Day 3 Hungerford to Radstock
Quick facts:
Departed The Three Swans
Destination: Radstock Hotel
Distance 54.8 miles/ 87.7 km
Ascent: 1,650 feet
Riding MTB
Weather: sunny and warm. We has a bit of welcome mist at noon to cool us off. H25 L12 C
Check out Corner to Corner, Day 3: Hungerford to Radstock activity on Strava: https://strava.app.link/9y7OZ2qQpsb
The Three Swans hotel served up a good breakfast and we were on our way out of Hungerford. Ralph stopped to look into the beautiful church that was opposite the hotel. It apparently was very beautiful.
Our route took us through farmland with wheat fields being harvested, then on to the Kennet Avon canal.
OK …. Sometimes the path was pretty overgrown!
James still looks happy; Sam looks like he’s on a tandem with James (not) and Brett looks horrified with the prospect of wading through the weeds!
Sometimes it was just fine.
One of the most interesting features in this stretch is the Bruce Tunnel It is over 500 feet long and bores through a significant hill…. Which was quite a climb on a bike! It would have taken a lot of locks to get up and over.
You can see Ralph reading the historical plaque.
Another feature on this stretch is The Pewsey White Horse, Now this large carving of a horse, hundreds of feet high on a hill, would be the type of thing of interest to me. Unfortunately I hadn’t read Ralph’s POIs for the day beforehand so when he said there is the white horse… I kept steering my mountain bike and watching my front tire track… wondering when Ralph repeated it again why a horse in a field would be worth pointing out twice… my loss.
We had a break in the little town of Pewsey and as coffees were being sipped I read up about the Avon River flowing by. It has such history and the canal has been our friend for two days, but here it is almost small enough to jump over. Amazing to me.
It flows 85 miles from the Vale of Pewsey to Christchurch Harbour. It is one of England’s longest chalk river systems. The chalk filters the water and makes it very good drinking water for the people living along the banks.
I would be remiss if I didn't mention the small amount of light precipitation before our lunch stop at the Black Horse. It made the view at the top of the hill a little grey but it cooled us down a bit on this hot day.
The Black Horse Pub is at the top of the Caen Hill lock system. Twenty nine locks in a row moved goods up and down this stretch of the Kennet Avon system. It is truly amazing. This canal was built in 1801. I am from Ottawa, Canada where British Army engineers under the command of Col By built the Rideau Canal in 1815. We have steps of 9 locks in Ottawa where the waters of the Rideau River step gently into the Ottawa River. This canal was originally built after the War of 1812 in case the Americans tried to invade Canada again. They didn’t. Losing a war to Canada once was enough!
The chart on the wall of the Black Horse showing the Caen Hill Locks and the lock system, was hard to photograph but it illustrates the unbelievable steps the locks make from one end to the other. For the past three days we have been steadily climbing UP from the River Thames on the far right.
We are now on our way down. The super steep lines on the chart are the 29 locks one after the otnet.
It wasn’t possible to beat this engineering feat the rest of the day, but I did gain an appreciation of the skill and determination that went into the canal projects around Britain two centuries ago.
The Radstock Hotel beckoned! Sarah, the Jack of all trades behind the bar was fabulous at looking after our needs for the bikes and getting us all checked in. The Radstock is a scary maze of small corridors and endless stairs. It has been there centuries. What’s the chance of a fire tonight???
Lorraine