JOGLE Day 13 – Portishead to Taunton

JOGLE Day 13 – Portishead to Taunton

JOGLE Day 13 represented the shortest day on our cycle tour itinerary, and also the one with the least climbing. In theory it would be a sort of ‘rest day’ before the final three ‘Devon and Cornwall’ days.

Weatherwise there were theories of strong south-westerly winds and even possible rain, but in the event neither of these materialised. It was another glorious day of sunshine.

From a personal viewpoint, the wisdom teeth would be less painful today – but this healing process is taking a long time!

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We left Portishead Travelodge and straight away we had a hill climb. At least the reward of views over the Severn Estuary were worth it.

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Then it was on the Clevedon.

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And whilst we were tackling the Portishead hills, our support team were tackling the Portishead seafront!

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Soon we were cycling along NCN Route 26, a section of which is the Strawberry Line which takes you from Yatton to the edge of Cheddar.

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Including through apple orchards.

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We stopped off at Axbridge for our morning coffee break.

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This is a wonderful little town where the pace of life seems to slow down. We were all tempted to just stay, sit and watch the world go by.

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After we had left Nic and Sarah visited King Johns Hunting Lodge (the timber building shown above).

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Meanwhile we were back on the Strawberry Line.

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At Cheddar we left the line and followed the B3151 as we made our way through Wedmore and Shapwick.

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We then crossed the A39 on to the A361 and cycled through Greinton.

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Unfortunately this meant we missed out Ashcott our proposed lunch stop which was slightly off route.

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So we phoned Sarah and Nic who informed us that we had missed closing time anyway. Our revised ‘lunch stop’ became an ice-cream stop at Othery instead.

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Sarah and Nic chose to forego the ice-cream and continued along the A361 where they spotted Burrow Mump. This was worth a closed look Sarah thought …

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And off she trotted up the hill, only to come across an uneven bit of ground that severely tested her healing broken foot (She will survive!)

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For the cyclists, after our ice-cream stop we continued on our way again on the A361.

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Before switching to NCN Route 3 along the Bridgewater and Taunton Canal.

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This took us into the centre of Taunton.

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We cycled 49 miles today and climbed nearly 1600 feet. You can view our JOGLE Day 13 route from Portishead to Taunton below:

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/jogleday13-portisheadtotaunton.gpx”]

Tonight we are resting at Lowden’s House B&B. Tomorrow we enter Devon and the terrain becomes more challenging. Just three more JOGLE days to go …

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