Day 21 -- June 21, 2011; Temple Farm to Blackford



Long, straight farm road

 My boots and most of my clothes were still wet from yesterday. Fortunately, today was dry. Today’s walk was through what is called the Somerset Levels – flat farmland, very similar to the farmland in the San Joaquin Valley. The walk wasn’t particularly scenic, because large flat farms aren’t scenic.

In fact today’s walk can be described as a monotonous trudge, with no traffic or rain to complain about.  Trying to navigate through the farm fields provided the only occasional sparks of excitement. The fields are barely above sea level, so an intricate drainage system has been established. In other areas I had become trapped by hedgerows bordering the fields; here it was the drainage ditches. Care had to be taken to carefully follow the footpath shown on the map (but not visible on the ground) in order to cross the field and arrive at the very point where a small plank had been placed across the ditch. For me, GPS is a necessity in such situations, and I’m getting very good at route finding.

Peter

The only person I met all day was Peter, a New Zealander who is cycling from London to Spain. He plans to ride to Plymouth, take the ferry to France and continue on from there. We met in the only pub on my route, which is about a mile from my B&B for the night.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to find accommodations for tomorrow night in Cheddar, so I’ll just bypass that village and continue heading north tomorrow.


© 2011 Ken Klug