What and why?

This blog is an account of my sponsored virtual bike ride from Land's End to John O'Groats, taking a slightly scenic route so that I stop at some interesting places. I will be covering a total distance of 1,636 km, or 1,022.5 miles if you prefer.

It might sound odd doing it as a virtual ride, but I wouldn't be able to do the 'real life' version as I had a spinal cord injury - cauda equina syndrome - in September 2016, and again in October 2016. I have been left with permanent damage, I am a powered wheelchair user, and can only use specialised bikes. I also have chronic severe brittle asthma, insulin controlled steroid induced diabetes, Cushing's Syndrome, and liver disease, which mean that I have to be careful when exercising, and can only do so in a safe and supervised environment.

Until January 2018 there were no facilities outside of the hospital environment for those with spinal cord injuries in the north of England to use a gym with specially adapted equipment. Then POP-UP GYM opened.

Set up by Drew Graham, an athlete who had a spinal cord injury when training in the USA, Pop-Up Gym has three MotoMed bikes, two of which also have Function Electrical Stimulation programming available so that those even those with total paralysis can pedal an exercise bike by the power of their own muscles. The gym also has two standing frames, one of which can be used as a kind of elliptical trainer as well. There is a VitaGlide trainer, a VibroGym and a wheelchair-adapted multigym. The gym employs three personal trainers, a neuro rehab physiotherapist, and a couple of ancillary staff, but they are also reliant on volunteers.

Gym users can either pay as they go or sign up to become members, but as both a business and a charity the gym needs a regular income in order to keep going and keep providing the excellent facilities they do, facilities that are only available to the public in a handful of places around the UK, and nowhere else in the north of England, possibly nowhere north of the West Midlands.

My aim for this ride is to raise some much needed funds for POP-UP GYM, and I welcome all the support I can get. I have broken the ride down into twenty-two legs, stopping at interesting places along the way. I'll be writing the blog as though I am doing the ride 'in the real world', showing you pictures of where I'm going and what I see, and perhaps writing about some of the folk I meet along the way. I will be doing the ride on the gym's MotoMed bikes and attending two to three times a week, so I estimate I should complete it in about eight weeks.

Please sponsor me if you think my efforts are worth it and the cause is worthy.

23 April 2018

Wellington to Wookey Hole

Star Wars still from Google Images
No, no, not that kind of Wookie!  That's me in the morning of a bad hair day.  Mind you, with hair like that then every day is a bad hair day.  Actually, I don't look very different from that after I've finished each leg of my virtual bike ride, so it's more apt than it first seems.

 I have no idea where the village of Wookey Hole got it's name, but I know that it's been around longer than the Star Wars films so maybe George Lucas got the name of the Wookie race from the place.  Who knows?  Other than that, I know that it's a small place in Somerset amidst the Mendip Hills, which are very ... hilly.  I can tell you that from experience because it was very hard work cycling through them, even virtually as I increased the resistance on the MotoMed to four gears up from my usual for 30km.  I was very tired after all my crazy antics at Wellington so the 70km ride felt a lot further and was a lot harder going than some.  That'll teach me to party all night in a park before I have to cycle 70kms.  All the same, I completed it in two hours and thirty two minutes.

For all that cycling through the Mendips was hard work, it was beautiful and dramatic.


 I had heard that there are wild goats that roam the hills, but that they could be pretty elusive, so I was surprised to stumble across this chap or chappess wandering through the trees by the roadside.

I'm sure he/she can stand up for themselves when they need to, and I didn't try to engage it in conversation or activity to test it out, but it didn't seem very wild to me.  It was happy wandering through the trees nibbling on the undergrowth, and I was happy just to watch from the roadside.

 Once again, I hadn't sorted anywhere to stay, but one of the things for which Wookey Hole is famous is its caves, so I figured that I might be able to kip in one of them. It would make an interesting change from the tent or a hotel, and as the Wookey Hole caves are a constant 11C they're not too chilly.  One of the things this constant, moderate temperature is good for is providing the perfect environment for ageing cheese, specifically Cheddar cheese as Wookey Hole is just around the corner from Cheddar.  Yes, that phrase, 'Cave-aged Cheddar cheese,' does literally mean that it's sat on a rack in a cave in Cheddar/Wookey Hole for several years before it's packaged up and sent to the shops. Look...

That really is rack after rack of humongous cheeses.  How delicious!  This was the cave for me for the weekend, most definitely!

 Once I'd cleared it with the tour guide that I could squirrel away in the cave, I took a look around my temporary abode and was quite blown away by the beauty and magnificence of the nature that surrounded me.




Look at those stalactites and stalagmites!  Aren't they stunning?  Nature is amazing!


These lakes are natural too, and so much deeper than they look.  Apparently the clarity of the water deceives us into believing it's a lot shallower than it actually is.

 Although a little tricky to get into, I decided that the rowing boat would likely be the most comfortable place to sleep in the cave as the ground was so lumpy bumpy and intermittently spiky with stalagmites.  I had my sleeping bag and squishy pillows out of my bike panniers so figured I'd be okay for a few nights, and if I needed any other luxuries from my camping equipment my bike wasn't too far away.  Before bed, though, I needed some sustenance so I ambled back to the shelves of cheese and ventured up the steps where I found...
Photo from Google Images
Cheese heaven!  Stack after stack after stack of creamy, tangy, Cheddary deliciousness, wrapped in cotton blankets, and resting for perhaps ten years, maybe more.  How ridiculous that when it leaves the cave and goes into the shop that they then stick a 'use by' date on it for sometime in the next few weeks!

 Surely, with all those enormous truckles lining mile upon mile of underground shelving, they weren't going to miss one.  Surely.  And I needed food, energy packed cheesy food to restore my weary body after my long, weary cycle from Wellington.  I braved it.  I admit, I took a cheese, a whole cheese.
Photo from Google Images
I left a note of thanks and apology and a significant wad of cash that would hopefully cover the costs ... and then I scoffed the lot.  Mnomnomnom.

 The boat wasn't too bad as a sleeping place, and the total lack of wind or weather of any kind meant that the lake was absolutely still.  The little rowing boat only moved when I did, and I was so tired that I barely stirred.

 The following day I ventured to another part of the cave and learnt that perhaps I ought to have had a more disturbed night than I did, because the Wookey Hole caves hold the legend of a witch!
Photo from Google Images
I can't remember the whole legend of the Wookey Hole witch, but the very basic story is that way back in the mists of time a bloke fell in love with a woman.  A mean old lady, probably a bitter spinster (in my opinion), didn't like romance so did something to end the relationship, but I can't remember if she turned the woman against the man or something more horrible.  Anyway, later in life the young man became a monk of some kind (so probably a good thing that he hadn't married his previous love), and went to see the old woman who by then lived in the cave.  He said some incantations and splashed her with holy water, and suddenly she began to turn to rock.  This rock, is said to be her...

Can you see her profile?  Spooky!

 I didn't sleep so well that night, but it's probably just as well that I hadn't, at that stage, gone all the way through the caves and out the 'exit', because when I did I was confronted by this guy...

Never mind the witch, this fifteen-foot high gorilla is utterly terrifying when you've spent a couple of days in a cave, munching cheese, sleeping in a rowing boat on a lake hundreds of feet underground, avoiding shadows of legendary witches turned to stone.  At least he doesn't growl because it'd echo around the Mendips and probably send the goats into an attacking frenzy.  On the other hand, maybe that's why they're wild, after all, just seeing this gorilla was almost enough to send me wild, let alone hearing it.  

 Making a quick escape from the giant gorilla, I skirted around him and was almost immediately confronted by these beasts!

I turned to run from them only to have this guy leap out at me...

What is wrong with this place?!  Giant gorillas and the resurrection of savage dinosaurs waiting to jump out at you from behind the bushes!  And just when you think you've avoided becoming dino lunch, they 'thaw out' the Wookey Hole witch and set her loose on you...
Photo from Google Images
Okay, so she's not that scary, but who knows what spells she could cast on me even from a distance.  My only hope is that she's confined to the realms of Wookey Hole and isn't going to fly after me on her broomstick because I can't cycle all that fast and I haven't tried to out-cycle a woman on a broomstick before.

 I take back what I said at the beginning.  I reckon George Lucas came and visited Wookey Hole and only had to look at himself in the mirror when he'd made his getaway to get his inspiration for the Wookies because, hey, this was me when I got back to my bike...
Photo from You Tube/Google Images
The adrenaline from that lot certainly helped me pedal on through the Mendips, and the so-called wild goats seemed positively tame as I whizzed by.

They're not even giving me sly glances or look as though they're plotting to butt me off my bike with their horns.  No, they're only interested in the juiciness of that ivy, or whatever it is.  

 Anyway, I wasn't hanging around.  I was off to Gloucestershire and my next stop at WWT Slimbridge.  I'll see you there, and hopefully I'll get back to having a much more sensible time with a flamingo or something.  While you wait for me to write my next post about what I get up to at Slimbridge, please remember to sponsor me on my Just Giving Page for this epic virtual cycle ride from Land's End to John O'Groats (and the writing of this blog tracking the journey) to help raise funds for Pop-Up Gym.  If you need a reminder as to why it's so important then please do read the long bit of blurb at the top of the blog.  With huge thanks for your support.
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2 comments:

  1. Christine24 April 2018 at 05:57

    I am quite impressed with your exploration of those caves. I explored some in Australia once and after a while I started to feel rather claustrophobic. Perhaps the smell of cheese enabled you to be strong...and the taste would have clearly spurred you on. Did you know that the animals waiting outside are only there to punish those that steal from the shelves? A good thing you left cash behind you.

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    Replies
    1. BeckyG24 April 2018 at 23:54

      Ah, Christine, these caves are so ... cavernous that I didn't feel at all claustrophobic. Some of the 'ceilings' of the caves are so high they're like vaults. The cheese probably helped a lot, though, and it's possible that by the end of the weekend I was almost drunk on cheese, if it's possible to get drunk on cheese. It really is the most delicious thing to eat, especially when kipping in a haunted cave. Having said that, it's perhaps not so great if you get troubled by cheese dreams.

      As for the animals - or rather, beasts - waiting outside, I am sooo relieved that I left that cash and note on the cheese stacks. It would be awful to be mauled by a ginormous gorilla or a resurrected dinosaur just for my love of cheese, and before I've even reached half of my fundraising target! Did the caves you explored in Ozland have such terrifying beasts waiting outside too?

      Stay safe from giant cave-protecting animals, and savour the deliciousness of a good Cheddar cheese.

      Becky xx

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