Farms

Fall on a 19th Century Ranch, 2019

If we had all the money in the world and the California Department of Parks and Recreation was selling the Burleigh H. Murray Ranch, we would convert the barn and never leave. Until that time, we’re grateful that it’s only a 30 minute car ride away, near Half Moon Bay. The interpretive sign at the site of the barn (transcribed below), a half mile from the park entrance, places visitors in time and space, history and nature.

The interpretive sign informs us that “Robert Mills built this unusual barn in 1889 for his tenants. Originally 200 feet long, it could house 100 cows.”

“Robert Mills (1823-1897) acquired 1,300 acres in this secluded valley between 1862 and 1884, and added a house, dairy barn, and outbuildings to make it a working ranch. For more than a century, Mills and his heirs leased the ranch to recently immigrated English, Irish, Italian, and Portuguese farmers. Mills, a native of England, came to California in the Gold Rush. He made his start in San Francisco as a glazier; his work included ornamental glass for William Ralston’s Belmont home and the original Palace Hotel in San Francisco. He invested his earnings in land on the Peninsula, and became a major financial patron to early settlers of half Moon Bay and the Coast side. He moved to Belmont in 1877. After Mills’ death, the ranch passed to his wife, Miranda Murray (1831-1913), then her son, Burleigh Chase Murray (18650-1937), and her grandson, Burleigh Hall Murray (1892-1978). The Murray estate donated the ranch to the California Department of Parks and Recreation in 1979 to preserve its cultural and natural resources. The park has since grown to 1325 acres.”

[Transcription continued] “As you travel up the trail, you will see three major habitats: the moist riparian corridor along Mills Creek, shaded by red alder trees; coastal prairie grasslands on the drier south-facing slopes; and, dense coastal scrub on the shady north-facing slopes. Common coastal scrub plants include coyote brush and orange-blossomed sticky monkey flower. Ceanothus shrubs edge the upper trail with fragrant blue blossoms in the spring. Human-created habitats include the fields along the road, now overgrown by mustard and radish, and the dense groves of eucalyptus trees, planted for lumber and as windbreaks. Many species of animals live in or visit the park throughout the year. Birds include red tailed hawks, California quail, and owls. Deer graze in the grassy fields. Nocturnal inhabitants, such as bobcats, raccoons, opossums, and skunks, are less commonly seen, but you may see their footprints in the dust or mud along the trail.”

The barn, Sept 2019

Antique Deering-McCormick agricultural equipment, Sept 2019

The history of the Deering/McCormick merger is pretty interesting. If memory serves from my time as archivist at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens, the Deering team and the McCormick team negotiated from different buildings–not sides of the table, not rooms, but buildings–that’s how well they got along. Photo taken Sept 2019.

Common California Aster (Corethrogyne filaginifolia), Sept 2019

Interlocked eucalyptus, Sept 2019

Sneezeweed (Helenium puberulum) in a eucalyptus grove, Sept 2019

Sept 2019

Twinberry Honeysuckle (Lonicera involucrata), Sept 2019

Red alders (Alnus rubra), Sept 2019

Let us know in the comments if you can name this elegant flower. The broad leaves are misleading; I think the flower’s leaves are the slender leaves close to the ground. Photo taken Sept 2019.

Field Crescent butterfly (Phyciodes pulchella), Sept 2019

Red alders (Alnus rubra), Sept 2019

California Dandelion (Agoseris grandiflora), Sept 2019

Where the trail ends, Sept 2019

Leafless red alders (Alnus rubra), Nov 2019

Nov 2019

This is the interpretive sign that I transcribed above.

Resources Consulted:
Calscape, California Native Plant Society

Cycling Monterey Wine Country, Jan 2019

In his indefatigable quest to find flat routes that my battered but trusty three-speed could handle, my husband discovered River Road, a quiet, paved road through Monterey wine country. As it turned out, the new bike was ready before we had a chance to explore River Road, so River Road became the location of my maiden voyage on the Monocog.

Early one brisk January morning, we traveled through Salinas River Valley – the “Silicon Valley” of agriculture – and found a convenient place to park on an expansive patch of dirt at the juncture of a fork in the road.

As we unloaded the bikes – flipped them upside down, attaching front wheels with the flick of a lever and screwing in pedals with a few turns of a wrench – a sudden and steady stream of vehicles in the same condition as my three-speed drove past. “An early shift getting off of work?” I wondered.

Facing Gabilan Mountains

To the left were the Gabilan Mountains (Pinnacles National Park was just visible in the distance), and to the right were the Santa Lucia Mountains, the eastern boundary of Big Sur.

Pinnacles National Park viewed from River Road

We were alone except for the fog, which, having engulfed much of the Santa Lucia, seemed to have paused for a glass of pinot noir.

Salinas River Valley is Monterey County’s primary wine growing region. The following information was taken from the Arroyo Seco Winegrowers website.

Positioned north-to-south, the Salinas River Valley is a direct and unobstructed corridor from the ocean, beginning at Monterey Bay. The geography of the corridor creates a “Thermal Rainbow”: as one moves south away from Monterey Bay the temperature rises dramatically. The effect is heightened by a very deep underwater canyon similar in size and scope to the Grand Canyon. It impacts the saturation and penetration of fog as well as the strength of winds that sweep through the valley. The result of this rare geographic condition is extreme cooling and regional temperature variances, all of which contribute to the uniqueness of Monterey County as a grape growing region.

Gradually vineyards replaced farms.

And the sun rose higher in the sky and burned off all the fog.

Dirt trails skirted the paved road

The ascent was negligible, but made for a fun ride back to the car.

On the way home we drove south on Aroyo Seco Road to Greenfield before turning around and stopping at Fourth Street Tap House in Gonzales where there are 28 beers on tap and everyone loves dogs.

Resources Consulted:
Arroyo Seco Rd, Cycling California
Aroyo Seco AVA, Aroyo Seco Wine Growers
Cycling the Arroyo Seco-Indians Road, Xasáuan Today
On A Mission Recap, Huckleberry Bicycles

A Mostly Flat Route in Nor Cal, May 2018

Start point: 36°40’21N 121°15’08W elev 257m
U-turn point: 36°31’04N 121°08’15W elev 415m
Total ascension (2 ways): 316m (1,037′)

Our bikes, which had taken us over the rounded hills of England’s South Downs, up and down the plateaus of Cornwall, and through French forests and Florida swamps, were not quite up to the task of taking us over the steep hills of California’s mountain ranges, where mountain biking was born. So we set to building new bikes. Until then, we sought out the flattest routes we could find.

On a sunny, still day in May, we took scenic Highway 25 in Paicines, near Hollister, San Benito County, all the way to the entrance of Pinnacles National Monument. It was a 15 mile (8 km) ride one way, and was mostly flat except for a single section that accounted for most of the ascent, which was a bit of a challenge on a three speed.

Highway 25 is also known as Airline Highway. Sections of the road are so flat and so straight that we wondered if the road had once served as a landing strip, but some cursory online research offered another explanation. Steve Johnson, of the Road Pickle blog, explained that “before the advent of radio communications, airplane pilots used the highway as a visual aid.”

The road follows the San Andreas fault. It was a very surreal experience to be straddling two tectonic plates.

The many folded hills looked like arms nestling grazing cattle.

The scenery is so beautiful that the road is eligible for State Scenic Highway designation.

If you go, you won’t regret stopping at Eva Mae’s Café . Although they don’t allow dogs inside the café, they insisted on bringing a table outside for us. The hospitality and the food were both excellent.

Resources Consulted:
“California Scenic Highway Mapping System,” Department of Transportation
“California State Route 25; the Airline Highway,” Sure, Why Not
“Earth Science: Chapter 7 – Faults, Earthquakes, and Landscapes,” Geology Cafe
“Eva Mae’s Café,” Facebook
“Fault line and fault zone illustrated for the San Andreas Fault in the Santa Cruz Mountains near San Jose, California,” Geology Cafe
“Immaculate Conception Church,” Mapquest
“Maps – Pinnacles National Park,” National Park Service
“Pinnacles National Park, California,” National Park Service
Road Pickle: The Adventures of Sash and Steve
“The San Andreas Fault,” Geology.com
State Route 25 (Wikipedia)
“Where’s the San Andreas Fault,” USGS website

Bonjour Villentrois, Aug 2017

For many generations, my spouse’s family has had a home in Villentrois (population 645) near Valençay, at the northern tip of the Indre departement. In the past, the town was famous for its mushrooms, which blanket the landscape in November. Mushrooms are also grown in deep caves cut out of the Tuffeau limestone hills. My spouse’s family home has such a cave. They keep you lovely and cool in the summer. Tuffeau limestone is also used to patch neighboring Loire Valley castles, the most famous of which is probably Chambord.

We cycled trails, wrought by tractors, that skirted the boundaries of farms and intersected major roadways, and dirt roads cut by lumber companies, patched with ceramic shards, that disappeared in the shadow of Forêt de Brouard. We avoided major roadways as the roads are small and drivers speed and are unused to cyclists. Small restaurants – none more authentic in France – quenched our hunger. Only one word of caution: check the weather forecast before you leave, as there aren’t very many places to take shelter during rainstorms.

Veuil has a cluster of restaurants that are worth risking a drenching for. We arrived late to Le P’Tit Veuil with a ferocious storm close on our heals, but they did not hesitate to welcome us in, and fed us with such alacrity that I have had to reconsider my definition of hospitality!

The dark area is the Forêt de Brouard. We got caught in a rainstorm while in the forest. The best shelter we could find was a young tree that slowed the passage of the rain, but in no way prevented it from reaching us. The storm lasted about thirty minutes! It was a fantastic ride, though.

Sunflowers, or “tournesols” in French.

A house built with blocks of Tuffeau limestone.

This trail in the Forêt de Brouard was on the delimitation between two departments. The concept of “departement” is similar to “county” in English, but the jurisdiction of departements is wider than that of counties (“comte” in French), which are usually part of departements.

The entrance to a nest of European hornets. Wikipedia says they’re docile unless engaged in contest with another wasp, or defending their nest. They were unbothered by us.

Classic Valencay cheese, made with goats’ milk, little flattened pyramids of heaven.

Route Departemental (D33), road from Lucay-le-Male to Villentrois. The glass insulators on the power lines were old in the 1960s. When my spouse was a child, these funny, old insulators imprinted themselves in his memory so that they will forever be associated with Villentrois.

Resources Consulted:
A Gardener in France: Troglodyte flower show in central France
European Hornet (Wikipedia)
Cheese.com, Valencay

Bike Camping on an Undulating Plateau, Jul 2017

The route: Truro to St. Agnes, St. Agnes to Lelant Saltings, Lelant Saltings to St. Ives (by train), St. Ives to Lamorna via Penzance

Cycling Cornwall is not for the faint of heart. Arriving by train in Truro, the county capital, and stepping off the platform, we quickly learned what a twenty degree incline looks like. “An undulating plateau at three hundred feet” is how one local told us his secondary school teachers had taught him to regard Cornwall’s geography. “You notice the contradiction in terms?” he said, “A plateau by definition can’t undulate.” Cornwall has many plateaus atop many undulations, he explained, which we can attest to.

Truro to St. Agnes

Truro to St. Agnes was the only muddy leg of the trip.

On the way to St. Agnes

Having missed a turn, we found ourselves at the end of a dirt road and confronted by three boys assembled under a tree who forthrightly informed us that “You’re on private property.” Thankfully their dad popped his head out of a door with an injunction to the boys to “Show them how to get back onto the trail.” A hidden bridge brought us here.

St. Agnes stone city marker.

St Agnes was our first stop. We camped overnight at Trevellas Manor Farm Campsite, owned and operated by the Trevellas family since the 1840s. Every year the family undertakes a new improvement project, and this year it was renovating the toilet and shower facilities. They were fantastic. To get to the campsite, we followed a trail overgrown with foxgloves. Looking up the trail, the sky was a blue disc.

The overgrown trail to the Travellas Manor Farm Campsite

Foxgloves!

Shortly after setting up our tent, which the landlord thoughtfully located next to a westerly hedge to protect us from the wind, we were inundated with fog as thick as pea soup, as the saying goes. A dusk walk into town was somewhat treacherous. We took a narrow road, which we mistook for a minor road. As cars raced past us we were invisible in the falling light and the fog, which caused Gauthier to instruct me to “Be prepared to jump into the bushes,” by which he meant “Be prepared to leap into the thorny brambles that thickly cover the steeply inclined shoulder of the road.” Dinner at The Taphouse consisted of fresh crab, rocket salad with bell-shaped tomatoes, steaming ciabatta bread, and berries and meringue for dessert. It was worth the perilous journey into town.

Walking from the Travellas campsite to the narrow, but not so minor, road into town.

On the way back we followed a trail through the Blue Hills Tin Works. The site is now more famous for motorsport races than its rich industrial history. We stopped at Trevellas-Porth Beach. Crumbling smelt stacks poked out of the earth amidst ferns and flowering bushes, and a little stream flowed quietly under cracked stone bridges to meet waves that crashed onto a pebble beach. A hundred or so feet out to sea were shadowy sea stacks like the hands of a giant, rocky time keeper.

A Blue Hills Tin stream

Blue Hills Tin Works

Blue Hill Tin Works

Next we headed for St. Ives. The roads undulated with the curvaceous landscape, past coastal towns with names like Porthtowan and Portreath. Many a hill we walked our bikes up, panting. But there was always a pub to quench our thirst when we reached the top. We cheated a bit nearing the end of the day and took the train from Lelant Saltings Train Station to St. Ives.

On one of those plateaus. Near Portreath, on our way to St. Ives.

On the way to St. Ives

St. Agnes to Leland Saltings

St. Ives was bustling, and Ollie in his basket was a major attraction. I don’t know whether it was talking to so many strangers or the ride, but I was absolutely exhausted by the time we got to Ayr Park, the campsite where we were to spend the night. And hungry! So imagine our dismay when we discovered at 8:30 pm that restaurants in St. Ives close at 9 pm. For half an hour we searched in vain for a restaurant that would take dogs. Then we bumped into The Sloop, an inn dating back to 1312 with the only kitchen in town that stays open until 10 pm. And they took dogs!

St. Ives

The next day we rode just south of Penzance via Mousehole (pronounced “moozle”) to Boleigh Farm, a working dairy farm with a fenced off field for campers. One of the farmers pronounced Gauthier’s name right on the first try, dispelling any doubts we had about the connection between the cultures of Cornwall and Brittany.

St. Ives to Lamorna via Penzance

On our way to Lamorna.

Moors!

A very old, crumbled down stone fence on the moors.

A seagull with a view!

Boleigh Farm where the campsite was separated from cow paddocks by a three-rail fence and a hedge.

Dinner at the Lamorna Wink, in breath-taking Larmorna Valley, was phenomenal. A modest river flows down the valley, surrounded by enormous ferns and other plants we had only ever imagined could exist in pacific temperate rain forests, and were certainly not a feature of any other place we had visited in England.

Lamorna Cove

On day four we caught a train from Penzance back to London, vowing to return to Penzance as often as possible. And next time, to shop at the fish market! Before we left Cornwall, we had “cream tea,” which consists of tea and hot scones spread with jam and clotted cream… served the Cornish way with the cream on top of the jam.

Mousehole

Apologies for the low res image, but this is where we had cream tea. Our waiter was unlike any waiter we’d ever had before. In appearance and accent he resembled a sailor. I was uncertain how to address him at first, but he was friendly, funny and knowledgeable, equally at ease talking about scones, pilchards and local history.

Cycling The Ridgeway Trail – Day 3, Apr 2017

902 ft maximum height
National Trails The Ridgeway Trip Planner

The time between our brains receiving the message “Ache in bum region” to the time the message changed to “What heavenly surroundings,” was once again very rapid. The ascent up the side of the ridge was steep and wild and the trail rutted and crumbly. Gauthier carries Ollie in the basket except when riding up hills. Here’s how it works: I generally follow behind; when Gauthier stops at the base of hills to remove Ollie, he yells, “Go Emily, go!” at which cry I whiz past and Ollie tears after me.

A racehorse gallops!

The section of The Ridgeway between Wantage and Goring is a dream to ride. It has large stretches of grassy hard-pack, hardly any ruts, and few if any steep hills.

We stopped to have a snack atop a derelict GWR tunnel. “I remember riding this line with my dad before it was shut down in 1963,” a passing hiker told us.

leaving The Ridgeway
Before we knew it we were saying goodbye to The Ridgeway and turning our bikes towards Goring, a village of 3,200 inhabitants with a Norman church.

Goring village with view of church

Goring was recently in the press for being the home of and place where George Michael passed away. It’s also Wind in the Willows country.

Goring Lock

The homes are old, posh and lush. Goring Lock (above) is situated in Goring Gap.

mossy roof of Catherine Wheel
Catherine Wheel is Goring’s oldest inn, dating back to Elizabethan times. It serves traditional British food (i.e., a variety of roast dishes) and real ale, hosts live jazz, has a predilection for all things French…

French safari-inspired wallpaper at the Catherine Wheel

and a sign at the bar informs guests that “Witches are welcome.”

Goring Gap with boats
Our final stop was Reading and to get there we took the Thames Path, which cuts through The Ridgeway just north-west of Reading at the Goring Gap.

Norman church

We followed a quiet, gently descending road, canopied by trees and intermittently littered with horse droppings. The soundscape was fantastic: birdsong, burbling brook and the distant clip clop of horses’ hooves. Hidden behind the dense foliage was a large estate with another lovely Norman church.

donkeys
Ollie loves donkeys. These friendly fellows ambled over to say hello. Ollie gave one of them a little lick on the nose.

Ollie gives the donkey a lick
After taking us through the countryside, the Thames Path took us up a pine-scented hill with a wonderful view of the river.

Thames Path with view of Thames
The trail was narrow.

narrow path

and hilly.

steep descent
Can you picture Mr. Toad careening down this hill in a motor car? “Oh, pooh! I’m not afraid of heights! Silly, boyish fear! Sheer waste of time! Toot, toot!!”

steep ascent
It took a bit out of us to carry our bikes up this slope. Parts of the Path front lavish homes.

grazing cattle

and other parts take you past farms.

And a very short detour takes you to Mapledurham, a tiny village of 317 inhabitants named after a 12th century family estate with one of the largest Elizabethan houses in Oxfordshire.

water mill

Also on the estate is the only water mill on the Thames to be in commercial production; the same water mill that graces the cover of Black Sabbath’s first album.

Mapledurham
Among the films and television programs filmed here are The Eagle has Landed, Miss Marple and Midsomer Murders.

Thames Path in Reading
Thames Path brings you almost to the doorstep of the Reading train station. With only minutes to spare until the next train left for London, and loath to wait an hour for the next one, we raced through the large station with Ollie at our heals and reached the train just in time. As Gauthier swung his bike aboard, Ollie leaped on after it, hopped up onto an empty seat and curled into a little ball. He was not about to be left behind!

To read more about our experience cycling the Ridgeway Trial, see our posts for Day 1 and Day 2.

Resources Consulted

BBC News: Wind in the Willows used in Goring Weir court plea, 18 November 2016

Cycling The Ridgeway Trail – Day 2, Apr 2017

902 ft maximum height
National Trails The Ridgeway Trip Planner

We were a lot more psychologically prepared on Saturday. Our bums ached a bit when we first set out, but the pain was quickly forgotten. We stopped again at Three Trees for scotch eggs and Belgian buns and then headed back up the side of the ridge. On the way we saw hang gliders!

This section of the Ridgeway is hillier than the section between Swindon and Avebury, but the hills are far gentler. We were treated to endless vistas, cows and sheep.

Uffington Hill Fort was a must-see and, conveniently, on the way. It’s one of several Iron Age hill forts built along the Ridgeway. Today it is believed that, contrary to popular belief, hill forts were not primarily used for defensive purposes, but rather were community centers in which Iron Age tribes or clans gathered for worship, feasting and to trade livestock, crops and other goods. Feast we did, nestled in Uffington’s ditch where we were protected from the wind. Grateful I was for my neck warmer and wind breaker. The wind up there was fierce! There were lots of kites and lots of dogs.

View from White Horse Hill; White Horse is out of view to the right

The Uffington chalk figure, known as the “White Horse,” was originally made by cutting a trench into the hillside beside Uffington Hill Fort and filling it with chalk blocks. For centuries local people have cared for the figure by “scouring” the surface and renewing the chalk infill to keep the horse white. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Lord of the Manor provided food and entertainment for the scourers, which became a great annual celebration called the “Pastime” that attracted thousands of people. The White Horse is such a recognizable landmark that it was covered up during the Second World War to prevent it from being used as a navigation point by enemy aircraft.

Wayland Smithy’s Long Barrow

Chalk figures were popularly created by landowners two centuries ago to add a sense of timelessness to their country estates. More recently they were created to commemorate a regiment or war. However, excavations during the 1990s established that the White Horse dates from between 1,400 and 600 BCE.

The trail also passes by Wayland’s Smithy Long Barrow, a five-thousand-year-old, communal burial chamber. It originally contained fourteen people, but by the time the chambers were examined in 1920, they had been ransacked. Legend has it that if you leave your horse here overnight, it will be magically reshod in the morning.

St. Michael and All Angels Church graveyaurd

Shortly before reaching Letcombe Bassett, our via-point to Wantage, we had a wipeout. My bike was fitted with grippy, fat tires built to handle uneven terrain, but Gauthier’s bike was not. The deep ruts, combined with the extra care needed to safely chauffeur the chien in his front-rack basket, resulted in the bike’s tire getting trapped in a rut. Oliver jumped gracefully from his basket before the bike hit the ground, but Gauthier fell with the bike. We learned an important lesson, which is that flint rocks have no problem slicing through human flesh. Go figure.

Letcombe Bassett

Letcombe Bassett was idyllic. St. Michael and All Angels Church, dating from the 12th century and now held by Corpus Christi College, Oxford, is an adorable building and the folk we met there – scrubbing the floor, mowing the lawn and braiding flower wreathes of every color – couldn’t have been kinder. Many times we had to decline the invitation to return home with them to dress Gauthier’s bloody knee. The man scrubbing the floor was also a bell ringer and told me all about full circle ringing.

Letcombe Bassett map

Outside the church, grazing sheep formed a backdrop to leaning grave stones, and horses in jackets like Ollie’s were grazing in paddocks framed by thatched farmhouses and stables. We followed a narrow footpath that followed a brook to the base of the hill where the brook had once been used to farm watercress. A sequence of similar footpaths delivered us to Wantage. On the way we met a retired farmer with a beautiful Shetland sheepdog who reminisced fondly about the intimate relationships that are formed between sheepdogs and their sheep.

Former watercress farm

We arrived in Wantage about 4 pm. Alfred’s Lodge, where we stayed overnight, was clean and tastefully decorated. The owner recommended we wet our lips at Shoulder of Mutton before dinner. The pub dates back to about 1830 and is known for its good selection of real ales. Dinner was at The Lamb, the only restaurant in town that allowed dogs.

Wantage town centre with back view of statue of Alfred the Great built 1877.

Wantage, population 10,000, was originally a Roman settlement and is famous for being the birthplace of King Alfred the Great in 849. Weekly trading rights were first granted to the town by Henry III in 1246. Markets are now held twice weekly on Wednesdays and Saturdays. St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church dates from the 13th century. Its size indicates the importance of the town as a trading center.

St. Peter and St. Paul’s Church dating from 13th century.

That night, I dreamed a ghost in mortal form fell in love with a young socialite named Willow Ash. He gave her gifts of clothing that had once belonged to his deceased wife, and when an epidemic swept through town, the clothing protected her by concealing from the grim reaper that she was mortal.

Tomb with rounded top and skull sculpture at St. Michael and All Angels Church, dated 1690.

To read more about our experience cycling the Ridgeway Trial, see our posts for Day 1 and Day 3.

Resources Consulted
Photographer’s Resource: Uffington White Horse
Walking World: Ridgeways
Wantage (Wikipedia)

Cycling The Ridgeway Trail – Day 1, Apr 2017

902 ft maximum height
National Trails The Ridgeway Trip Planner

We spent a lot of time at the public library when we first moved to the UK, and one day we checked out a travel guide about the ancient Ridgeway trail, Britain’s 5,000 year-old road. Captivated by visions of neolithic pilgrims, Roman soldiers, Viking and Saxon invaders, drovers and traders, we promised ourselves we would cycle it as soon as the weather warmed up.

Originally a complex of braided tracks along the 400-mile chalk crest of the North Wessex Downs and The Chilterns, some as much as a mile wide, with subsidiary ways diverging and coming together, today the exact course and width of the tracks is defined by earth banks, thorn hedges and barbed-wire fences. This change occurred over two-hundred years ago during the local Enclosure Acts of 1750, which saw common land transferred into private hands.

In 1972 the 87-mile central section was approved as The Ridgeway National Trail. Most of the remainder has been way-marked, however, and is shown on Ordinance Survey maps under different names. Some local landowners objected to the Trail, so in 1987 the Countryside Commission charged all local highway authorities with ensuring that every footpath be unblocked by the year 2000. Lawsuits were filed and today access to the Trail is unfettered.

Spectacular, bright-yellow fields of rapeseed were in bloom everywhere.

The streets were eerily quiet on Good Friday morning when we cycled to Paddington Station via Hyde Park to catch the 0927 to Swindon. We were glad we’d made bike reservations as space for bikes is limited on GWR trains and some cyclists were turned away.

We had a thorough ride itinerary that considered routes, weather, accommodations and food for both ourselves and Ollie. Our route avoided car traffic as I can’t enjoy cycling with cars whizzing by. The plan: day one we would cycle Swindon to Avebury and back to Swindon (25 miles), day two we would cycle Swindon to Wantage (25 miles), and day three we would cycle Wantage to Reading (25 miles) where we would take the train back to London.

We used four mapping websites: 1) Sustrans provides a map of the National Cycle Network, or NCN, which is a series of safe, traffic-free paths and quiet on-road cycling and walking routes that connect to every major town and city in the United Kingdom; 2) CycleStreets caters to the needs of both confident and less confident cyclists and provides an exceptional map of bridleways and footpaths, some of which are all but hidden from the naked eye; 3) Walk4Life, originally government funded, provides trail characteristics, such as surface (flat, firm), barriers and hazards; and 4) GoogleEarth street-view helped us visualize the route.

Ollie patrols the perimeter at Three Trees farm shop.

We packed light. We carried 12kg, including Ollie and a thermos full of tea: Ollie – 5kg, Ollie’s bag – 800g, tea thermos and water – 2kg, change of clothes – 1.5kg, bike lock and tools – 1kg, food – 1.5kg. We used front racks rather than panniers as front racks distribute weight more evenly. Packing light was important because my bike has only three speeds.

The M4 pedestrian/cycle overpass.

NCN 45 connects to the Ridgeway and is well-marked and easy to find from Swindon Station. It’s a 30 to 40 minute cycle from the station to the trail. If you plan on taking this route, note that this section of NCN 45 follows both footpaths and minor roads, so pay attention to signposts.

We stopped at Three Trees farm shop, where we snacked on delicious scotch eggs and Belgian buns and picked up some Wiltshire blend tea. From Three Trees we took the NCN 45 northwest to some minor roads that took us through scenery out of a story book until we reached a track that led up the side of the down.

The track was paved for about three miles and then turned into a multiplicity of dirt-based surfaces for the duration of the ride to Avebury, which was to be our destination before heading back to Swindon for the night. We stopped several times to inflate or deflate our tires to adjust to trail conditions. There were few other cyclists, but many hikers. The trail is intersected by roads, so it is easy to ride or hike small sections.

Birdsong followed us throughout the trip as we passed through Marlborough Downs before reaching Avebury.

“In 2012 the Marlborough Downs farmers formed a unique partnership and began to work together to make space for nature on their farms. Originally government funded, the partnership involves over 30 farms covering 25,000 acres of Wiltshire countryside.”

“One of the most important geological sites in Britain. Natural events have created valleys with spectacular quantities of sarsen stones, which now support rare and unusual lichens. The remains of settlements, field systems, burial mounds, ancient tracks and the widespread working of sarsen stones show that people have worked and lived in this downland landscape for over 7,000 years. The reserve is part of the Avebury World Heritage Site.”

What we found most striking about the chalk grasslands of Fyfield Down were the giant, yellow-flowered broom bushes and the large, silicious sandstone boulders (i.e., sarsen stones) that were transported to the area through glacial action during the ice age.

Fairly significant sections of the trail are sadly deeply rutted by motor vehicle traffic, which is very detrimental to walkers and cyclists alike, as well as being ugly and unnatural-looking, although it does provide an outstanding opportunity to practice some technical riding. Riding the rutted parts in sustained rain, with puddles and mud, would be hellish, so it’s important to pay attention to the weather forecast.

It’s also uphill for a good third of the way. The combination of ruts, ascents and an 18 mph wind in our face made the ride challenging, but it was totally worth it.

Ridgeway trail terminates a few miles before Avebury in a gigantic mound complete with standing stones. The sarsen stones were dragged from the surrounding hills in the late Stone Age. We found it interesting that whereas henges with defensive purposes have ditches with external banks, Avebury Henge, like Stonehenge, has an inside ditch. We also found it interesting to note how well protected the Henge was from the wind, situated as it is in a valley.

Standing inside the bank, looking at the massive stones, contemplating the incredible amount of labor needed to create such a monument was awe-inspiring. English Heritage points out that henges such as Avebury’s “bear witness to the existence over many hundreds of years of a great civilisation in this part of Wessex. […] The sheer amount of labour required to excavate the huge ditches, to gather, transport and erect the massive stones, and to raise the strange mound of Silbury Hill, indicates the availability of a substantial population, and the quality of the work, particularly in the latter stages, shows their considerable skills.”

Apparently, by the 1930s many of the stones had fallen over and the site been disfigured by buildings. English Heritage explains that “the appearance of the site today owes much to Alexander Keiller, heir to a fortune made from the famous Keiller marmalade, who bought the site and cleared away buildings and re-erected many stones in the late 1930s.” I found out a little more about Alexander Keiller’s role from some documents stored at The National Archives.

In addition to exploring the Henge, we ate at the Red Lion where we were entertained with stories about thatch rooves and hidden rooms by a retired historic building conservation consultant, and admired St. James Church, the earliest parts of which date from 1,000 CE.

Lichen covered gravestones.

We did not have enough time to do Avebury justice. That would have taken at least four hours. Also, bringing a dog placed limits on what we could do. We would have liked to visit the 16th-century manor house (you can actually touch the furniture and lie on the beds!) and the Alexander Keiller Museum.

With the wind at our backs and a mostly downward journey, the trip back to Swindon was swift and fairly painless. It would be a lie to say we weren’t suffering a bit by the time we arrived at our hotel around 7pm. Among other aches and pains, I had somehow acquired a sunburn on my lips. We stayed at TravelLodge. It was clean, quiet, well-located, had a bar and 24 hour restaurant and, most importantly, accepted dogs and bikes.

Swindon is an interesting city rich in railway heritage. Swindon’s rail workers received health care that became a model for the NHS, and access to personal enrichment programs that included xylophone lessons. It also had the UK’s first lending library. Today it is home to Oxford University’s Bodleian Library book depository, which contains 153 miles of bookshelves. It also has the English Heritage National Monument Record Centre and the headquarters of the The National Trust. And apparently you can see iconic punk-rock bands, such as the U.K. Subs, play live at local dive-bars for £8 (if only we’d known this sooner)!