Day 5 - Chstow to Kington

Hills and more hills. I remember some trans am blogger in describing a particularly brutal climb puttting it this way  - " that hill wouldn't kill you but it could mortally wound". Well the hills of eastern Wales are killers! I survived though and helped by the earlier days in Cornwall and Devon. Time is of course the problem and with only15 - 16 at most - days to complete I've  therefore have to move fastish whatever the terrain.

I did have time though to stop in the historic town of Monmouth and had a John & Jane Butters style 11am coffee break. Delightful.

It was a perfect cycIng day though - dry and 73 miles through lush and pretty

Welsh farmland. Charlie performed to standard , the champ that he is. He doesn't speak thank goodness and he does leave you to turn him on when required. To save battery I have him going off automatically after 30 secs. Of course you can turn him straight back on , but you have to take one hand off the handle bars to use him and it is tempting to believe your memory of the last glimpse.  That's where things can go wrong - and did today - twice. First I had to retrace a couple of miles , and second having taken a wrong turn , I thought better to carry on and join up 4or 5 miles further on . Mistake!  It involved a 1 in 25 cilimb for over a mile and then I got caught behind a crawling tractor with cartloads of tatties all the way back down.

Result - it was close to 7 before I made a 3 mile intentional detour to Kington where I saw on Charlie there was supposed to be a campsite. Even better though a YH which I just happened to pass and another v comfortable one. Very satisfying. 

An interested specatator

A steep one and only because I missed a vital road junction