Monday 19 October 2009

Monday 19th October 2009

Milestone Caravan Club Site (Cromwell near Newark)
We leave Burford after a very enjoyable few days and head for another Caravan Club site near Newark. The bright sunny weather continues.

We arrive at about 13:00, first thing to do after plugging in etc is to have lunch.

The village of Cromwell is just off the A1, but the site is so well landscaped that you cannot see the road, and can only very occasionally hear the hum of traffic. We choose a pitch overlooking one of the fishing lakes on the site, complete with a collection of ducks swimming on it.

After lunch, Kathleen returns to reception to let them know which pitch we have chosen, and while there the “nice young man in reception” loans her two laminated OS map sections with local bicycle rides. One route heads south to Newark, the other north along the river Trent, we decide to save the Newark ride for tomorrow (weather permitting).

We set off to do the ride, which takes us along a small road with a bridge over the A1, to the River Trent at Cromwell Lock, and then follows the winding river north to Carlton-on-Trent. The distance to Carlton is about 5 miles, and it is mostly flat, but the tarmac runs out after about two miles, after that we ride through fields. At some points it is so bumpy we are forced to walk, and finally we come to a gate which is surrounded by nettles and is locked. I lift both bikes over the fence, and trample down the nettles so that Kathleen can walk to the fence and climb over it (very elegantly). We ride across another field, before emerging at the church in Carlton-on-Trent.

Regular readers may recall, that Kathleen does not like cycle rides which involve riding along rough tracks, nettles or climbing over fences, but not a word of complaint passes her lips. Now if I had selected this route there would have been none stop complaining, but because we have a map from “the nice young man in reception”, all is well.

We explore Carlton, but there is no pub, we ask directions of a group of people chatting in the main street, and are directed to “The Lord Nelson”, in Sutton-on-Trent, about 1.5miles away. We cycle along the cycle track (called Carlton Lane), and find the pub no problem.

Kathleen makes use of the toilets, (the Gents as it happens since she miss-read the signs), and then we settle down for a drink and a study of the map to find our way back without returning via the obstacle course which we followed to get here. We pick out a route via small and quiet roads which bring us in a nice little circle to return to the site after covering a nice 14 miles.

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