As the morning progressed a few more clouds appeared in the sky, but it was still sunnier and hotter than the days before. Mind you it was nowhere near as hot as cycling in Vietnam last November. This is a view along South Holland Main Drain. As the name suggests this is low-lying land and requires a lot of waterways to, well, drain it. The bridge in the distance is the route. The advantage of the GPS is that I could see it coming and photograph it for trip posterity! Shortly after crossing the bridge I ended up in a village wonderfully named; Tydd St Mary
There are some wind-farms in these parts - notably near March, but I also passed a detached house with its own Wind Generator. At the time I passed it was barely spinning around.
After Tydd St Mary I passed through Tydd St Giles along with a couple of other villages, one of which I stopped to by some lunch and a paper (Leverington) before arriving at Wisbech, one of the larger towns in the area. The last time I cycled in Wisbech I completely lost track of the route signs, This time I had a path plotted through using my GPS. Although I did stop for a drink and a sandwich when I saw a bench by the side of the road. (I also read the paper.) As soon as I stopped I realised how hot the sun was without the cooling breeze you get when cycling.
Although I was generally supposed to be heading South my route headed North for a while before going East. The first village after Wisbech was West Walton. The first time I came across this church I had hoped that the cycle route went through the arch - the church is St Mary the Virgin.
Living in Cambridge you sometimes forget how tough village life can be. Essentially you need a car either to get to work or get to the shops or take the kids to school. Once you have a car(s) then you use it. One of the uses is out of town shopping. This reduces the profitability of the buses, it reduces the business of local shops and the whole thing spirals. Why am I telling you this - well opposite the Church was this brick building. It used to be a shop and Post Office, now it is empty. which puts further pressure on the villagers to drive out to shops. Did you spot the Sustrans Blue sign to the right of the sold sign on the lamp post? The first time I cycled along this road, without GPS, I didn't. This time I just used the GPS.
Before I got to this road I had to cross the A47, a very busy road with a bridge across it. At this point my route plotting must have come from the Open Source Map because it led me to a dead end. In the end I zoomed out the GPS and followed the road over the A47 and headed in the direction that looked like I would rejoin the Sustrans route. I can't remember seeing Sustrans signs either, although I did not go back and check. This was a rather nice country lane - although some care would have to be taken if you were cycling at night. There were quite a few potholes in the road.
Further along the road had grass growing up the middle - a sure sign that it is not heavily used.
It is that time of year for babies - here are some swans and their cygnets. I gave them plenty of room and stopped some way down the road to take the picture. Swans can be quite aggressive in the defence (reasonably so) of their young and apparently can break a person's leg with a blow from the wing!
At this point in the ride I was one familiar territory, the route between Cambridge and King's Lynn which I have cycled along many times. The River Great Ouse splits into two which run in parallel here. I assume that the natural river was augmented to improve drainage. This is a view down the river, it looks as if it might be the man-made bit. (It is just after passing through Wiggenhall St Germans.
This time around I followed the Sustrans 11 route, normally I would take an alternate way to Ely. The wide open skies of the Flatlands.
The weather has caused things to grow well and an opportunity for hay-making, (or silage, I am not sure - hay - dry bales, silage wet - plastic sacks.)
This irrigation spray was rotating round and spraying in an arc across the road. So I stopped planning to take a picture of exactly that - well for the first picture it was pointing in the opposite direction. As I waited for it to turn the pipe running up the field from the pump became disconnected and it stopped spraying. As I passed a farm a little further up I looked for someone I could tell, but could not find anybody so the field was going to end up with a pond along its edge.
There is a bench near this sign, a good place for a drink and some jelly-babies - the weather got hotter.
Here is an explanation of the Coat of Arms.
Pretty soon Ely Cathedral came into view. It looks less grand from this side - perhaps because I was on a similar level.
After Ely there is a cycle path alongside the River Ouse. Vandals have struck and removed the walkers gate on the left hand side. The bridge in the background is a railway bridge and the scene of an accident several years ago when a train broke the old bridge causing some waggons to hang down towards the river.
This part of the route is on Sustrans 51 - through the Wicken Fen National Trust area. They have been upgrading a path that was still perfectly cycle-able but had seen better days and was in need to repair. This is mid-repair and is very tiring to cycle along. Mind you I had cycled around 100 miles/ 160Km and on the last bit of the journey back to Cambridge, blue skies again though.
The end of the ride came quite quickly - I think it always seems faster when you know a route. A big congratulations to Sustrans for putting a wonderful cycling route together. I would recommend it to any one. Next time I would try not to travel so late in the day on the trains though - that added a level of unpredictability that I could have done without.
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