Author: Anna Hughes

The Leeds Liverpool canal brings our canal count up to six, but this is the final towpath we will use. England eventually runs out of canal. It brings us smoothly into Wigan (Ian at the campsite insisted it was paved all the way into the town; I was skeptical, but it actually is), which is…

From being canal-shy, now we can’t get enough. The Midlands are canal heaven, so of course there won’t be a day goes by that we don’t touch a towpath. The Trent and Mersey leads north from industrial Stoke, punctuated with the chimneys and kilns of the old potteries. The well-paved towpath descends into vicious cobbles…

The obvious route out of Kiddy is the canal, so even though we’ve rejected towpaths before, we give this one more of a go. It is lovely in many ways: peaceful, scenic, with plenty of blackberries and no hills or traffic to worry about. The locks are quaint and the bridges are pretty. At first…

The bumpy paths and heavy loads are taking their toll on the bikes, and Mark has popped a spoke. So our first stop will be at the bike shop in Gloucester. It’s a 7-odd mile ride along the Gloucester-Sharpness canal, and it’s a bright morning, and the towpath has a good surface this time so…

One of the things that Tim loved was bridges. The bigger the better. Perhaps it’s because he worked in construction and loved the architecture and engineering, but actually bridges fascinate me too: their symmetry and grace, how they defy gravity, and how they physically link two places. Today we would see the Severn bridges, icons…

There’s a set of sculptures on the Bridgwater and Taunton canal: a to-scale model of the solar system, with the planets placed relative to their actual distances, and made relative to their actual sizes. There are actually two sets, stretching out either way from the sun: fourteen miles long in total, so it takes about…

The first rule of cycle touring is that everything takes longer than you think. We’ve arranged to meet some people in Tiverton who will ride with us for the rest of the day, and to see some of Mark’s friends, as he lives just outside Tiverton. We’ve said midday, because that is absolutely enough time…

Thank God for this disused railway line. It’s been an extremely hard morning. It wasn’t too bad to start with – 20 miles across the moor, undulating rather than hilly, atmospherically misty but not actually raining – and we stopped for breakfast in high spirits having achieved some good, fast miles.  But after breakfast the…

It was raining even before we started: light drizzly rain that doesn’t feel like much but soaks everything. But it’s warm, and the rain is refreshing, and the landscape emerging from the mist is extremely atmospheric. The first part of the day is “get-there” miles, not just because it’s raining, but because the route invites…

It’s £10.99 for a photo at the signpost. Tim would have scoffed at that, and all this commercialisation at Land’s End. It’s like a holiday resort, and not a nice one. Tourists queue to have their photo taken.  Beyond the wall is the real land’s end: huge cliffs stacked in the sea, an old stone…