Race-the-sun write-up Part 6 - Watford Gap

Watford Gap is a low point (physically, not emotionally, for all the baggage the place name has acquired) between some inconvenient Midland undulations. It has hence been much favoured by wayfare builders over the centuries.
Just outside the village of Watford there is a little B road running West that, in the space of a few hundred yards, crosses four major lines of communication.

 
The Romans, who famously went for straight roads, to show natural objects who's boss, contrived to make one of their major routes go through the Gap.  Somewhat broadened but still arrow-straight, this bit of the road is in use today as the A5.

Later, canal and railway builders, who have very good reason to favour level ground, aimed for the Gap when building their major North-South connections.

Most recently, the M1, shown here with eponymous Services, has jostled through the Gap heading North. (Or heading South, depending on your geographical allegiances.)

Race-the-sun write-up Part 5 - Technophilia and the A14

The joy of technology. With WiFi almost everywhere
- like a service station on the A14 -
you can get on line and hold forth at the drop of a hat.

I'm sometimes astonished at how far behind the curve I have fallen with technology... I was one of the first to get a home computer in the days when 64k was massive. A phone graced my briefcase long before that of many a colleague. And yet I have only just figured out how to make my smart(er-than-me) phone connect to the Internet (and therefore Facebook) in the absence of a WiFi connection - surely a key capability on a blogged journey like this one. Fortunately, there is generally no shortage of WiFi providers, and in any case, I regard this more considered write-up while sitting calmly at a proper keyboard to be the real account.

The A14.... now there's a level of technology I understand: roads.

The A14 is certainly well visited though not particularly loved, which is a great shame. It is a very rare thing: a safe, fast highway that goes across the country instead of to and from London. It connects the ferry ports to Europe with the remains of our industrial heartland. I cadged a ride for a bit of it to speed me along into the Midlands.

Race-the-sun write-up Part 4 - The Fens, again.

The Bedford Level: flat lands and the Flat Earth.

My first stop was The Causeway in Sutton, a village between Ely and Huntingdon. The Causeway – which really is a causeway - is a very minor road that crosses the Old and New Bedford rivers, two artificial waterways that run absolutely straight and parallel for miles across the Fens, helping to keep the area agricultural rather than aquatic. (Actually, there’s a third one, the River Delph, but it’s little more than a ditch and you’d be hard pressed to spot it amongst the reeds.) The land around here is famous for its pitch black, incredibly fertile soil. It’s a huge natural gro-bag. But here, this strip of land between the rivers is a rare bit of a wilderness, making a peaceful place for a breakfast stop.
I remember from my geography lessons with Mr Golden at Swaffham Sec. Mod.: only the outside bank of the Old and New Bedford Rivers is built up above the surrounding land like most Fenland waterways. The water is allowed to overflow into the strip of land between them in the winter; a long, thin flood plain, and not at all suitable for the intensive arable cropping of the surrounding acres.
I also remember “Esso” Golden explaining that a famous experiment was conducted on the Old Bedford River to prove the curvature of the Earth. Three posts, all exactly the same height, were set up on boats spread out along a six mile stretch of the river. Sighting along the posts, the middle one appeared to be higher than the other two, so the Earth is round. QED. I discovered a related oddity that old Esso didn’t explain when I checked all this with Professor Google to make I was remembering it right. There were two or three such experiments. On the first go, the sight line was too close to the surface and the mirage effect made it look as if the Earth was flat after all!
I never have figured out why they went to all the trouble of mucking about in boats with theodolites and so on when they could have done much the same thing from any old quay, watching a boat sail out and over the horizon. I guess that the belief in a flat earth was so well established that some explanation or other for ships disappearing over the horizon was generally accepted. I’m sure this and the Bedford Level experiments all say something profound about the nature of scientific knowledge, but I’ll leave that for another day.

The space between the Old and New Bedford Rivers is allowed to flood in Winter.
(Clever old Dutch engineers designed it that way.)
This causeway allows the people of Sutton and Sutton Gaunt to stay in touch.

Race-the-sun write-up Part 3 - Setting off

The only trouble with long days... Short nights.

After a pleasant afternoon with sister Gwyn, fitting up a security camera, being fed (copiously), and catching up on the family gossip, I got an early-ish night and was up and away a little after three.

After a glorious ride across the rolling Norfolk countryside (yes, it does roll; don't believe that Noel Coward twaddle about it being very flat), I arrived at Ness Point, Lowestoft, to find myself very far from alone.

There were photographers aplenty, lining up their lenses to capture the moment...

... a couple of fellow middle-aged bikers also setting off to do the run to St David's...

... and even a sun-worshipping setter, keenly anticipating the dawn.

As it happened, nobody saw the sun rise for the clouds.
Oulton Broad here, where the North Sea meets the Norfolk Broads, looked positively moody about it all in the morning grey.

Race-the-sun write-up Part 2 - Getting to the start line.

I aimed to get to Norfolk on 20th in plenty of time for an early night in preparation for an early start on 21st. Other things to do while heading in that direction came to mind in the days leading up to the Sun Run - show Ma the holiday snaps from Italy, visit the family graves at Castle Acre, fix up a security camera for sister Gwyn - so I ended up sneaking out not long after dawn on the Thursday.

Sneaking out just after dawn on Thursday

Noticing my increasing inability of late to get from A to B without going via C and D for no good reason, I took the opportunity of this run to try out different navigational aids. There's the relevant pages from a map in the tank bag, the waypoint list in the little holder on the handlebars, and in extremis, there is the quite sophisticated sat nav on my new smart phone.  During the course of the run, I tried all three ... and yes, I still managed to go via C and D!

















The early start certainly gave me a clear run. Purring along those dead straight Fenland roads in the early morning was particularly refreshing.  (One has to purr on these roads, not sprint. They may go straight for miles, but they flex as the millenia of peat under them expands and contracts. Going any faster than a graceful purr feels like being kicked at the base of spine at frequent but random intervals.)

Straight on 'till morning. Fenland straights are only 'straight' in the horizontal plain.

I called in on Ma to show her our holiday snaps. Not the best timing I've ever been guilty of, given that she's just had her eyes poked around with at the hospital. Still, I got to breakfast on copious amounts of bread and cheese and one of Ma's mamoth Eccles cakes.


Called in on ma with some trepidation; she always tries to nick my bike.
"It's just like my mobility scooter," she says.

Actually, seeing Ma try to figure out how to put my helmet on for this picture was way more amusing than my attempt at a humorous caption, here!












From Kings Lynn, I took the back roads to Castle Acre...



Isn't it funny how things you remember from your childhood

- like this lane between Southacre and Castle Acre -

alway turn out to be much smaller than you thought.

One object of my detour was to re-acquaint myself with this tucked-away beauty spot, a ford through the River Nar where children can paddle and catch tiddlers while the grown-ups picnic and take pictures of the ruins of Castle Acre priory.

River Nar, Castle Acre
(And yes, I did cop out and ride across the pedestrian bridge.)

Castle Acre priory across the meadows from the ford

Race-the-sun write-up Part 1 - Preamble amble.

Thank you to everybody for their interest and especially to those who have once again been inspired to dip into their pockets and make a contribution to Cancer Research UK (at http://www.justgiving.com/John-Seaman ).
Some people will have seen my write-up on my Facebook group already. It was a handy medium for publishing quick jottings and snapped photos literally from the roadside. Typing on a smart phone's touch screen 'keyboard' is somewhat limiting, encouraging shorter reports, but some would say that in my case, that is a blessing.  If I understood Facebook even half as well as my grandchildren - or even Mrs S, these days - I'd make it available to everybody. I may yet get that education, but in the meantime, here is my more leisurely write-up now that I am back home at my desk.

Race-the-sun run

I'm hatching a notion to ride from Lowestoft at sunrise on the longest day, 21st June, to St David's by sunset, once again stopping off at interesting and less visited places along the way.
It's not specifically for charity this time, but I'll blog it here and if anybody feels inspired by my drivel to click through to the JustGiving site and donate (another) few bob to Cancer Research UK, they are, IMHO, a fine and noble person.
Whether I actually do this is somewhat dependent upon a fairly hectic workload this summer. I'll post an update on the situation here.
Anybody on two wheels - or four, or three, or whatever - interested in joining in or meeting up on the way would all add to the interest. Let me know.