Up at five and away by 5:40. My knee was still sore and once I got on the bike discovered that my bottom was too! Still, the sun was shining and it was a nice ride to Chirk, where I re-entered Wales.
Bought more supplies in the local Spar. Forgot that I’d deviated away from the route to go into the town and just continued on through; when I reached the A5 I realised and turned back.
I had the devil of a job finding my way onto the right route: to begin with I couldn't get a GPS fix because of overhanging trees and when I did the obvious track back to my route turned out to be a private road with locked gates. After 50 minutes and 5 extra miles I was back on track!
Breakfast at a seat beside the road just after Pontfadog. Set off again just after nine with just 20 miles under my belt. The next 10k was a gentle climb from 130m to 270m but slight though the hill was it exacerbated the pain in my bottom. A short flat section and then a stiff climb to the highest point of the day (421m); this hill was signed 17% and it really hurt my tender contact point so I got off and pushed -- harder than cycling with a fully loaded bike but easier on the bottom
After a short downhill my route took me over a slightly higher peak but there was a junction with a signpost to “Llanrhaeadr-ym-Mochnant” and from the map it looked shorter and more importantly avoided an uphill “>”, so that was the way I went.
There were several short hills and after Llanrhaeadr a fairly steep one. I was far more tired than I should be and my bum was hurting. I thought about stopping at the campsite at Llanwddyn so I stopped at a shop to buy supplies for the evening meal. Again, very little choice (a bit like small town 1970s Poland). In the end didn't stop at the campsite and went over the next hill - and seemed to be going marginally better - to Llangadfan where I stopped at the campsite.
Showered -- what joy -- and washed clothes; plugged in phone battery charger. Walked into town -- there wasn't one. Checked on battery charger; socket had stopped working after charging battery from 40% to 60% (had the charger blown the socket fuse?).
Laid in tent and fell asleep; woken by rain -- what happened to
"Wales will remain dry"? Still, didn't last long.
Cooked chilli-sweetcorn from what I had (sweetcorn, onions, tomato puree, chilli, lamb stock cube, red wine), with tinned tuna, and rice washed down with more red wine and followed by coffee. There were a few midges about in the evening and earlier in the day I had stopped in a gateway for a snack and received a nasty bite which drew blood from what looked like a horsefly.
Didn't make much progress today probably because I overdid it yesterday and my sore bottom. I need to sort it out. I did pass a chemist earlier in the day but didn't bother to stop because I thought there'd be another one.
Distance: 79.8 k
Time: 5:48:53
Average: 13.6 k/hr
Max: 62.0k/hr
Height asc: 1618m
Campsite:, Riverbend Caravan Park, Llangadfan, Welshpool, Powys. £12. Pleasant, friendly site.
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