Day 10 - Tuesday 7th August - Bretton Hall to York

Weather - Dry first thing then very wet again

Distance - 52.3 miles

Camp Site - York Cricket and Rugby Union Football Club, Clifton Park, Shipton Road, York

We were very relieved in the morning to find that the weather was dry although rather overcast. I had a very good night in my room - I decided that it was very good value, particularly as a "one-off"!

The village of West Bretton is just to the north and west of junction 38 on the M1 motorway and we had to get from here to York today. Our route took us as usual on minor roads and passed south of Wakefield and Pontefract but we saw none of these big towns. The country soon became very flat and the cycling was quite easy if rather boring. The weather was not very good and around 40 miles at Stillingfleet it started to rain again. At 47 miles there was a cycle track which soon passed over the Millennium Bridge, a modern style pedestrian and cycle bridge with a single arch at an angle crossing the River Ouse just on the edge of York. Then on along the cycle way around the centre of York following along side the River Ouse in the pouring rain. When I arrived at the Rugby Club at about 1.00 p.m. there was no-one else from our group there. When the catering and luggage vans eventually arrived they told me that they had come on a roundabout route which took them longer than expected. I heard afterwards that others who had arrived before me went back into York for their lunch and some sightseeing.

I went to a pub further out of York along the main road where I had some lunch and then cycled back into the centre of York. Here it was very busy with shoppers and tourists looking at the attractions of York but it was still raining on and off so it was not very pleasant. After spending some time looking around myself, I managed to find a bank cash machine and then returned to the camp site. All these pub lunches were getting expensive!

The tents were now up and the luggage was unloaded and covered by a tarpaulin to keep dry whilst ready for collection. Other people had arrived and some were putting up their own tents. One or two people decided to look for a bed and breakfast for the night as the weather was still bad. The showers etc. here left a lot to be desired. The men's showers were very open and the front windows faced onto the terrace way in front of the sports field. The only things to stop people from outside looking in were some thin net curtains which came half way up the windows and the steam on the windows from the hot showers!

The site crew did attempt to set up a drying room. They had a warm air heater which they set up in one of the changing rooms but were unable to put the warm air on because the heater was intended for a much larger space and would have very quickly roasted everything in the small changing room. I put one or two things in overnight including my cycling shoes which had become very wet and they were actually only just damp by the morning. Several people decided by now that the best way to dry damp things was to wear them!

I am afraid that we did not have good memories of York - the city itself was very wet and the facilities at the rugby club were extremely basic and in poor repair. The only good thing was that it was a relatively easy days cycling with flat countryside and a low mileage of just over 52 miles.

We have now completed half of the trip both in terms of days and also mileage. This is the end of day nine out of eighteen cycling days and the cumulative mileage is 556 and we expect to do some 1100 miles to John O' Groats in total. We seem to have been on the road a long time now and it seems to be a considerable time since we started off at Land's End on that misty Sunday morning but I expect that the second half of the trip will appear to pass much more quickly than the first half.