Stoke Sub Hamdon to Wells

Tuesday September 14
Today it was time to say goodbye to Vegemite on toast, goodbye to John and his kind and much appreciated hospitality, and be off on my merry way. I spent the morning carefully packing my panniers, because as I learned on the ride from London to Johns place that it's frustrating when the thing you want is right at the bottom of the back pannier, and also that the rear panniers are harder to get to because the tent, sleeping mat, sleeping bag and jacket is strapped on top of them.

Ready to leave John's house in Sub Stoke Hamdon.

So you put the most commonly needed things on the top (e.g. coat, tooth brush, clothes that you will soon need, socks and jocks, cable lock). The front panniers are easily accessible so I put food in them, and bowl and container for eating. The handlebar bag is for the things you use all the time and small valuable things, such as pocket knife, spoon, E-Werk and battery, pen, beanie, camera, multi-tool, oil, sun glasses, etc. I keep my passport and wallet on me in zip pockets because I really don't want to lose those! The iPhone is either in the handlebar dock on the bike while I'm riding, or in my pocket if I'm not.
So, I packed all the panniers as best I could and made tracks, heading north towards Wales.

On the road again after leaving John Chant's place in Stoke Sub Hamdon.

I was hoping to get to Chepstow in Wales that day.
I took a detour to stop in at Glastonbury to see the town that hosts one of the best music festivals in the world. It's really just a normal English town though.

The main street of Glastonbury.

The church in Glastonbury (the church generally seems to be the most impressive building in a town/village, so you may see more photos of them in future posts).

I was having a bite to eat there when a couple of blokes stopped by for a chat. Both were cyclists, in town to see the Tour of Britain stage that would be finishing in the town the following day, and they asked if I was there to see it too. I told them I wasn't planning on it because it would hold me up for an extra day. I told them where I was heading and they were very forth-coming with tips and suggested routes to take. Having done no planning, I'm always happy to get tips like this from the locals. One of the guys, Howard I think his name was, was Welsh himself. One of his tips was quite simple "don't stay in Newport, it's a rough area". And his parting words were "and remember, don't stay in Newport", so I figured that was an important one.
Good friendly chaps they were.

A waterway on the way to Wells.

On the back road heading to Wells.

The day was getting on, and it was starting to rain, and I started thinking "come on, how often do you get the chance to see a stage of a pro bike race? I might as well hang here and head into Glastonbury tomorrow to see the race."
I was in a town called Wells, quite a nice town, it had a good vibe and I liked it there. Some towns just seem to have a good, warm vibe and others have more of a bad vibe. I'd say a number of factors contribute to the vibe, such as the buildings and layout, architecture, the kinds of people there and how they act, the weather and some other factors you can't put your finger on.

Wells

Wells

Wells

So I hung around in Wells a while, under shelter until the rain died down. Then found some free Wi-Fi, which happened to be from a pub called the Kings Head (there seem to be a lot of these around) and surfed the net and updated my blog.

Eating left over tuna pasta bake in Wells

Out the front of a pub in Wells

While standing out the front of the pub, and the night wore on, a couple of young blokes started chatting to me, and seemed impressed that I was Australian, and also wondered what I was doing in a little town like Wells. They insisted I come inside and that they'd buy me a pint, so I did, and they did.
One of the guys was called Sam and he worked at one of the other pubs in the town. It seemed to be his birthday too. The other guys name was Max Braid, he was a rock climbing instructor who worked at a nearby town called Cheddar, which Max said cheddar cheese actually originated from. The town is also known for it's gorge and it's caves, for which Max is also a tour guide. He reckoned that if I wanted to go there the next day, I could get in for free if I dropped his name, "just say you're my cousin," he suggested. He also reckoned I should ride up Cheddar Gorge, he reckoned he wouldn't be able to do it himself but that I would, and that I should challenge myself. So of course I was going to give it a go.
They also mentioned that a kinda crazy guy in the town who was originally called Josh Mearns, had legally changed his name to "Captain Fantastic Better Than Batman Superman Spiderman..." and had included every super hero name he could think of in his new name.
Also while I was out in front of the pub, a very socially awkward looking fellow who looked like Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords wandered out, wanting to see where all the noise was coming from, since the pub had closed and there were a bunch of people out the front talking loudly, etc. as drunk people out the front of a pub tend to do. One of them said to him "hey, are you from Flight of the Chonchords?" then stumbled off laughing without waiting for a response. It was actually pretty funny, I had to laugh. I had a chat to this guy anyway, I think socially awkward people are easy to talk to. This guy had rather unusual body language, and he wandered around a lot when he spoke to me, sometimes close, then far away again... his name was Stephen Slater (he's the guy in the white shirt in the left of the photo above). As it turned out, he was working with the film crew filming the Tour of Britain, and they were all staying in the Hotel beside the pub we were out the front of. He reckoned his old man is a cycling commentator for radio and was doing the Tour de France this year. He said I should look out for him the next day, and that he'd be in a truck with 'visions' written on the side. He also said he knew Ned Boulting, because he also works for channel IV4 I think it is, they were hosting the Tour of Britain. I happen to follow Ned Boulting on twitter. There you go eh.
Stephen also said this was the first payed work he'd had for quite some time, and that he has just been working on his own short films. He also mentioned that he had traveled around Europe for a few months and asked if I got lonely doing it on my own. He said that he got lonely when he did it.
I headed off from the pub in the wee hours, with two options that I knew of to pitch my tent: first was back down the bike track, there were a couple of other guys already camped there and they'd said earlier when I rode past that I'd be welcome to join them. But since it was about 2am, I thought it would be better not to risk disturbing them with setting up my tent there, so I took the second option, which was the Wookey Hole Caravan Park, Wookey Hole being a little village just up the road. I usually try to avoid caravan parks because I don't like to have to pay to camp, but I thought I could get away without paying at this one.
I set the tent up there and decided to try sleeping with the bike in the tent with me, so that it wouldn't get stolen and so that I could see whether it could be done, in case I needed to do it in the future. It was a challenge to get it in, and another challenge to position it so that I could actually lie in my bed. I'll try to avoid sleeping with my bike in the future, but yes, it can be done.

Experimenting with sleeping inside the tent with my bike.

Ride stats:
Distance: 64.96 km
Average: 13.6 km/h
Max: 35.1 km/h
Time: 4:44:42