Tuesday 9th July 2024
I’ve been watching the weather forecast for the last few days and it’s been awful, even though yesterday, the weather was glorious, and we could sit outside having tea in the sunshine. The sunset was a spectacular red/orange colour, but the old wives’ tale clearly failed since I awoke to the rain pattering against the windows and the wind causing the curtain to billow. And I’d booked two days of cycling!
As it happened, the forecast for Cheshire (where I was going) was much better than at home, especially in the afternoon. Therefore I delayed my departure until 11am and by the time I’d arrived at Trafford Hall near Chester, the rain had almost stopped. I had two routes planned for this short trip: one heading South which zigzagged around the beautiful Cheshire lanes and the other heading West into North Wales. Since the wind was from the South today, I opted for the first option which would give me a tailwind home. The route was very flat with just a little bump at the halfway point.
When I left at 12.20, it was still drizzling a bit, and since the forecast was for showers all afternoon I opted to wear overshoes. That turned out to be a mistake since it stopped raining almost immediately and stayed dry all afternoon, and even a bit sunny at times. The overshoes did prove useful later in the ride, however. One road was flooded and I couldn’t quite reach the end without pedalling a bit and so my feet got dunked a couple of times but the shoes deflected most of the water.
The west of Cheshire is generally pretty flat, but today the most interesting scenery was when I cycled past the ruin of Beeston Castle which rises over 500 feet above the Cheshire countryside. Although I’d heard the name, I’d never seen any pictures of the castle and I was quite impressed with it.
No ride of mine would be complete without me gathering some Veloviewer tiles and today I snagged a further 49 new ones, and I managed to extend my cluster further South. Tomorrow, I’ll be filling in gaps on the routes below Chester going as far as Flint.
I was last at Trafford Hall in March when I was also heading to Wales but that visit sadly coincided with me catching some horrible bug. I was beginning to feel under the weather on the first night and I noticed that my usually robust appetite had left me and I struggled to finish my tea. In contrast, tonight’s pizza was devoured completely, and I even followed it with a slice of lemon drizzle cake and a coffee. Looking back to March, I realised later that my symptoms (and the subsequent two days when I was bed-ridden) had all the hallmarks of Covid-19, but my test kits had gone out of date and I’d thrown them away a few weeks previously so I never found out what I had. Thankfully, Jim (who accompanied me on that trip) didn’t succumb to the illness, so it certainly wasn’t too contagious. I’ve not felt so poorly for a long time, however, and the cough lasted for weeks.
In cycling up dead-end roads to collect additional tiles, I extended today’s planned 60 mile ride to 62.6 miles, thus making it a century in kilometres. Even though I always think in terms of miles I hate the thought of doing a ride of 99.something kilometres, so in those cases I always have to tag a bit on to push me over the threshold. Today’s ride was 100.7km.
I never left the county of Cheshire today, although I came within 800 yards of the Welsh border. Tomorrow, some 2/3rds of the route is in Wales. Once more the weather forecast is not great, but at least the Westerly wind will help boost me home. The last few miles are on the marvellous Millennium Greenway into Chester which I last rode whilst feeling under the weather, so I’m looking forward to beating my PB on that stretch.
Wednesday 10th July 2024
There were three school parties in the hostel last night and sadly, two of them had decided to have breakfast at my preferred time (7.30) as soon as the kitchen opened. This meant that my normally early start was delayed until the dining room quietened down. I managed to sneak in at 08:15 just before the final students came in so it wasn’t too late and I was on the road by 9.30, heading generally South into a wind which was forecast to change to Westerly in the afternoon which suited me fine. It was also warm and dry so I was able to travel light. In such a poor summer as this, I consider 16° rising to 20° warm, in case you wondered. I did carry a lightweight cape in my bag, though; I’m not foolhardy.
The route of 62 miles was another zigzaggy one to scoop up several stray tiles, but even though I managed to gain 30 new ones, I missed one that has really annoyed me. Due to an error at the planning stage, it wasn’t included on my route, but it should have been. Without it, I can’t link a small cluster of 15 tiles to the main group, so that means I’ll just have to return once more.
Unknowingly, I cycled past Eaton Hall estate which I now know is one of the Duke of Westminster’s gaffs. I knew that he was wealthy, but not how wealthy: he inherited over £9bn when daddy died, and he’s only 33 now. The ironic thing is that his family motto is Virtus non Stemma (Virtue not ancestry) so it’s good to know that his ancestry’s got nothing to do with his extreme wealth. Not that I’m envious… He also lives close to one of the best names for a hamlet that I’ve come across: Cuckoo’s Nest is just half a mile from his drive: nearly two miles from his house, mind.
My main gripe with the duke is that I couldn’t cycle through his garden to gather a couple of extra tiles since it isn’t open to the public. I’ll find a way, though. There are also a further four tiles close by with no roads traversing them, but there is a footpath so I reckon for my next visit I’ll be packing walking boots so I can gather these.
After Connah’s Quay, the road climbed steadily for several miles but there were no views since it was set deep into the landscape, making it quite dark. This meant that I was sheltered from the wind which was beneficial.
When I reached the top and the landscape opened up, it was lovely with extensive views over the Wirral Peninsula to Liverpool and Runcorn beyond. I tried to photograph it, but since was about 16 miles distant, my phone struggled with the definition.
Odd things interest me. Today, such a thing was the sight of three houses quite close together which each had a huge scaffolding structure erected to assist in replacing the roofs. The idea being that tiles from the roof could be wheeled to a chute when they were dropped into a skip. Seemed rather over-engineered to me.
There followed a lovely series of short descents to compensate for the rather difficult climbing as the road swept down to Flint on the Dee estuary before rising back up to Flint Mountain. I was discouraged from taking this route since a sign was adamant that the road was closed, but there were no barriers, so I guessed I’d be OK. I’m sure that the road really was closed at some point since half a mile later there were some big barriers (which were open) so I rode through and found the probable cause of the closure. There was evidence of an extensive land-slip which would have blocked the quite narrow lane.
I crossed the River Dee at the Hawarden Bridge and for a short while cycled along a bund beside the river. This brought back fond memories of cycling along the Rhine five years ago.
There was another closure later on, but this was on the Millennium Greenway cycle track. I ignored this one too but after a quarter of a mile beyond an impressive fence, a huge crevice stretched across the path and large diggers were operating. This meant a slight diversion to get back on the track which took me past RAF Sealand (renamed MoD Sealand since 2004) which I remembered as the avionics 3rd line repair facility. It was sad to see a Tornado GR4 as a gate guardian; in my mind, I still think of the Tornado as a front-line fighter aircraft. It’s like when someone talks about something that happened 20 years ago, and I think, yes, the 1980s. It’s not good getting old…
Anyway, enough reminiscing. Once I was back on the Greenway, I made good time back to the hostel. I could have made better time if my Garmin hadn’t beeped at me and suggested that I was off my route so I stopped to check. The Garmin has a habit of telling me I’m off-course when it loses a signal which it did today when passing under a large motorway bridge. By the time I’d sorted things out, several minutes had passed, as had my PB time.
After such a large breakfast, I had gone without lunch as such and was looking forward to a coffee when I reached the hostel. I arrived about 3:15 but then decided to head straight home to reduce the chances of being stuck in the afternoon traffic on the M6. It was a good decision, since the traffic was acceptable and I arrived home about 4:30.
Total distance was 127 miles with very little climbing. Join me in just over a week for my next trip which is to Malham in North Yorkshire.
One reply on “54. Chester & North Wales”
That was a good read. I like how you ignore road closed signs.Looking forward to the next one.