Day 10 - Don't Wake The Dragon

We woke up in our saturated tents, in the heavily saturated field. Luckily everything in our tents was dry, including ourselves. That night was the first night I slept in just a tee shirt and was nice a toasty! I didn't even have my sleeping bag good over my head with the toggles pulled having just my nose peeping out to keep warm. We both had slept really well in our tents, however, Becky had woken up in a tired and drained state. Where I felt the opposite and was eager to get going.

As we loaded the bikes and packed away our wet tents, Becky noticed her ongoing tire problem had gotten even worse. The tire had no air in it what's so ever. So she took the decision to change from tubeless and put an inner tube in her back wheel. Changing the tube was just as much of a palarva as it was for me in Glasgow. The thread on the valve had closed in on each other so we needed pliers to force it off and pull the valve out. Thankfully the lady in the house at the campsite had some. All wet fairly ok after that till we went to pump it up. We had only gone and pinched the new tube when purring the wheel back on! Amateurs. Becky's mood had gone from bad to worse. The phrase feisty ginger doesn't even cut it for the mood she was in. Maybe more waking the first breathing dragon or something equally life-threatening.
We swapped out the tube and with extra care put the tired back in and pumped up! We were then on our way!

We cycled for hours down the busy A49 veering off now and again to go up some hills on some B roads. We had to change out the route to get us down south quicker as we are running out of time. We tried our hardest not to hold up traffic and to keep ourselves safe. Eventually, we got to Hereford where we stopped for some lunch.

Once again we didn't take many photographs that day because we kept our heads down to make up the miles. It was tough on the knees, especially when we came out of Hereford and were hit by hill after hill. Becky's mood had gotten better, then when we hit the hills the mood had gotten worse again. I did make her laugh though... We were heading up one steep hill and Becky was in front of me. I pulled up along the side of her, gave her the eyes as I trumped and peddled off really fast as if the trump blew me up to the hill!! It made her laugh and nearly stop dead on the hill. It was a proud moment for me.

The hills went from worse to worse. We cycled up one hill that was hands down the steepest and longest hill I have ever cycled up. When I got to what I thought was the top, Becky was nowhere to be seen. She eventually came pootling up and just scowled at me as if it was my fault the country was made this way. Or as if I had deliberately made us go up this hill.

We hit another hill and once again at the top, Becky came up just after me, pretty much three her bike down and was out for the count. I had checked the map and it was actually all downhill from there! But was I going to tell her? HELL NO. I dare not speak a single word... Don't wake the dragon. Don't make her angry, you won't like her when she's angry. (Add many more angry move quotes here)

As we shouted "WEEEEEEEEE" all the way down the long over due hill, an short after we arrived in Chepstow were we stayed the night.

We were quite late getting into Chepstow and hadn't had dinner, so we roamed the streets and found you're stereotypical Chinese restaurant that never seems to close. Chinese for breakfast? Yup we're open! 2am Chinese? Come on it, just step over my uncle asleep on the floor.

Needless to say, we ordered SO much food and it was amazing.