LEJOG Day 4 - Glastonbury to Monmouth

Day 4
68 miles
1300m ascent

Today a Spanish long distance pro cyclist joined us, we met one of the Andrex puppies and had some great vegan grub in Bristol!

We started with a lovely breakfast of muesli, nuts, fresh fruit & blueberry yoghurt at the vegan place, then we passed through some stunning open country lanes into the city of Wells. They have a nice gothic-style cathedral which we popped into, then we enjoyed coffees at a street market, & Greg met one of the original 8 Andrex dogs!

This is Bentley :)
This is the point where Carlos Mazon caught up to us. Carlos is a cyclist living in Bournemouth but comes from the Basque country. He specialises in ridiculous distances, at a ridiculous speed, with an hour or so's sleep along the roadside. Last year he came 2nd in a cycle race across America - 4200 miles in 20 days... (then just to sight see, rode the 900km up to New York!).
My crazy best friend met him through a Facebook cycle group & told him about my ride,  so he's joining for 2 days! Poor guy, going to be quite un-stretched with these meager rides. A selection of his trips: www.biziosona.com

He rode 100km from Bournemouth to meet us along our route, & after a lot of bike admiration time between the two guys we were on our way to Bristol.


Going over the suspension bridge was pretty cool, & we searched for a vegan lush spot finding 'thespottedleopard' pop up van in Clifton. 3 boxes of food for my myself - a spicy flavourful lentil burger, carrot beetroot & chic pea salad, & a chocolate peanut butter cake sandwiched with jam - so good! The guys had a filling wrap of chilli non-carne.

We left Bristol along the river Avon where rain began torrentially pouring, causing us to anorak up, then it would immediately stop (typical). A big dirty lorry laden road lead us towards the Severn, on which I apologised multiple times to our guest celebrity for the awful choice of route!
The river was captivating: so calm and expansive.


Only 30 miles to go, into Wales & straddling it's border with Gloucestershire.
More downhills of lush green into the stunning Wye valley until we came across a brilliant sight of the 12th century Tintern Abbey peaking out amongst the surrounding tree and mist covered hills.



5pm arrival in Monmouth where we found my B&B (which is pretty much my own studio flat joined to this nice couple's house), then amazingly found a campsite 100m down the road!  Carlos got extremely excited that he could sleep in his bivouac under a wooden shelter (!!) not just a bus stop shelter for once.

Carlos' bedroom 
I collected a package I'd sent here with 2 days worth of dinner (lentils, grains & more lentils & grains...) & snacks then the guys came over & we ate dinner together. Exemplifying how wild we all are, we shared 1 whole bottle of lager between us as our evening beverage.

That's all folks, to Clun tomorrow - the shortest day of the whole trip.

Besos x


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