A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - The End

Camping so close to home does have advantages, I was home just after 9 o’clock! I’d had a poor nights sleep due to the heat so wasn’t inclined to hang about, and of course packing up only takes a few minutes. There are a few conclusions from the trip and a few jobs to be done. 

Circumstances meant my usual planning for a holiday hadn’t happened. I’ll normally have somewhere to go every day, be it a railway, historic building or whatever. As a result I found myself sitting around in the campsite a lot more than usual. Hopefully we’ll be back to normal, or close to it, next year. 

Having, and using, the bike was great but, as already mentioned, I must be fitter by next year. That’s relatively easy to deal with, it just means getting out and riding and using the exercise bike more often. I’ve decided I’m definitely having a small “travel” camera for carrying on the bike. It was a worthwhile test taking the big camera with me but I missed too many shots; I can get a suitable bag to sit in top of the crossbar so I won’t even have to get off the bike to take a photo. I’ll also sort out a better phone mount and replace the spring seat post shortly. If I can see the phone screen the OS Map app works well enough for navigation and has advantages, in particular routes can be uploaded on the website and then appear in the app. You can also download the map sections for the routes in advance so you’re not tied to having a data connection. 

With the ‘van I need to tackle the water system again, I’m not sure just what I’m going to do but I think a new tap may be required. I’ll also try and make getting the carriers in and out easier. I’m contemplating new curtains as the existing ones are getting a bit grotty. Being cream coloured and unlined they’re not lightproof at all and the back ones aren’t really long enough. The difficult question is what to do about the front. Currently it’s a single long curtain held up with press studs but I’ve got 3 options. Firstly I can get a new length made up but that will cost about as much as the other 6 curtains put together. I could just keep the existing curtain but the earlier comments on light would still apply. The third option is to get either interior or exterior window covers, the downside of these is that they’ll take up a lot more space then the existing curtain which just folds and rolls up to stow on the shelf above the windscreen. I’ll look to get some prices together for the various options then make a decision. 

I’d like to fit another holiday in a bit later in the year but I’m not sure, at the moment, whether I’ll go away in the ‘van or stay at home. Depending on what I decide this may be the last blog post of the year! Normal service will hopefully be resumed in 2021 when I’m hoping to carry out this years planned trips to Derbyshire, Kent & East Susses and Scotland. 

A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - People Watching

Another hot day with nothing planned so after a long lie in I sorted the’ van out (toilet needed emptying) then cycled down to the visitor centre cafe by Grafham Water. They’re only doing take-away but as that includes bacon and egg baps that was fine with me! 

Sat sitting in the shade of a tree, reading and looking out at the reservoir I was able to indulge in yet more people watching. 

I’m not sure how many families or people were involved but there seemed to be a huge and wide ranging game of hide and seek going on around the trees near me. The arguments don’t change, “It’s not cheating if you move hiding place!”, “Yes it is!” etc. 

An older couple had obviously found how to compromise in life, they’d brought their chairs and coolbox and set up so that he was in the shade of a tree reading and she was catching the sun. 

There was a bit of a ditch next to where I was sat, it’s dry so you could walk across but of course the kids all jumped it. One group of three, the youngest wouldn’t jump so older sister/cousin/whatever just picked her up and swung her over, simple things but great to see kids outdoors just having fun. 

As it was starting to get busy and noisy, and very hot, I decided to just go back to the site via the village community shop. I picked up a decent steak pie which I had with the last bag of salad for lunch, setting up my chair in the shade of the hedge behind the pitch, before settling down for another reading session. 

I’ve worked my way through quite a few Kindle books this holiday but after a busy and stressful, at times, few months the relaxation has probably done some good. Not that I’ve been able to stop working completely, my assistant is still relatively new and there are issues that he doesn’t yet know how to sort but it’s a learning curve. I’ve been pleased with how he’s dealt with some things without needing any input so we’ll get there. 

Annoyingly the afternoon was somewhat disturbed by an excessive amount of dog yapping on the site. Apologies to any dog owners but if they can’t keep quiet for more than a couple of minutes at a time they shouldn’t be brought away. One was literally yapping every few moments for a couple of hours.

After a simple tea of Wensleydale (I like a bit of cheese, Grommit) baps I decided another pint or two at the Grafham Trout would be in order. 

It doesn’t look much but it’s community built and owned, serving local beer at decent prices so I’ll support it. As I’m on the bike though a couple of pints is enough. 

A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - Even Less to See!

The original thought was to cycle down to St Neots today but I decided to keep it free-form and just do what I felt like. The back is suffering a little from the unaccustomed exercise so walking round the town wasn’t an attractive proposition. 

After breakfasting I set out on the bike in the general direction of the main visitor centre for the reservoir, first stop on the way being Grafham Cycle Centre. They’re a hire base but also sell bikes and accessories. I’ve not been finding the padding in the cycle shorts as much of a benefit as I’d hoped, I think because they’re geared up to a head down bum in the air style of riding so I’ve been thinking of getting a wider, more padded saddle. I’m also looking to replace the suspension seat post with a rigid one as it’s not very effective with my weight on and really it’s just a tad high. 

I found a solution to the first part of the equation, a padded cover for the existing saddle, for under £15. Put it on and it’s made a huge difference! Next thing will be to try it in the exercise bike when I get home as that’s not very comfortable either. No seat posts but that’s easily solved. I also noted, but didn’t buy, a small bag that will go on the top of the crossbar to hold the small camera, etc. and keep it accessible. I’ll need to check sizes but it should work. Online shopping, which we’ve all been doing a lot of, is great but sometimes you really need to see the items in the flesh. 

It being a bit early for coffee at the visitor centre I carried on cycling round the trail and across the dam, again just taking things as they’d come. Once I saw signs for the next cafe at the fishing lodge that gave me a target. A drink and piece of flapjack there refuelled me and when I checked I figured I was about half way round so carried on. It’s an easy enough trail even on a hybrid touring bike like mine, some parts are tarmac, some are hard packed gravel and some are on roads or pavements. I developed a front brake squeal at one point but looking at the state of the wheels I think that was just some dust (downside of disk brakes). As the trail runs tight past the caravan site entrance that seemed a good place to finish! 10.43 miles recorded in 1:08 hours, a bit slower than I’d like but there are some hills and for a lot of the time I was following other people and content to relax at a steady pace. 

I’m still having some problems with the water supply on the ‘van. I think what’s happened is the flexible pipe to the tap has become kinked. I’ve restored enough flow to manage and will investigate further at home. The main problem is the locker really isn’t quite big enough for the fresh and waste carriers but I can gain some height if I replace the wooden cross member at the bottom with a metal one. It’ll only take a few minutes to do and the 10-15mm gained could be critical as getting the carriers over it is the hardest part. 

Sorry there are no pictures yet today, I may take some later if I go for a wander. 

A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - Nothing to See

Today was the move from the Lincolnshire site to the Club site at Grafham Water. The only problem was I couldn’t find anywhere to visit in between! Every single attraction I looked at either hasn’t yet reopened, doesn’t open on a Wednesday or doesn’t open until too late in the day. 

I hadn’t particularly wanted to visit a town or city but in the end settled in going into Ely. I struck lucky on the parking, finding a 3 hour free street space just along from the cathedral. I had a wander round including finding a bike/model/DIY/ lots of other things shop. The bike part seemed mainly geared up to the serious side of things, one of the few bikes for sale was around £6,000! The model side would be very useful if it was nearer to home as they stocked a wide range of “bits” including paints and pigments. 

After a decent coffee from an outdoor stall I headed back to the ‘van via the front of the cathedral. 

Apologies if the tower looks a bit skew wiff, trust me, the camera was level! I decided not to go in the cathedral, it’s online booking only (and £8 a head) so I couldn’t be bothered. I don’t mind visiting them but more and more I feel such places have less to do with the Glory of God and more to do with the Glory of the so-called Great and Good. 

I wasn’t desperate for shopping but wanted to top up a couple of things which a stop at Morrisons on the edge of St Ives provided. I was running out of bread and, on the basis Man cannot live on bread alone, I also bought beer and salad. It’s handy being able to drop stuff straight in the fridge*. It’s also useful to be able to reach the fridge from the driver’s seat when you remember there’s a bar of chocolate (Divine dark mint crisp from the Oxfam shop) in your back pocket that’s not going to survive very much longer. 😊

After managing to negotiate my way to Grafham, with little help from the sat nav which wasn’t aware the old A14, now the A1307 was closed, I got on site to be immediately greeted with, “You do have a toilet?” Due to a boiler failure the toilet block is closed for the foreseeable future. I’d have thought they could at least make the toilets accessible even if the showers aren’t usable but it is what it is. I was already aware when I booked and it’s a minor nuisance using the ‘van loo as I have to close the curtains. I could have brought Our First Avowed In** but couldn’t be bothered with it so I’ll cope. 

Once set up it was very pleasant sat sitting with a beer or two just watching the world go by. Shortly I’m going to wander to the information kiosk to check out the routes to Grafham Water itself, there are 4 apparently. I’ll be staying in tonight as the community pub only opens Thursday to Sunday but that will be on tomorrow’s agenda. The current plan during the day is to pedal down to St Neots. I have a route programmed in but I noticed when I arrived there’s a cycle trail signposted so I’ll check that out. 

*I had a minor issue with the fridge last night, I noticed at about bed time that the temperature was getting a bit high. I’d also noticed a flicker in the LED lights. It turned out the mains cable wasn’t quite fully home so it had been running on 12v and the low voltage cut out had triggered (there’s no mains charging for the battery, it only charges when the engine is running). No harm done but it could do with a clear indication of the power source and a beeper for when the battery gets low would  be useful. If I fit the planned solar panel for next year it won’t be a problem. 

**As in the hymn, Our first avowed intent to be a pilgrim.  It’s the toilet tent we used at Church for events, etc. 

A Man, a ‘Van and a Bike - I See the Light

The planned cycle ride for today was 29 miles or so, in the end I did 19.5 miles instead, that was partly due to my fitness and much to do with the weather. At the point I needed to make a definite decision it was raining (the Met Office were still saying there was less than a 5% chance of this) and more importantly there was a head wind. Now you would think that if you cycle nearly 10 miles with a headwind then turn round and cover the same ground in reverse you’d then have the wind in your favour. As my sailing friends will say it never happens that way! I did achieve my main aim which was a visit to the East Lighthouse on the Nene* Outfall. 

First stop on the way down was Sutton Bridge (or Crosskeys Bridge as it’s also known) itself. 

A book I was reading recently commented that not only are these structures marvels of engineering but it’s amazing that they still survive carrying traffic volumes and weights far greater than was ever anticipated. The current bridge dates back to 1897 and originally carried both rail and road traffic. Now both halves are used for the road. 

From there I pedalled along the riverside to the lighthouse. 

It’s not a very big lighthouse, it’s not even much use for its primary purpose of leading boats into the channel since a new sea wall in the 1940s moved the shoreline some half a mile further out, it does however hold a very important place in the global conservation movement. 

In 1933 Sir Peter Scott lived in the lighthouse at a time when he was deciding what to do with his life. As the son of Scott of the Antarctic there were certain expectations and he decided to pursue his training as a wildlife artist, later providing the illustrations for The Snow Goose by Paul Gallico. 

Up until 1939 Scott created wildfowl ponds around the lighthouse but was called up to serve in the war. Due to the land changes, carried out to provide more land for farming, he didn’t return but his conservation work there provided the basis for his subsequent founding of the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust at Slimbridge and the World Wildlife Fund (now the Worldwide Fund for Nature of course, I never could see the point of the name change!) There have been plans for a visitor centre, etc. at the lighthouse since around 2012 but finance has never been forthcoming. 

On the way back along the river I took a couple of photos of the grandly named Port Sutton Bridge which, in its current form, opened in 1987. 

It’s not much of a port! Looking the other way from the same spot, and past the winding hole, is Crosskeys Marina. 

This “marina”, which is actually just a pontoon, was opened in 2017 at a cost of £900,000 of public money as a gateway to the Fens. Frankly, it fails! 

At this point I decided to head directly back to site through Long Sutton rather than travelling down the other bank of the river and looping round. With the headwind and my aches I either needed to take a reasonable break or do the sensible thing and turn up the assistance on the e-bike. I did the latter! Even with that the nearly 20 miles I travelled still used less than 50% of the battery life so I’m happy with that. It bodes well for later plans. 

A lesson learnt today is that I need to carry the small camera as well as, or instead of, the large mirrorless one and I need to find a way of having it readily accessible. One of the plus points of travelling by bike is you see small interesting details but it’s not worth stopping to get the big camera out of the rucksack. 

I may look again at small camera options but one thing that’s useful on the mirrorless is I can connect to it via WiFi and download pictures to the phone which I can then use in the blog and for post cards so I’d l like to retain that capability. I’ve been using a new blogging app this time, called Blog Touch. It did cost £4.99 but so far it seems to work well. 

*I did say I’d tell you how the river name is pronounced, in case you don’t know. Typically people from Northamptonshire pronounce it Nen whilst downstream of around Wansford they pronounce it Neen. Some years ago I was in the Local Studies section of Northampton Central Library when I came across a copy of the original George III act, “For making navigable the River Nen or Nine.” So I contend we pronounce it correctly in Northamptonshire and the others should use either our pronunciation or Nine but not Neen!

A Man, a Van and a Bike - Lessons Learnt

Today was far from the longest cycle ride I’ve ever done but it was the first real try out on the new bike so was a fact finding mission. I did 10.9 miles in all, actually a bit further than planned (see below). I cycled down into Long Sutton to have a wander round and have some lunch. 

Lesson 1

The bike is fantastic, it’s the rider that’s at fault! I need to get a lot fitter (no surprise there) before next years holidays. The whole 10+ miles barely put a dent in the bike battery. 

Lesson 2

The OS maps on the iPhone screen are almost invisible with the current handlebar mounted case. That resulted in me taking a more scenic (not that there’s much scenery, it is the Fens) route than intended. It didn’t help that I’d got the whole round trip for tomorrow up on the map and ended up going down the road I should be returning on tomorrow instead of where I should have gone. 

Having the app set to the default road mapping instead of LandRanger helps a bit but I think a new mount might be in order. This one cost me under £8 on the ‘net so I can’t really complain. The only problem I see is that with a mount that doesn’t fully enclose the phone it won’t be usable in heavy rain.  I will also investigate other mapping apps but so far I haven’t found anything better than the OS. 

Lesson 3 

When you plug the iPhone back into the bike controller for charging and it doesn’t, then pull away and think riding isn’t quite as easy as expected, it probably means the controller isn’t pushed fully onto its mount! The controller is removable but has a small rechargeable battery in it so you can check trip mileages, etc. That means you can turn it on and it’s not immediately obvious that it’s not actually connected to the bike. 

Lesson 4

Posh Fish Finger sandwiches on crusty bread sound delicious, and they are, but they can also be huge! The side order of skinny fries was probably a bit too much. That may be why the ride back was a bit slower (it was uphill as well, see below). 

Lesson 5

The Fens are flat, very flat! If it wasn’t for the fact I was cycling into the Nene* valley there’d have hardly been any slope at all. 

Lesson 6

Long Sutton Church spire is said to be the oldest lead covered  wooden spire in the country, dating back to the early 13th Century.

I’m now relaxing for the rest of the afternoon, I suspect a snooze may happen at some point, as usual on the first night away I really didn’t sleep last night. I could do with replacing the amber coloured Wright’s hand wash with a red alternative. I was lying in bed trying to figure out why there appeared to be green and amber lights at the back of the ‘van; it was the site light shining through the green washing up liquid and the aforementioned amber hand wash! If they’d been green and red they’d have acted as nav lights. 😀

*Wait until tomorrow for how the river is, and should be, pronounced! That’s if I remember. 

A Man, A Van and a Bike - Getting There

A lot has happened in the world since I last blogged, but with the campervan not so much! By now this year I should have been to Derbyshire at Easter and had a week in Kent and East Sussex in the ‘van plus been on the annual long weekend in Devon. I should be writing this from just outside Edinburgh as I make my way to the Dunblane Hydro hotel for another weekend with the TOGs. Instead I’ve barely been anywhere for months, working from home much of the time. 

I have done a little bit of work on the ‘van. I improved and tidied the water systems earlier in the year to reduce spillage when travelling. I sorted a couple of inside issues including putting more substantial screws in the locker top, and the spare wheel is now accessible without having to resort to an angle grinder to cut the bracket off. The only thing I’d planned to do this year and haven’t is fit a solar panel; with the limited time away there didn’t seem much point so I’ll save that for next year. 

Once it became clear Scotland wouldn’t be happening, and as campsites were given the go ahead to reopen, I decided to go to Derbyshire instead, just managing to get the site booking sorted before they were full. I stuck with that, my only concern being just how busy it would get, until an alternative suggestion came from my social bubble of visiting Laurel Park Campsite in Lincolnshire for a few days. I cancelled Derbyshire (fortunately provided you give 3 days notice the Caravan Club allows this) and booked the Club site at Grafham Water to follow on from Lincolnshire. 

In the way of things this year of course the plans still didn’t quite come to fruition. Illness has meant that the other two thirds of the bubble are stuck at home and I’m here on my own. It’s a shame but I’ll cope of course, nice though it would have been to have company. The overriding plan for being away this year was to use the bike more and the ‘van less, and I saw no reason to not stick with that, so the intention is to not drive once pitched on site. I’ll report how I get on over the next few days. 

I was looking for somewhere to go on my way to the site and picked on Castle Acre Priory as being worth a visit (a couple of other options were either not open or, in the case of the Nene Valley Railway, operating a limited service). It’s an interesting enough spot, sadly the Prior’s House, the only extant building, is undergoing repair to the flint walls and is barriered off. It wasn’t a huge Priory compared to many, 39 monks at its largest, which does mean you get a good overall view of the layout without walking miles. Being a Cluniac house the buildings were highly decorated to the glory of God but the life was austere. 

The first photo was actually taken from outside the fence around the site. You have to prebook at the moment and I’d opted for 11 but was somewhat early so went for a wander, not that it really mattered. 

This picture is the biggest Netty (as they’re known in the North East) I’ve ever seen! It was two storeys of long drop toilets with the waste carried away by a stream diverted from the nearby river. The upper storey was connected by a bridge to the Dorter, or dormitory, whilst the ground floor was used during the day. There were individual cubicles but there’s no evidence they had doors. 

From there I headed to the campsite but being a bit early stopped off in Long Sutton for a pint and a sandwich. It looks like it will repay a longer wander round so I’ll cycle over in the next couple of days. I did note there’s a nice solid bike park in the centre, an essential feature. 

The campsite is fantastic, it’s fairly small but friendly. They do rent out fire baskets (and the slab to stand them on) but as it’s just me I shan’t bother. If the rest of the bubble had come though we’d definitely be BBQing. They’ve closed a couple of facilities due to C-19 and decided that rather than having M, F and Family toilets all are available to everyone but only 1 group can use each at a time so in practice you may have to wait for someone to exit before going in. It’s workable on a site this size and I’ve always got my own.