Day 9 Tewkesbury 2 Cheddar

Tired and tyres.
Neither of us slept well and were slow to get off this morning. Colin's neck now giving him grief as well as his arse. We took a few shots of Tewkesbury before we left as it wasn't raining! Lots of time as we only have 75 miles today. Sods law plays it's hand, again! My knee takes a while to get going through shouts and curses, then Colin gets another puncture, not that far down the road, great! After close inspection we find a 1/2cm cut right through tyre. I patch it over with an inner tube patch to get us to Gloucester. We pass a bike shop, closed. So decide to start to look for Halfords for a new tyre. That took a while and probably an extra 5 miles. We replace the tyre, some more spare inner tubes and set off again. I'm sure Gloucester is a great place to visit and we passed the rugby ground but we needed to crack on in case of any more delays, which was a shame. The sun makes an appearance and Colin stops to take a picture of the blue sky, as he says he can't remember what it looked like. It was like we had cycled into an alternative universe, warm and sunny, mad! Then I saw a sign for a health farm that had us laughing again. Shortly after,  another route inputting error had us going down a lane, well barely a lane, more off road, picture of Colin on it is attached. This ended up next to a field of sheep who all started with the baa's, Colin got a great video of them rushing over singing to us. There was a long gradual drag up to the top of Cheddar which was great apart from one point where it first said 'welcome to Somerset' next to a sign indicating 11% climb, the knee really not happy with those short sharp ones.  Soon we were spoilt with a great decent into cheddar, great fun, Colin beaming at the bottom. I did clamp the camera to the handle bars and filmed it :)
I have to be realistic and having spoken to Colin, I'm not going to push my luck and do the bit down to the Lizard, which was included in our original plan, to take in the most  Southern point of mainland UK . I think the plan is now to get to Lands End the easiest way. So we are looking at 79 miles to Great Torrington tomorrow. Then probably just to Redruth ( see if friends Tony and Lucy can store bikes over night) this will save about 25 more miles, rather than go all the way to Mawnan Smith and save some hills as well. Get picked up from and dropped back to Redruth for the Saturday's final ride to Land End.. Well that's what we think is our best chance. Enjoy pic's

Strava route

·                Day 9