Saturday morning, an hour and a half later than planned, I headed off in the direction of
High Lodge. The intent was to pick up the last section of
The North-South Divide: Aberystwyth to Southwold by Mountain Bike and grab of a poke of chips on the Blackshore, before heading for this chapel for a bivvy.
I haven't been up the
Icknield Way since my
September BaM ride last year. Some how I'd managed to forget the joys of your front wheel bogging down in the sandy breckland
soil and spearing you off in all directions.
Not sure what was going on here, looks like the
Elveden Estate are preparing a load of land for something, maybe trees. Either way, big machines have been along the track and it's much, much sandier and heavy going that it used to be.
The first stop was at High Lodge, as there's an outside drinking water tap. I took the opportunity to check out if the bike shop had any
Shimano L03A brake pads, they only had
L02A, I grabbed a pair anyway, as the levers and getting awfully close to the bars. I did find myself ragging it round bits of the Red and Blue routes, and having to back off as even though it was great fun ploughing past full suss MTBs on a fully loaded gravel bike, I was burning far, far too many matches.
After leaving the waymarked trails, it was fire roads and single track to one of the roundabouts that pepper the A11. Thankfully traffic was relatively light, and I didn't have to wait too long before I could run over three different carriageways to get to the road into Thetford. The roads through Thetford were also relatively empty, which was nice, and I had no issues getting through and out onto the track that eventually spits you out near the big Tesco. I was properly hanging at this point, as I'd just not eaten enough, so I raided the supermarket for some fast calories, before heading off again. The bike facilities at Thetford Tesco are amazing... Not.
The next section involved lots of road, with just a sort section of off-raod through the back of Thorpe forest. The route from the book was a bit of a mess at this point, as there's a massive byway through the forest, bit it speared you off down a track, into some paddocks and wanted me to cycle up an overgrown footpath. I retreated back to the byway and threaded my way back on route, via tracks I already knew.
After that, it was a long time before I saw another off-road section, with what felt like endless miles of back roads. Those matches I'd burnt earlier really came back to haunt me, and I really had to back off, as every time I tried to find any sort of rhythm, my heart rate started spiking. So I had to knock off a couple of gears and just spin, while trying to shovel in more food and liquid.
Eventually though, it was finally time to head off into the wilds again, no signage on the way in, a footpath sign on the way out at the other end...
A machete would've been useful on this bridleway. Totally un-ridable, due to all the vegetation wrapping itself around the bars, or getting chewed up into the rear cassette and dérailleur. The only good thing about it being so overgrown, was plenty of cover to whip down the bib shorts and apply some more Chamois Butt’r®, as the bibs had started rubbing.
The route takes in some small sections of the
Boudica Way and
Angles Way. Like this bit, which was basically bog trotting through a cow field.
It's classic East of England riding, with lots of the bridleways and byways essentially being tunnels through hedgerows, or completely enclosed avenues that never dry out. It's either that, or the classic long grass field edges, where you can't see what you're riding on, and you spend most of the time waiting for the front wheel to drop into a hidden rut, which thankfully didn't happen.
By the time I got to Halesworth, I was out of liquid, so I diverted to the local Spar and bought a 2 litre bottle of water. More over grown bridleways followed, which left my arms weeping blood from all the brambles, and my hands and legs covered in nettle sting welts. The under wheel conditions varied and the closer to Southwold I got, the more like the Brecks it became, with lots of loose sandy soil grabbing at the front tyre.
I was really quite knackered by the time I slowly rolled down the chuckies on the Blackshore, heading for the chip shops. As I passed some pedestrians, my rear tyre let go, spraying sealant everywhere, like an out of control fire extinguisher. Two anchovies, and a load of pumping later, I pushed to the bike the final fifty meters to the chips ships, to find they had all shut. Twenty to eight and all the chippies were shut, I was not impressed.
With no real options for food, as all the other establishments had
we're full signs out the front, I swung into the caravan site, filled up my water bottles and headed for the Co-op. After shovelling more food down the hatch, it was relatively easy road riding, with a short section of byway, to get to Dunwich. Then a long bridgeway over Dunwich Heath to Minsmere, which was lovely.
At East Bridge, I cruised passed
The Eels Foot Inn, before turning onto the footpath that would take me to the ruined chapel. It turns out that the chapel is in a fenced off area, with a sign that not only says
No Dogs, No Cycling, but also warns of Konik ponies and cattle.
I pushed the bike up towards the chapel, noting the electrified fence, that further sectioned the area. Once at the chapel, I had a bit of a mooch around, but concluded that is wasn't suitable for a tent based nights sleep. The inside isn't very large, the ground isn't particularly level and it was all covered with nettles. The stained glass window was quite pretty, but wouldn't stop a gnats fart.
Given all the signage, I wasn't too comfortable pitching the tent next to the chapel, so retreated to the main footpath. With long grass everywhere, it was difficult to find a spot where I wouldn't crush some sort of wild flower, or be too obvious to anyone out for a late stroll. I eventually saw what looked like another path spearing off towards the Minsmere New Cut drain, not that you could see the drain, or any of the wetlands due to the grass. I found a short track down to a gate, it was level and there were no flowers, so up when the tent.
I stood around for a bit, inhaling a pot of hummus with some flatbreads, taking in the view and listening to the babble of the nearby birds. At one point, I thought I heard nearby voices, so sat down on the grass for a bit, praying that I wasn't discovered and asked to move on. Maybe it was a trick of the wind, or the cows in the field behind that gate, I don't know, but I wasn't discovered and eventually I ensconced myself in the tent, applied more Chamois Butt’r® and tried to fall asleep.