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June 29 Thursday sunny 30º C Bicycle touring Wales You will be happy to know that my throat is much better. Maybe I'm going to like bicycle touring in Wales? We load up our bicycle touring gear and cycle off into the foggy morning. In a small town, I lean my touring bike against a grocery store wall and traipse into a small country store. The milk is in glass bottles. Quaint. "Is that about half a litre?" I enquire. "No, sir," the woman says seriously. "That there's a full pint." Okay. Whatever. I buy a bushel of Weetabix to go with my pint of fresh milk. Back outside we can hear a disembodied musician practicing bagpipes. The eerie sound comes off the hill, wafting through the fog. Perfect. We find a peaceful shady spot along the Usk River for our breakfast. After a peck of Weetabix cereal, we get back on our fully loaded touring bicycles and wander along back lanes through the Brecon National Park. We intersect with the Taff Trail - a bike route that started in Cardiff. We cycle along it, following the Taff Trail to the country town of Brecon. At the tourist info, a guy with flipped up sunglasses, points to our bikes, and asks, "Would you use those again?" Sharon and I look at one another dumbly, trying to figure out what he means by "those things." Our touring bikes? Our panniers? Our helmets? Something else altogether? We stand there speechless. "Are you English?" he asks. "No," we say. "Can you speak English?" he asks. "A little," I say. "I took it in school," Sharon says. "My son just finished a trip in France and Italy," he says. "He says he won't use those straps [bungee cords] you have ever again. In the rain they lose all elasticity. How have you found them?" "We haven't had any problems," Sharon says. "Well, I guess not lately," he says. (The weather has been hot and sunny for the past week.) "Not ever," Sharon says. (Which is true. We've never had trouble with bungee cords. Well, except for that time I was following some bicycle touring guru's advice on our bicycle tour across the United States. The guru said that when stopping in a town, hook one end of your bungee cord onto your rear spokes. That way, when some thief comes along to steal your fully loaded touring machine (what an idiot!), he will be slowed down by the bungee wrapping itself around the rear wheel. Of course, when I came back to my bike, I hopped on and rode off without a moment's thought of that bungee cord still attached to my rear spoke. Do you know what happens when a bungee cord wraps around a rear derailleur? I'll tell you, it isn't pretty. Cleaned my rear cluster pretty good, though.) The fella shrugged like we were lying. "My son says money is the hardest part. What do you do to get money for bicycle touring trips?" "We sell a house," I tell him. That pretty much ends our conversation. Sharon leaves me with the bikes and goes to a Co-op. When she comes out, we cycle off and find a park (!). We eat our daily quota of ten Revels. I'm lying on our orange tarp in the shade of a tree, rubbing my belly. A dog trots over. He lifts his leg to pee on my foot. Fortunately, I'm an experienced bicycle tourist and move my leg with lightning swiftness just before the yellow stream commences. Seriously, I figure that is carrying the animosity between cyclists and dogs just a tad too far. Even the Welsh dogs are nasty. We mount our fully loaded touring bicycles and cycle off into the Wales countryside. Before long, we get lost. Really lost. Like we end up in a farmyard. I'm not kidding. The road we were cycling ends right in front of a barn. As we are surveying the sight in front of us -- dumbfounded for at least the second time that day -- a woman and her son come out of the house. We ask directions. They tell us we have to go back down the road and go right at the bottom of the road. The little boy is holding a bridle. "Are you going riding?" Sharon asks him. His mother answers for him. "He's getting a pony today and we are waiting for it to be delivered." "Have you named the pony yet?" Sharon asks. The mother, with a Welsh accent, answers, "Shu-gah." We thank them for their directions, wish them well with their pony, turn our little touring bicycles around and head back down the road. We haven't cycled far before Sharon gets a flat tire. We pull our bikes off the country lane and lean her fully loaded touring bicycle against a gate before removing the back wheel. We are almost finished changing the tire, when an old guy comes over and says his gate wasn't built with that in mind. "Sorry," Sharon says in that polite insecure Canadian way. She moves her heavy touring bike and lays it on the ground. We're getting quite used to being told off by Welshmen. "Oh, it's alright," he says kindly. "I meant I never thought I would see a bike on these back lanes." He paused, reminiscing. "I used to ride a bicycle when I was young, but now I've got a car. I was driving by here one day and I saw a sign advertising these four lots for sale. So I bought them and built these two bungalows. Want to have a look around?" "Sure," Sharon says. The old fella takes us on a guided tour of his garden. The peas are almost ready. The potatoes are ready. There is a big backyard with two bird baths, lilac bushes, an ash tree, rhododendrons, and roses. A creek trickles along the back edge of the property, lined with cypress bush. He tells us that one day he was working down by the creek when all of a sudden a fly zoomed out and bit him on the corner of his mouth. He spent a year in the hospital. "It knocked me lulu," he says. The nurses would find him wandering around the hospital grounds in his pajamas. Freaky. I wonder what it was that bit him? We thank him for his tour, and get ready to continue on our bicycle tour of Wales. There's no way I'm asking him if we can camp down by his creek. We had planned on cycling to the Usk Reservoir, but before we get there, we see an inviting creek with a walking path along the edge and decide to check it out. We push open a gate and ride through a tiny crick and up to another gate and then cycle along a creek to a peaceful spot. It is intensely beautiful and quiet beside the creek. Looks like a fabulous place to pitch the tent for the night. Sharon dips into the creek to wash. The reflections with the trees are marvelous. We set our Kelty tent on a grassy knoll. Sharon has bought a surprise for supper - pre-made turkey patties. Delicious. We had a problem with flies getting in the tent through the door we had open for cooking, so we opened both doors and they fly right though. These two-door Kelty tents are great! The stream has schools of tiny fish. They flash in the sunlight and dart about as I wade through the shallows. |
