Lands End to John O'Groats Day 6 - The Cat Is Out 'The Bag!

Day 6 Morning
The alarms went off and nobody was hungover although I was a bit tired as Nick in the bunk above me had been having a full blown conversation with himself at about 3am. I think cooking tea on day 5 had made him dream about work as the conversation was something about beef. Lots of it was just mumbling but the bits I could make out was all food related - Nick worked in a Carvery. I'd let it go on for about 15 minutes before I flashed his bunk light on and off a few times. It seemed to work, he went quiet again but I couldn't get back to sleep. I was really excited about finally announcing to the world that I was doing the challenge. As always when you can't sleep, I nodded off not long before the alarms sounded. After days of moaning at him to get up faster Nick was up and being useful which made a big difference. All four of us working together got us ready with enough time to use Kinesiology tape on Nicks dodgy knees and take a couple of photos before we left The Hideout campsite that we'd all enjoyed staying at. We'd put the decals on the motorhome and as we would no longer be trying to keep it quiet after Bristol we wanted a few pics for Facebook.

Myself, Ant and Nick posing at The Hideout campsite.

We had a fair distance to drive before we got to the start at Burnham-on-Sea where you could see across Cardiff Bay/The Bristol Channel to Cardiff. On the way to the start Ant asked the Dream Team if they could find us a pitch near Bristol for that night. We thought Camp sites may be rare in the city so also asked for hotels.

 We'd spoken with the Landlord, Clive and his regulars in the pub the night before about my route to Bristol. The original plan was to head straight through The Mendip Hills, a famous Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and home of The Cheddar Gorge and The Wokey Hole Caves. I'd visited the area as a kid and remembered how hilly it was so Ed and I had been looking at a bit of a detour via Weston-Super-Mare to avoid The Mendips. Clive and his regulars told us we should revert back to heading through the Mendips. They told us that if we took the coast road then it would be flat until we passed Weston but then it would become extremely hilly. They showed us a route through The Mendips using a gorge that ran parallel to the Cheddar Gorge which would be a steady climb with three fairly steep but short climbs. They promised there was nothing as bad as Dartmoor so we took their word and once in my chair we headed for The Mendips.

On the road to Bristol.

 The start of the push wasn't too bad at all, the steady climb didn't start to kick in until we left Somerset and entered the county of North Somerset. It was exactly how Clive and Co and explained but in the distance I could see The Mendips, Nick and I were trying to spot a gap in the hills where the gorge I was heading for would be, looking back now I was just being a bit thick, that's not how a gorge works!

Leaving Somerset for North Somerset.

The climb did get a little steeper but it was a dry day so I tackled them with a bit more confidence than I had done previously. There were three steeper parts of the climb just like we'd been told but none were too bad compared to what I'd been up already. Plus The Mendips' status as an official Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty was well deserved and the views back over the Somerset Levels helped ease the climbs.

Climbing in to The Mendips with the Somerset Levels in the background.

We had a bit of a downhill coming out of The Mendips but not as much as I was expecting and it wasn't long before we were starting to climb again as we made our way towards Bristol Airport. The roads were now the busiest we had been on and Ed was starting to drop behind me quite often, about halfway up the climb we stopped in a layby to change batteries in the cameras, refill drinks and check the map. It was only a 5 minute pit stop before finishing the climb and passing right by Bristol Airport.

Passing by Bristol Airport.

Ed and Ant were soon caught up in the airport traffic again and with my speed on most of the next 7 miles being well over 20mph and hitting 40mph at one point, they didn't have much chance of catching us. We had found our way to the outskirts of the city itself but the traffic was horrendous and the road signs were confusing so Nick and I stopped at the first pub to wait for Ed and Ant to catch us up in the Motorhome. It took them a good 25 minutes to get to us in which time the drizzle had started.
Once Ed was parked up we went inside the pub and they gave us free brews and lots of food. As we were stuffing our faces we gave Elouise and the Dream the signal. It was Go! Go! Go! Elouise had already redesigned all the social media stuff, changed the charity details and the dates of the challenge, there had been a charity giving page set up and press releases written up but none of this could be put online before this moment without alerting people that not only was I still doing the challenge but I had brought it forward 10 weeks and had already conquered the west country. Elouise quickly got all of this new material online and Lance, Natalie, Camilla, Sam, David, Michael, Dave & Amy plus My family and the other dream team members started sharing the hell out of it online.
 It took a matter of seconds before a couple of members of the club/charity that had tried to fuck me over commented asking if the money I would raise would be going to them or not. I found it quite telling that the very first comment from them was about the destination of the sponsor money. I wanted to us one of my dad's favourite sayings to answer the question about if they would receive the sponsorship.
"there's more chance of the hole in your arse healing up!"
I didn't want to start a war though so I just ignored them. A few friends and family were a bit shocked too, I did feel a bit guilty about not letting them know what was happening but I was determined to keep it secret until Bristol and that meant keeping my team very small.
 We were all sat in the pub glued to our phones watching the reaction and seeing the views and shares build really quickly. Although I was doing this challenge for myself more than anything else it wasn't quite as special as it should have been over those first 5 and a half days as there was no praise at all coming from outside of the family and the Dream Team. It was nice to start getting good luck messages coming in.

Letting the cat out of the bag.

Day 6 Morning Stats

Miles: 22.07
Time: 2:19:32
Average Moving Speed: 9.5mph
Top Speed: 39.5mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 15 - 23:55 (snail)
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 19 - 2:14 (Flying!!)
Total Ascent: 1363ft
Average Heart Rate: 143bpm
Max Heart Rate: 166bpm

Day 6 Morning Progress Maps

Day 6 Afternoon

We'd miscalculated where we were going to finish on day 6 as I'd forgotten I was ahead of schedule. I blame the 3 pints! On the original itinerary I was due to end day 6 in Bristol. Another message went to the Dream Team asking for camp sites further north. Once we'd done what we could on social media for the launch of the challenge we thanked the staff at the Miners Arms for the food and drinks and went to the motorhome to study the maps again as we knew the city centre would be tricky.

About to leave the pub that had provided lunch for us.

I took in as much of Ed's briefing on the directions as possible, I have memory problems so I have to work to remember things. I asked Nick to try and remember it too but like most none drivers he's next to useless with directions. The traffic was quite bad so it looked like Nick and I would drop Ed and Ant almost instantly and that is exactly what happened. We were storming down the steep hill towards the city centre. I'd of been going much faster if the roads weren't gridlocked and if they had been repaired in the last 20 years. The roads were by far the worst we'd had to deal with. Not far from the bottom of the hill I dropped a bollock, lost concentration for a split second and hit what was either the crater left by the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs or the biggest pothole I've ever seen. Big enough for all three of my wheels to be in at the same time. On my way out the other side of the crater my front wheel shot up in the air and because I was still unbalanced from falling in to the Mariana Trench, Somehow I smashed my chest into my knee. At the time I thought I was just winded but I now know that I broke two ribs. It really bloody hurt!
If we had been with the Motorhome or if we had a support vehicle then this might have been another occasion the journey ended. How bad would that have been? 20 Minutes after the challenged is announced to the world and I am out. I decided to push on to find somewhere to wait for Ed and Ant but When we did get to the bottom of the hill the reason for the traffic chaos became obvious, there was a skyride event going on. The whole city centre was closed to traffic to allow cyclists to ride round and round the course. That meant to route plan was out of the window and it also meant I would have to get to the other side of the city centre to meet Ed. The diversion looked a bit steep so I got Nick to open the barriers and we gate crashed the Skyride. We made decent progress on the closed roads despite the bust ribs, we were going faster than most of the cyclists. We saw a road sign for where we were meant to be going so we snuck back through the barriers and headed up a main road. After a mile or so we had to pull over to phone Ed who was still stuck in traffic at the start. We described where we were and he managed to direct us on to the road we needed to be on for the rest of the day. We then started the climb out of the city centre, this was the most pain I had been in I managed 3 miles of climbing but then stopped to phone Ed again to see if he was any closer and he wasn't. I didn't think sitting and waiting was a good idea in the cool weather so I kept on pushing, I left the city and county of Bristol for the county of South Gloucestershire and then South Gloucestershire for Gloucestershire itself. Still no motorhome!
Finally after an almost 22 mile afternoon Ed caught us, he'd had to use the motorway to gain ground on us which mad me feel like a beast! They had used their time in traffic well and found us a campsite free of charge again for the night. We'd pushed through five counties in one day and covered 43.8 miles, more than 10 over target for the day.
The Campsite we were staying at was called Tudor Caravan Park, we all cracked jokes about it being Tudor themed with Henry VIII working reception and Jousting for entertainment. When we arrived we found that it was named after the local pub rather than a Tudor theme park. The site was really modern and had cracking facilities, it was a huge site so the shower blocks were giants. There was washing and drying facilities which was a relief, we were running low on kit.
Ed did a fry up for tea! Love a fry up!

Another free pitch blagged!

Day 6 Afternoon Stats

Miles: 21.73
Time: 1:57:59
Average Moving Speed: 11.1mph
Top Speed: 36.1mph
Slowest Mile Split: Mile 2 - 9:26
Fastest Mile Split: Mile 16 - 2:08
Total Ascent: 976ft
Average Heart Rate: 144bpm
Max Heart Rate: 170bpm

Day 6 Afternoon Progress Maps

Total Daily Mileage: 43.8