I knew England was hilly, but holy crap, is it hilly.

I set out from Manchester on Thursday morning and the weather was fantastic. By two o’clock I’d gone 45 kilometers, and was just ready to stop for a lunch break when it started to rain. I thought this timing was serendipitous, because it would probably be finished raining by the time I was finished eating. An hour later and the rain had let up a little, but it was still coming down pretty steadily. I couldn’t sit under a tree all day, so I set off, and rode for nearly three hours more in the rain.

There was no sign telling me I had crossed into Wales, but I suddenly noticed unintelligible babling printed on road signs which I realized was Welsh.

My favourite Welsh word so far is the word for “humps”: “Twmpath”. (If it’s pronounced the way I imagine, it rhymes with “lovely lady lwmpath”.)

By evening the rain was starting to drive me crazy, and my phone, which had been guiding me via GPS, died, meaning I couldn’t find the Llangollen campsite I was headed for – and it was too wet to camp anyway. I was frustrated and wandering randomly around a tiny hillside village, going in circles and taking turns on a hunch for about a half an hour before I stumbled upon a fancy little country hotel and asked if they had a room available. They did, and apparently showing up at reception wet and bedraggled shortly before dark gets you a discount.

The first thing I did was take a bath in what had to be the deepest bathtub I’ve ever been in. Then I spread my wet clothes all over the room to dry and soaked in some British television before going to bed. I didn’t sleep well though – I’d convinced myself that the 19th century country home that the hotel was set in was exactly the kind of place that must be haunted, so every little noise woke me from near-sleep and put me on high ghost alert.

I woke in the morning to find that not only was it still raining, but my bike had a flat tire. Ordinarily I might have taken this challenge with a little more relish and captured the event in pictures, but the rain made me generally reticent to pull out my camera. I set to work at repairing the flat and realized I’d forgot to pack a tire iron, so I used the back end of my spoon to pry the tire from the wheel. I successfully located and patched the leak, but my portable tire pump wouldn’t fully inflate the tire. I was forced to walk 10km – to three different service stations – before I finally found a working air pump.

Eventually, maybe around 6 pm, it stopped raining. At this point I was riding down a two lane motorway, headed to Herefordshire. It’s impossible to see more than 100 meters ahead on these roads, because they’re constantly turning one way or another or rolling up or down hill, and they’re bordered on each side by 8 feet of shrubbery. It’s kind of like riding through a hedge maze.

I was determined to get to Hereford before nightfall, but by 10 o’clock I was still a good 25k from the town center. I kept riding into the dark, though, simply because there was nowhere to stop. Not even a field to pitch my tent in, not one that wasn’t full of cows, anyway, and as far as dignified deaths go I’d rather be run off the road by a car in the middle of the night than trampled by a cow in my sleep.

I found an inn in Hereford, but they were full, so the clerk at the desk sent me to another place. He gave me incorrect directions though, and I soon found myself driving down a completely unlit hedge maze road that seemed to lead to nowhere. Eventually it just creeped me out too much – and it seemed illogical that there would be a Travelodge out here – so I turned back for the main road. But at least it gave me a great view of the stars.

I finally found the Travelodge, and though my room was totally cheesy and more expensive than the night before I at least slept soundly knowing no one would bother visiting this place from beyond the grave.

In the morning, day three, it was actually sunny. I rode to Bristol, and by now the scenery was starting to get a little monotonous.

The same rolling hills and hedge maze roads all the way along. Riding for seven hours a day was starting to get to me mentally. Often I’d have two lines of a song repeating over and over in my head (Lady Godiva was a free-eedom ridah…) or I’d entertain myself by making up terrible puns on the place names on signs I passed.

Example: Swineford.

What’s Swineford?

For bacon.

The motonotny was broken in the mid afternoon when I stumbled upon Tintern Abbey.

I arrived in Bristol around 7 and discovered that all the hostels in town (there aren’t many) were booked. So was every other hotel room. So I pitched my tent in a city park, and not a moment too soon. Within minutes of me getting set up it started pouring rain, which continued until late the next morning. The tent held up well to the wet, though, and I actually found the sound of raindrops on the tent quite soothing, so I slept well, and in the morning the clouds parted and I rode a short 20k to Bath.