JOGLE Day 13 represented the shortest day on our cycle tour itinerary, and also the one with the least climbing. In theory it would be a sort of ‘rest day’ before the final three ‘Devon and Cornwall’ days.

Weatherwise there were theories of strong south-westerly winds and even possible rain, but in the event neither of these materialised. It was another glorious day of sunshine.

From a personal viewpoint, the wisdom teeth would be less painful today – but this healing process is taking a long time!

We left Portishead Travelodge and straight away we had a hill climb. At least the reward of views over the Severn Estuary were worth it.

Then it was on the Clevedon.

And whilst we were tackling the Portishead hills, our support team were tackling the Portishead seafront!

Soon we were cycling along NCN Route 26, a section of which is the Strawberry Line which takes you from Yatton to the edge of Cheddar.

Including through apple orchards.

We stopped off at Axbridge for our morning coffee break.

This is a wonderful little town where the pace of life seems to slow down. We were all tempted to just stay, sit and watch the world go by.

  

After we had left Nic and Sarah visited King Johns Hunting Lodge (the timber building shown above).

Meanwhile we were back on the Strawberry Line.

At Cheddar we left the line and followed the B3151 as we made our way through Wedmore and Shapwick.

We then crossed the A39 on to the A361 and cycled through Greinton.

Unfortunately this meant we missed out Ashcott our proposed lunch stop which was slightly off route.

So we phoned Sarah and Nic who informed us that we had missed closing time anyway. Our revised ‘lunch stop’ became an ice-cream stop at Othery instead.

Sarah and Nic chose to forego the ice-cream and continued along the A361 where they spotted Burrow Mump. This was worth a closed look Sarah thought …

And off she trotted up the hill, only to come across an uneven bit of ground that severely tested her healing broken foot (She will survive!)

For the cyclists, after our ice-cream stop we continued on our way again on the A361.

Before switching to NCN Route 3 along the Bridgewater and Taunton Canal.

This took us into the centre of Taunton.

We cycled 49 miles today and climbed nearly 1600 feet. You can view our JOGLE Day 13 route from Portishead to Taunton below:

[sgpx gpx=”/wp-content/uploads/gpx/jogleday13-portisheadtotaunton.gpx”]

Tonight we are resting at Lowden’s House B&B. Tomorrow we enter Devon and the terrain becomes more challenging. Just three more JOGLE days to go …