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Monday 17th May 2010 Ellesmere to Westhoughton Once again it was a beautiful day and despite crossing the Liverpool-Manchester industrial belt the roads I was following were quiet and rural with very little in the way of hills or traffic. Even the bugs were less in number today and it was only when I reached Leigh that the surroundings became a bit more built-up and busy.
As I was pedaling along, somewhere north of Hatchmere, I came across John again, one of the two cyclists I’d met the previous Tuesday back in Cornwall. He said since then he and Martin had done 97 miles in a single day en route to Cheddar, and then had taken a day off to recover in Clun. Unfortunately Martin had been called away to attend a funeral so John was carrying on alone today but expected to join up with Martin again the next day.
I wished John well and carried on towards Westhoughton and on arriving there after 66 miles, albeit fairly easy ones, I simply stopped at the first place I saw that had a notice up saying ‘accommodation’. This was a pub called the Red Lion (yet again). It was a typical urban pub which had seen better days, with the whitewashed-over letters on its façade revealing that in its prime it had boasted ‘Bowling Green & Good Stabling’. The ‘good stabling’ in the 21st Century apparently means £20 for a twin bed room with no breakfast thrown in. Meanwhile Andrew had sent me a text message saying he’d be coming over to meet me for a drink or two that night and that he’d stay overnight at the Red Lion too, so that reduced the cost of the room to only £10 for me - a bargain. Not only that but the landlady kindly let me put my laundry in the pub’s washing machine and freely volunteered to dry it for me in the tumble drier afterwards. Very nice of her.
Before Andrew arrived I wandered out of the Red Lion and got something to eat at the local Wetherspoons pub: vegetable curry, rice and nan bread with chutney and cheesy garlic bread. I had ordered the garlic bread not realising I was also going to get some nan so I was a bit overloaded with bread. Still it all went down, followed today by fruit crumble and ice cream. A bit distending really but I needed the calories. I wasn’t intending drinking a lot that evening, not with my stomach already bursting at the seams and another long ride ahead of me tomorrow, so when Andrew turned up I just had a modest 3 pints to his modest 7. We played a bit of crib in Wetherspoons and then returned to the Red Lion which, to Andrew’s disgust, had no real ale available, just keg stuff. ‘No demand for it here,’ said the barman. We had a pint of fizzy stuff and a game of pool then called it a night. On a note of physiological interest I’ll add that today I had had to visit the toilet three times instead of my normal once. Change of diet and routine perhaps – I felt ok though. In the morning Andrew set off for home without bothering with breakfast so after bidding him farewell I went and got something to eat at Wetherspoons. I had porridge, toast and jam and coffee, all very nice and quite cheap at under £3. Distance: 66.37 miles Average speed: 11.8 mph Max speed: 33.5 mph | ||||||
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