The route I will be taking after leaving Monk Sherborne is to take a couple of back lanes to Ewhurst on the A339. A part of the journey that slightly worries me as it is the one section that will not be gritted. I will then take the A339 until it joins the A34 just South of Newbury, a quick run through town at around 8am should mean the road is pretty quiet. Then onto the M4 at Junction 13 coming off at Junction 15 I will then take the A419 and A417 until I reach the M5 at Junction 11. The run on the on the A roads, should be pretty good, however I have ridden these before and not enjoyed them one bit, due to being frozen solid. I don’t think tomorrow is going to be any better.
Once on the M5 it is a relatively short run up to Worcester. Thankfully when I come off at Junction 7 it is only a couple of miles to the Three Counties Hospice and the opportunity to thaw out. I’m aiming to get there about 10-10.30am. The RAC route planner says it is just under 100 miles and should take me around 2hrs 10mins. I am hoping to meet some of the staff, have a coffee and get some pictures taken before I head of back not much later than 11.30am.
One thing I have been doing over the holidays is buying in the sales and I have certainly bought some more thermal gear and a nice thin fleece that I can wear underneath my jacket, so hopefully it will help me stay warm, the other things I’ve been able to pick up quite cheap are a new camping mattress and pillow. Wishful thinking you might say but as soon as the weather warms up enough and is not torrential rain I will be camping. If we get to 10 degrees during the day and no less than 5 at night then I will camp thankfully I have the gear, one issue though is finding anywhere open, This is where the Youth Hostels and Universities come into play, I’ve had one offer from a South West University to host me, that I need to confirm pretty quickly now. If I am to stay on schedule I need to be hitting Cornwall, sometime in March at the very, very latest, much later than that will mean a lot of catching up later in the year.
I have been playing around with the Camera over the last few days as well as charging up plenty of batteries as I am hoping to take a small video of arriving and leaving the hospice. It really will be an experiment at this stage but it will give me some ideas for when I get the camera equipment from Mobotix to mount. My good friend Jay has been away over the holidays so I haven’t got his helmet cam yet, in fact when I spoke to him, he didn’t believe I was going to actually start tomorrow. Therefore over the coming weeks I will be I will be inundated with Cameras to track my progress.
Now to a serious message, I want to wish everyone that reads my blog a very. Very happy and prosperous New Year and I really do mean the last part. In this time of global financial turmoil I wish all of you reading a seriously good year.
Take care and as Mick says 'You don’t stop riding when you get old, you only stop riding when you need your head checking!'
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