Day 11 - Ogbourne St George to Hindon near Shaftesbury - 56 miles

After a poor night's sleep due to our rooms being right next to the noisy main road between Marlborough and Devizes, we woke more slowly today than ever. We headed down for yet another busy breakfast. I had the usual full English, Lee had what has now become his usual (two poached eggs and beans), and Helen had scrambled eggs.

This breakfast won the wooden spoon competition for the journey, NO BAKED BEANS!! If this kind of behaviour had carried on a few centuries ago it surely would have got the chef a stint in the stocks! The breakfast consisted of two rashers of bacon, a fried egg, mushrooms and a confused tomato (a partially cooked tomato). I gave up eating these abominations two days ago - for me, they equate to a token bit of undressed salad on a plate, but more than this, there is no place for a partially cooked tomato anywhere that I can think of. Tomatoes should either be raw, in which case they should be nowhere near a cooked breakfast, or well cooked. Not thatThe Inn with the Well is the only place guilty of this faux pas - they have featured very regularly throughout our journey, regardless of county or country. So breakfast was a bit of a disappointment after a decent dinner last night: I had a 'real' chilli, with chunks of beef rather than mince; Leehad fajitas, which smelled good; and Helen had a tasty mushroom stroganoff. Oh well, you can't win them all.

We got all of our gear together, paid for our accommodation and got ready to go, hoping that Moggy would start without too much trouble today. So, with battery pack connected and key in, I pulled the starter switch and was rewarded with nothing but a very pathetic mechanical cough - she sounded quite sick today, and things felt ominous. I tried again, but to no avail, so while our three tired and agitated brains tried over the next 20 minutes to work out the best course of action if we couldn't get it started, we left the pack connected for one final try - but there was just another rather tired cough.

Although we knew a jump start would get the car running, we decided that trying to limp all the way to the end of our journey with all the changeovers and re-fuelling stops was just not feasible, so with great sadness we put my disaster plan from yesterday into action. We got a jump start from the landlord and I headed back to Abingdon to swap the Moggy for Helen's little Citroen C2, while Lee and Helen started pedalling south in the direction of Marlborough and then Devizes. Lee had only 25 miles ot do today, so my mission was to get back home, swap all the gear into Helen's car and return, catching up with them en route. So, after leaving the poor Moggy outside our house (looking rather naked without her livery), I headed off in the little Citroen feeling like I was driving a car from the future, such was the difference between the two vehicles.

We had parted company at 9:30am, and by noon I was passing Ogbourne in support car version 2 on the very road that had disturbed our sleep last night. By this time the riders had found a pub by the name of The Churchill Arms in West Lavington. This was close enough to the 25-mile marker to be a suitable changeover spot, and by the time I'd got past two accidents on the road (possibly due to the very heavy showers that seemed to be tipping down all over the area - one of which had caught Lee and Helen and drenched them just before they reached the pub), it was aroung 1 o'clock, so we decided that we might as well stay for lunch. There was a TV showing the Olympic rowing, and the Henry's IPA was good, plus Lee and Helen were still drying out (while Lee had the warmth of the car to go to, Helen still had another 30 miles to contend with).

So, after a lunch of baguettes with chips for Lee and me, and a risotto  for Helen, we headed out to get the penultimate day finished.

We headed off into yet more winds (the winds having already made cycling pretty tough for Lee and Helen in the morning), which made it hard going, and straight into the day's only categorised climb. Once we'd ground out this hill we arrived on top of Salisbury Plain. Lots of ups and downs ensued, but nothing huge, although the wind was still pretty fierce.




It was while traversing these hills that I came across a road sign that was new to me (or at least it's the first time I've noticed one) - I took a picture for you all in case you hadn't seen one either.

This road headed straight into Salisbury, so it was busy with quite a few trucks, meaning that the cycling wasn't the most pleasant we've had, but the weather was improving and the sun was making a bit of an appearance.

Just before the centre of Salisbury we turned west towards Wilton, and soon the roads became quieter. We started to see some very nice looking villages and were soon in Wilton.


As the GPS wanted us to go the wrong way down a one-way street, we hopped off the bikes and walked it. When we popped out in the main square I was quite taken with the unusual church in the centre. We didn't have time to stick around to find out any history though, so we re-mounted and headed off along the route.




Within a few yards we were struck by an even more unusual church, which almost looked as if it had been shipped in from Italy or the South of France (must Google this one and see what was the story behind its seemingly non-English design).

Back on the route to Hindon now, we had more rolling hills and more strong wind. Helen was starting to feel the effects of her hybrid tyres now (basically they're mountain bike tyres but with a band of smooth rubber down the centre, and while this is a big improvement over full 'nobblies', when on tarmac they're still a million miles away from the road tyres Lee and I are sporting). Her tyres must be worth an extra 10 miles each day because of the extra effort needed to propel yourself along when all your tyres want to do is hold onto the road beneath.

The further along we rode, the quieter it became and the villages got prettier. We went through a nice place called Teffon, which had a small stream/river which ran between the houses and the road which meant that each house had a small bridge across into their driveway - it reminded us of Bourton-on-the-Water in the Cotswolds, but without the coachloads of tourists.

Soon after this, we passed a rather grand entrance of the sorts you have at large houses of the likes of Blenheim Palace. I'm sure Tisbury was the village nearest to it, but again, I'll need to Google this to find out what lay behind. We were suffering too much from aches to make any kind of detour so headed off once more along the Hindon road towards our goal.

A few miles down the road, and after one final hill climb, we rolled into Hindon and pulled up outside our pub for the night, The Angel Inn. The village of Hindon is also very pretty, and this combined with the £90 room price tag meant we were hopeful of good things inside. We weren't disappointed, we sat down to a pint of Otter ale (Helen had a bitter shandy) and then went to find our room to clean off the day's exertions. We were very pleased to find a four poster bed, a nice fireplace, a generous bathroom and even a sofa!

I set about starting this blog post while watching Team GB in the velodrome (two world records have been broken in qualifying while I've typed this) and Helen made use of the bath (she couldn't resist as we no longer have one at home!).

We'll be off downstairs for dinner next, and I'm expecting good things! We've got a choice of Otter Ale, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Doombar to wash it all down with - I think even the wine selection will be good in here. Breakfast is served from 8am onwards, and with only a 40-mile run to the finish tomorrow we may allow ourselves a little lie-in.

NEXT (AND FINAL) STOP: Boscombe & Bournemouth - 40 miles.