Cerne Abbas

It's been a while, but we've been busy with all kinds of non-cycling activities, most of which involved searching for somewhere nice to live, and then moving there. After several months living in the flat beneath a herd of tone deaf karaoke-loving elephants, we finally found it. For all our travels, we've ended up in England - Dorset to be precise.

It's a lovely house, a quiet semi-detached farm cottage with lovely views over the surrounding farmland. It backs onto wheat fields and is frequently visited by pheasants, hares and all kinds of birds. There's a pair of swallows nesting in the neighbour's eaves who seem to be constantly flying back and forth and are rather lovely. We're only renting but are clinging to the hope that through a combination of hard work, luck and/or economics, one day we might be able to afford to buy a house this nice.

The past few months have been shamefully uneventful on the cycling front, mostly due to our living in a busy area of Guildford, where the roads really aren't much fun for cycling so, aside from the occasional trip to the shops our poor bikes haven't seen much action. We've been trying to set that right since we moved, but the weather's been so miserable that it's only in the past week that we've really felt like getting the wheels out.


Cerne Abbas

Cerne Abbas looked like a good target for our first trip out. It's about 10-12 miles away, features a giant naked man on a hillside and looked like a pleasant enough place.

Our first attempt at this ride didn't quite work out. For us, going on a bike ride of more than a couple of miles requires various pieces of equipment - tools, repair kits, rain coats... and still being in a bit of a post-moving mess, we didn't know where any of it was. It took a couple of hours to find everything, after which we decided we only had time for a shorter ride. We made it as far as Glanvilles Wootton (a bit less than half way there) and turned round.

Dgym was away on Wednesday but it was still too nice a day to not take the bike out. I managed to get away nice and quickly this time and headed south through the villages of Stourton Caundle and Bishops Caundle towards Cerne Abbas. The roads up until Middlemarsh were really quiet, I only encountered a few cars in 6-7 miles, and there weren't any major hills.

From Middlemarsh there are two roads running down past Cerne Abbas towards Dorchester - the A352 and what looked like a quiet road running parallel to it. Unfortunately the quiet road is also rather busy (by Dorset standards anyway) and also involves quite a long ascent up onto the ridge overlooking Cerne Abbas and other surrounding villages. I don't mind climbing long hills, and I don't mind a bit of traffic but it's not so much fun huffing and puffing away when there are cars and lorries thundering past, or queueing up behind me and getting impatient and/or laughing at my feeble efforts. The view from the top was rather pleasant though.

The traffic mostly disappeared after the turn-off into Cerne Abbas and there was a lovely long descent down to the village.

Despite being home to a fairly famous tourist attraction, Cerne Abbas seemed like a quiet and pleasant little village, and has more to see than just the Giant. The 13th century church and surrounding area are worth a look - the adjacent street has some lovely old Tudor houses and you can visit what remains of the old abbey.

I headed out of town to check out the Giant, following signs to the lookout point and picnic area. I found the picnic area, from which the Giant was visible. He was more faint than I'd imagined, perhaps it was just the viewing angle and he looks more distinct from the air, but I didn't see him at first.

From the picnic area there was a footpath called "Giant Walk" so I decided to get a little closer, locked up the bike and started to follow the signs, up steeply ascending footpaths and steps, most of which were covered in slimy chalky mud. Unfortunately this turned out to be a little futile as you can't see the Giant at all from the Giant Walk - it takes you along the bottom of the Giant's field, which is fenced off due to erosion, and the angle of the hillside means you can't see anything. Never mind... I headed back down, got on the bike and went a bit further up the road to the lookout point on the A352, from which the view of the Giant is much better - although I suppose the best view would be from a helicopter.

I took the same route back - the road up from Cerne Abbas was a long and fairly hard climb but at least there was very little traffic, and the busy top road was an excellent descent which was over before I knew it.

It's great to be back on the bikes. Hopefully we'll go on more day trips and some longer ones when time, funds and weather permit.

Cerne Abbas photoset on Flickr

Update 17/07/07: Homer certainly wasn't there last week when I visited. Looks like I really missed out...

Monday 5th March - First flights

After spending two relaxed days getting to Andalucia in southern Spain, the excitement of actually flying a hang glider was starting to set in. Yesterday Steve and I had met Rona, one of our instructors from lejair, and Owen and Soren - two students both starting a two week course. Soren is also writing about his experiences, mostly in Danish but he said he will leave some notes for Steve and I when our week has finished.

This morning we started off quite slowly - a leisurely breakfast at 10 with Tony and Rona followed by some paper work. We also got kitted out with helmets and harnesses, the latter being somewhat uncomfortable when hanging from the glider while standing up, this ensures that there is a high incentive to learn prone flying as soon as possible. Our first handling instruction was done in a simulator - no fancy displays and controls here, just a few poles standing up for us to dangle beneath. This is enough to get used to basic handling, such as pulling the control bar slightly closer while turning and making sure that you are shifting your body weight rather than just twisting your body around uselessly.

We went to an airstrip not too far away, just a simple stretch of tarmac, a bit of grass on either side and a hangar full of lovely aeroplanes. The wind was quite strong, about 12mph, so we set up (rigged) a glider in the hangar. This took quite a long time, as we were being guided through the process very carefully. There was only enough room to set up one glider anyway, hopefully tomorrow it will be a little quicker . Once that was done we moved the glider out and started some "first hops" running into the wind. The runway was not facing directly into the wind, so our runs were quite short and not very effective. The wind was coming in over a small hill and was very turbulent so we were using tethers, one person on each wing and Tony on the nose talking us through the handling.

With the runs not yielding more than a second or two of flight we switched to tow launches. Now we were able to get a few ten second flights each run, for a total of 6 flights each - a great start.

Friday 9th March - Coming back

I wasn't sure until I got up on Friday whether I'd be riding my bike to Athenry that day, or throwing it in the back of a bus (according to the bus driver on Thursday, you can do that). It all depended on the weather

I couldn't have asked for nicer weather. I woke up a couple of times during the night to the sounds of wind and rain, and it was still quite windy when I got up at six, but the sun rose to reveal hints of blue sky and a brief trip outside determined that the wind was blowing the right way, so at about 7:30 I got on the bike and left. It was a lovely ride, there was the occasional dark cloud and threat of rain but it held off and I rode 45 miles with lovely morning blue skies overhead and the most fantastic tailwind - I'm really glad I didn't take the bus.

I got to Athenry around midday, with plenty of time before the 15:18 train. Miraculously, it started raining as soon as I'd reached my destination (Something is not right with all this) so I ducked into a pub for a couple of hours before getting on the train for Dublin.

Dublin traffic was no more pleasant than it was on Monday, after my few quiet days on the west coast it was a shame to find myself swearing at other road users again, this time there was further to go on busier roads, and it really doesn't help that the only indication of a street name is a tiny little sign written in tiny little letters really high up, and you often have to stop and look behind you to find out the name of the side street you just passed. I found the B&B eventually, which was run by a sweet little old lady named Moira, who was very helpful with giving me directions for using the buses and for getting to the ferry port the next morning. (but what is it with the creepy Jesus-pictures in some of these B&B rooms? I'd really rather he didn't watch over me as I sleep...)

I got the bus into town in the evening, with the intention of trying to find some of the nicer bits of the city - but in the end it was too cold out and I was too tired and didn't feel like wandering around busy drunken Friday night streets trying to find nice places which I'd probably rather see in daylight anyway. I did see the giant needle thing at least. It was big and pointy.

I ate at 101 Talbot street which was quite nice. It's not been as weird eating out on my own as I thought it would be (I've only ever done that at sushi bars, which are kind of different) - I thought it might be a little strange not having anybody sitting opposite me but it wasn't really, I'd normally just get caught up in daydreaming, reading and/or just enjoying the food.

I slept really well at the B&B and had yet another early start to get to the 8:45 ferry. It's just as well Dgym didn't come on this trip, he'd be hating all the early mornings. The B&B was on the right side of town for the ferry port so it was nice not to have to go through the town centre again and the traffic was OK.

The bicycle procedure for the return journey was a little different. I went to the foot passenger terminal where I was given a boarding pass and then had to ride around to join the rest of the vehicles. They have a hand baggage policy in which you're only supposed to carry one bag onto the boat, the rest gets checked in or left in the car. They gave me the option of leaving the panniers on my bike rather than checking them in, which I decided I'd rather do than sit around waiting to reclaim them - it was nice not to have to wander around the ferry with two heavy bags. Again there was nothing to tie my bike to but it managed to stay upright. The crossing was fairly rough but thankfully short.

Ireland was great anyway. The scenery was beautiful, the people friendly, the weather highly changeable. I definitely want to visit County Clare again and see everything I couldn't see this time - the Aran islands (the Doolin->Aran ferry doesn't start up until April), the caves (Doolin cave was only open at weekends) and some more of the Burren region.

Lots more pictures of my Ireland trip

Thursday 8th March - Cliffs

I decided I had to see the Cliffs of Moher - they'd been quite influential in my choice of where to go in Ireland so it'd be silly to come that far and not see them. The weather was a bit better on Thursday and the wind had died down a bit so I decided to try cycling up there again. I didn't get far - my legs felt lethargic and tired and my bum hurt (maybe time for a new saddle) Given that I had a long ride the next day I decided to take it easy, turned round and went back to take the bus instead.

When I got on the bus I thought I'd better check that there was one coming back again. Apparently there wasn't. I started to get off the bus again but the driver talked me into going anyway. "What're you going to do otherwise - sit in your room and watch it rain?" he asked. Fair point. "It's only an hour's walk back". In this weather? He assured me that the weather was going to clear up again.

There was an American couple on the bus, also staying in Doolin, who were going to walk back, and they invited me to walk with them. When we got to the cliffs we agreed to meet at five for the walk back, and went our separate ways for the afternoon.

There appeared to be a lot of work going on at the cliffs in the name of sustainable tourism - increased visitor numbers over the years have accelerated the erosion of the cliffs, so there has been a need to keep things in check. There are some very new-looking paved walkways along the cliff edges and it looked like more were under construction. The visitor centre itself was built into the hillside, with a turf roof.

Ever since Dgym and I got the natural building idea into our little heads, we've been wondering exactly how one mows a turf roof. Presumably that does become a problem after a while, and I just don't think a lawnmower would be very practical. We eventually came up with the idea of a keeping a roof goat. I thought about asking, but (a) they would have thought I was weird (b) it's such a new building they might not have encountered or considered this problem. Damn, now I wish I had asked.


You can't walk that far along the cliffs on the new walkways, there was a muddy footpath going a lot further in one direction but it was blocked off and looked a bit dangerous anyway. The other direction led up to O'Brien's tower, which was quite high up and extremely windy. As for the cliffs themselves, they are big and rocky and everything that cliffs should be.

Having walked every path I could and still with a couple of hours to spare before we were due to walk back, I came back to the visitor centre and browsed tacky souvenirs for a bit before caving in and buying a ticket to the Atlantic Edge exhibition, which turned out to be quite interesting and I suppose worth the 4 euros. Lots of interesting exhibits about the different layers that make up the cliffs, what Ireland looked like squillions of years ago. (not very much like Ireland) and the network of rivers that run beneath the Burren.

By the time I got out, it was nearly time to go back but the sun had come out and there was just enough time to go back up and get a better look at the cliffs.

As it turns out, I didn't even need to go outside at all. As I walked throught the visitor centre, I suddenly became aware of a cross-looking lady with a camera on my right, and a lightbox image of the cliffs on my left - I had inadvertently walked into her oh-so-authentic photograph. Oops!

The walk back was lovely - the skies had cleared and the sun was starting to set. It's always interesting to talk to fellow travellers - this American couple were on their spring break and had been to London and Scotland first before coming to Ireland, where they were on their first day, and after Ireland they were heading to the south of Italy, where I am sure they will encounter much nicer weather than they've seen so far. They seemed to be really impressed with everything they'd seen so far, although apparently it rained a lot in London (hmm, I am sure I've heard that before) It was nice to have some company anyway, and talk about our respective travels, both past and future.

Wednesday March 7th - Windy

I've had a suspicion from the start of this whole thing that going cycling on the west coast of Ireland in March was probably a bit of a silly thing to do, especially when I was advised not to camp due to soggy ground and gale force winds - but I'm not so easily put off doing silly things so I went and did it anyway (the cycling, not the camping). Today looked a bit rainy and miserable from the start - so I put off going out on the bike until the afternoon, when it was still a bit miserable and quite windy, but I didn't want to waste one of two days here so set off anyway, in the direction of the Cliffs of Moher.

I rode out of Doolin, and the road soon started to take an upward turn. At one point it got steep enough that I had to get off and push (note: if a road is that hard to get up, it's probably pretty scary coming down) The wind picked up quite quickly as I ascended, fortunately it was behind me - if it'd been against me, I probably would have turned back. When I reached the top of the hill, there was a right turn and the nice tailwind turned into a rather scary sidewind. I could still just about keep the bike from being blown off the road, but barely. I carried on like this for a mile or two, looking out for the cliffs, until the rain started stinging my face and I realised how loudly the wind was howling, and how insane it really was to be up here, and that it was unlikely I'd see much of the cliffs anyway from the road, especially with stinging rain in my eyes... so I turned around.

The trip back was just as much fun, except I had to try extra hard to control the bike so it wouldn't get blown into the oncoming traffic (not that there was much, you'd have to be insane to go out in that weather). Going down hill, the wind was straight into my face and the rain was stinging like hell, so I pulled my buff over my face and put the sunglasses on. I'm pretty well equipped for bad weather - double layered trousers with magic wicking stuff, leg warmers, heavy duty raincoat, waterproof windproof gloves, buff, awesome hat... but eye protection is still a problem. My sunglasses are OK but dark lenses aren't always a good thing, and in the cold they mist up as badly as dgym's car. So, if any of you are wondering what to get me for my birthday, here's an idea: sunglasses with interchangeable lenses and little windscreen wipers on the inside.

Naturally the weather brightened up once I'd got back and changed into dry stuff.