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Bluebells of May Ride
4 May 2008
Photos
I had been watching the forecast all week. There were a few fears, the
week had already been extremely rainy and various weather websites
pretended they knew anything about the future and changed their stories
seemingly at random. Refresh, lots of rain on Sunday, refresh, rain, no
rain, it will be sunny and lovely, refresh, oh, did we forget to mention
the rain. But still, there were bluebells to see, can't let a little
rain stop that. And besides, it was nice on Saturday and the most
reliable weather report seems to be just see what it is like the day before.
Riding to Green Bridge, the weather seemed to be very nice, not too hot,
not too cold, and only the barest hint of rain. Five were waiting there,
oh good, it won't be a total washout then. More had said they would meet
at the station, but the number who call and say they will be there and
the number who actually show up are rarely the same figure. I didn't
want to miss the scheduled train since fast trains to Milford only run
once an hour. So, after giving it a few minutes, we rush off to the
station, sticking mostly to bigger faster roads. After Tower Bridge, I
realized I completely forgot how to make that turn onto Tooley Street,
oops, has been a while since I've done that.
We arrive at Waterloo with a good amount of time to organize and
purchase tickets and catch the train. A few more are waiting there at
the station. Somebody has called a few times, where are you, waiting at
the station, don't see you, we really are here. Never figured out where
he was, sorry, the train won't wait. I get a sinking feeling, I get a
text that Gerry is almost there. Oh no, I know how this one is going to
go. For the rest of the day, we play Waiting For Gerry, a flurry of
texts, just 10 minutes behind you, will catch up soon. But we never see
her, even though she apparently knew her exact GPS coordinates. Not sure
what I could do with those. Sounds like she had a grand old time all day
so I won't feel so bad then.
Things went smoothly to Winkworth, sort of the main goal of the ride, to
see fields of bluebells. It was a relatively short distance there,
although Surrey is a little confusing, lots of turns. We lock our bikes
by the back entrance and walk across to see what there is to see and to
have a stop at the cafe. I had been there a few months before and
imagined it would be pretty nice in spring and I wasn't disappointed.
Colors everywhere and the bluebells looked like a mist of blue across
the fields. Excellent. The tea and cake was good too and we head back to
continue the ride.
One decides to leave at this point, presumably a little disappointed
with the pace. It wasn't really meant to be a head down, pedal to the
metal sort of ride, but it wasn't also supposed to be walk in the park
(well, not the entire time). There are plenty of hills in Surrey and I
had plotted out a good number of them in the route. So, you can't plan
everything for everybody but hopefully it was mostly good for most
everybody.
So, onward with a goal to have lunch in Shere. Soon after, Gerry is in
Winkworth, where are we? She will catch up soon. We leave two behind
waiting, who wait and wait and eventually try to catch up again. I make
my first major map gaffe of the day and end up on a very muddy bridal
way. It doesn't look too bad at first until we hit that point of, do we
just go back, after two sections seem completely impassable. But we get
a little muddy and keep going. There are both shrieks of laughter from
some and a bit of grumpiness from others. But I don't think there was
any lasting damage done, so hopefully it wasn't so bad in the grand
scheme of things.
Soon then after, back on the road again, I miss the turn and we have to
backtrack a little bit on the busy A road. The sign about the road being
closed and bridge repair worried me a little bit, but it turned out
fine. It was a few mile stretch of completely deserted road and the
bridge was still passable. Quickly, the two waiting behind for Gerry
catch up and we head on to lunch. Apparently she is lost in the woods
but having a great time.
Outside of Shere, we have missed lunch at one pub but they point us to
the White Horse in Shere and says they are serving all day. We order,
they tell us it will be 45 minutes to an hour for food, so we retire out
to the garden and enjoy the sunny day. And watch a cute caterpillar
scrunching and stretching across the table. The food arrives fairly
quickly, no where near the promised hour and it is pretty nice.
After lunch, we wait by the stream going through town for the first
puncture to be fixed. Some run through the very nice churchyard just a
few blocks away. And then we are off, quickly out of town and start our
steady climb up and up through the forest. What an amazing forest and so
close to London too, not just boring plantation conifer pine but real
proper Scots pine and others. It is a nice climb up, steady up hill.
Somebody stops to check their brakes, convinced that they must be
rubbing and slowing him down.
Nearly at the top, the decision is made to skip the planned swoop
through the south through Cranleigh and cut across the ridge straight
back in order to catch an earlier train back. After the long uphills,
the way back is much quicker and some of it covers some of the same
ground, so my navigation improves slightly and there are no more wrong
turns. A few miles out of Godalming, we suffer double punctures and we
stop to sort that out. The rain which had been holding off all day
starts to drizzle slightly, but not enough to be even very noticeable.
Just past Winkworth, we encounter a surprise hill, short and steep but
everybody manages fine. I could have sworn it was going to be all flat
and downhill the rest of the way in, but that's Surrey for you. In
Godalming, many find their own ways to the train station, some even
lucky enough to have a few teenage girls help them along. But all reach
the station in time and after a short wait in a light rain, we head back
to London.
Kerry
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