chilton Polden, and across the moors (which are level marshes, not your hilly Northern Moors) to Yarrow and a meal at the Packhorse in Mark at 9.
All in all, a pretty good day's pedalling. I might even get 'round to putting in the map links to the second half of it, sometime.