Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Day 10 - A Welsh puncture
Ellesmere to Up Holland - 58 miles
We were greeted in the morning by Neil with a huge pile of toast and jam. After a long,
leisurely breakfast on deck, we were on the road by 10.30am.
'What the hell? How come the road signs are in Welsh? When did we enter Wales?' said
Ben, skidding to a halt.
'Hang on, I'll check,' I said, pulling the day's directions from my pocket.
It was too difficult to cycle whilst holding the route book, so each morning I would write
downtheinstructionsforthatdayontoascrapofpaperwhichIthenkeptinmypocket.This
whole process took at least ten minutes.
'It says here:
'Between Ellesmere and Penley, the tour briefly enters Wales - the first in-
dication being the road signs'.
Well they were right about that. Yes, it appears that we are in
Wales.'
'Cool. England tick,' said Ben.
'Yes, but we'll be back in England soon. We can't get to Scotland through Wales, you
div.'
'Yeah, I knew that. I was just saying.'
We were just about to set off when I looked down and noticed a huge thorn sticking out
of The Falcon's front tyre.
'Ithinkwe'vegotaslightproblem,'Isaid,pullingoutthethornandholdingituptoBen.
'Oh, bollocks. Is it flat? What are we going to do?'
'It's completely flat. I guess we just walk and ask at the first house that we see if they
have a puncture repair kit.'
'Why did you have to go and get a puncture in the middle of nowhere?'
'I didn't choose to get a puncture here did I?'
'No, I'm just saying that your wanky bike has caused us no end of problems.'
'It'sapuncture,forgod'ssake.Itcouldhavejustaseasilyhappenedtoyourmightybike.'
'But it didn't, did it? It happened to that pile of crap.'
'You're being a bit unreasonable. We've cycled nearly 400 miles and this is our first
puncture. That's pretty good going, isn't it? It's just a puncture. It's no big deal.'
Halfanhourofwalkinglaterwereachedagroupofthreehouses.Therewasnoanswerat
the first house. Or the second. Eventually, after a few minutes, a man with a smile that filled
his entire face answered the door of the third house. He laughed when he saw us, as though
he had been expecting us.
'Hellooo,' he said, 'have you come to look round the house?'
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