Kay's Blog: DAY 39 (Sunday 28 August 2011)

Well, I didn’t expect that, I woke up this morning to find that the sun was shining for a second day, over a Bank Holiday weekend too, what is that all about, unless.....I hadn’t woken up yet and it was all a dream.......nope I was most definitely awake.

Well there were 5 of us (me, Charlie, BK and 2 others) that went riding this morning, Marion not being one of them; I think she decided to feign a cold so that she could have a lie-in.

Just before setting off for the ride

Anyway we were setting off along the route for the Botanical Gardens, it was a route that I did on Thursday for PT when I got absolutely soaked, well along that route we took a right turn and headed to a place called GODAWARI, I can understand why it was called that as it felt like you were trying to get to the Gods because of the climb that we had to get there. We turned off and headed along a rougher track, most of the riding today was off road which really pleased Charlie as he prefers off roading to road riding, anyway as we climbed higher into the hills the views were spectacular.

This view on our way up

This view on our way down headed home

I may have to confirm the names of a couple of places that we passed through en route but none the less the ride out was actually pretty good, we ended up going through some wooded areas where the recent rain had made the tracks muddy, at first I tried to pussy foot around the muddy puddles so as not to get too dirty but that was a feat I shouldn’t have bothered with as in some places there was no escaping the muddy puddles, in the end I just ended up riding right through the puddles as it was a better line of travel than trying to go round them in the mud.

We did have a 15 minute stop at a tea house, this was all before the muddy puddles, but it was also before a climb, in the end I had to succumb to the hills and walk up some of them as it was very tiring, but, I didn’t walk where it was muddy, I preserved and managed to get through on the bike. I must admit, it was fun getting muddy, not something I normally relish, but what can you do?????

We finally got back to camp around 1100hrs a bit muckier than when we set out and very tired, Charlie had taken his GPS thingy and it told us at the end that we had travelled just over 23 miles, (no wander my poor backside was killing me), I really can’t wait for my padded shorts to get here, I think I am going to need them on a regular basis.