It was a long and arduous cycle of 87km from Westward Ho! to Wellington, 40km of which I did at increased resistance by four gears. Despite that, I managed to complete the journey in 3 hours and 2 minutes.
You know, I have known nothing about Wellington, Somerset, until arriving here. I don't know anything about Wellington in New Zealand either, but considering that would be a ridiculous cycle ride as that's the other side of the world, perhaps I can be excused. Anyway, given that I knew nothing about Wellington, and that it's slightly south from where I was and my destination is as far north as we can get in mainland UK, you may be asking yourself why I have come here. It is simply that I used to have a car I called Wellington. It was a Toyota Yaris that one of the car review magazines described as being 'as practical as a wellington boot,' so that had to be my car's name ... and now that's how I came to include Wellington in my epic journey from Land's End to John O'Groats.
The attack by the Beast of the Moor threw me somewhat and meant that I forgot to plan anywhere to stay in Wellington so I've ended up camping again.
But I have a new addition to my camping equipment...a sink. It's not just any old sink though, it's a wonderful butler's sink. I can't actually bring myself to use it for washing up just yet so I've decided to use it as a fridge...or more specifically, a minibar.
Excuse the bottles of red on the shelves above. They, of course, should not be chilled, so I'm keeping them where they are. I'm now a firm believer that every tent should have a butler's sink, which can be used as a minibar, but if absolutely necessary could be used to wash up dishes or even clothes.
Wellington is a very pretty little town with lots of flowers, even at the sign that welcomes you in.
The town itself is lovely too with loads of independent little shops, which is quite a contrast to most towns and cities these days that have almost become clones of each other with national chain stores littering the high streets. It's refreshing to come somewhere where you almost need to hunt out a chain store amongst the plethora of independent shops.
Anyway, the town centre wasn't the best place to go looking for a place to pitch my tent so I pedalled on until I came across Wellington Park. Beautiful landscaping, flowers, a spot of topiary, and even a small lake. The perfect place to set up camp for a couple of nights.
Now, I've found out a little about the history of Wellington while I've been here, mostly due to a visit to the brilliantly informative Wellington Museum, which has loads to see. I can't possibly remember everything, but I'll see if I can remember something about the park...
So, way back in 1787 a private bank was set up in Wellington by the Fox family (and some others - the Fowlers 'and Company'), as a subsidiary business to sheep-herding and wool-making, as you do. Fast forward to 1927 and the Fox, Fowler and Company bank - the last private bank in the country - merged with Lloyds Bank, but the F,F&C notes were still still legal tender until 1964.
None of that has anything specifically to do with the park except that it introduces you to the Fox family.
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| This is not the Fox family. This is a family of foxes. |
Cheers!
I don't know about you, but I was wondering if the town of Wellington had anything to do with welly boots. Apparently it does!
You may have heard of the bloke the Duke of Wellington. The first Duke of Wellington was actually called Arthur Wellesley, getting his title from the town. Arthur was one of the aristocracy and as such had rather rich taste, and all the rage back then in the mid 19th Century was the Hessian Boot, so that's what he wore.
But Arthur decided he wanted something a bit different. I dunno, maybe he was bored, or maybe he had blisters on his toes or his heels. He went to his shoemakers/cobblers and I don't know whether he helped design it, told the cobbler what he wanted, or if the cobbler came up with the idea himself, but however it came about, the tassels were taken off, the new boots were cut to fit closer to the calf, and made out of soft leather. They made other changes too so that they were durable enough to withstand horse back riding, but smart enough to be worn at formal evening events. The altered boots were named after the chap they'd been made for, and thus was born the wellington boot. Quite how we got from that to the rubber gumboot wellies we wear now, I don't know, and I'm not convinced anyone would turn up to a ball wearing them either, but each to their own.
It seems that our Arthur Wellesley did more than design boots and be born wealthy. He also beat Napoleon in the Battle of Waterloo and was Prime Minister, twice. That's a fair bit for one bloke to do, so it's no surprise that the folk of Wellington are proud to be associated with him. They're so proud, in fact, that they built a monument to him, which I thought I'd better go and see while I was here.
It's a lovely walk through wooded parkland to get to the monument, which gives something of a feel of the surrounding countryside.
As the path begins to peter out (though I don't know who this Peter is) and the trees thin, the huge obelisk rises from the ground, perched on a tall plinth.
It's even more magnificent when you get close up...
...though I have to say that I was somewhat wary of the enormous canon left carelessly beside it. I mean, what if someone had come along with a spare canon ball, or if they were wanting to practise being a human canon ball? No consideration for Health and Safety.
Having said that, I was tired after my long cycle and then my trek through the woods to the monument, so thankful for a place to rest. It turns out that canons are relatively comfy places to sit if you straddle them, but not so great if you then fall asleep and slide off sideways. It might be that I was so tired that I didn't wake up when I slid off, or it might be that I knocked myself out, but either way I woke some time later with a bump on my head and my legs akimbo up the side of the canon. I don't think this is my best look. Anyway, it was dusk when I woke up and the monument was all lit up, nice and pretty.
Now I'm not usually scared of the dark, but it was very, very dark in those woods when I started to make tracks back to my tent in the park. When I say dark, I mean this kind of dark...
Not expecting to be out that late, I hadn't taken my torch with me, so I went back to the illuminated monument, rested against its enormous plinth, wrapped myself up warm in my extra jumper, covered myself with my coat, and settled down for a snoozle. I can't say that I slept well, but I managed to get a bit of rest.
I was woken from some kind of half slumber early the next morning by a bloke who was unusually exuberant for that time of day, or maybe it's that I'm not a morning person. In my opinion mornings would be fine if they just came a bit later on, but they always insist on arriving far too early in the day. This guy was clearly of the morning variety, but I could hardly tell him to keep the chatter down when I was at this public monument even earlier than him, so I indulged his morningness and found out that he was here so early because he was scaling the height of the monument. Whether it was the possible head injury from the day before, the attack from the Beast of the Moor a few days prior to that, or the lack of proper sleep the previous night, I somehow found myself agreeing to join him!
It was only when we'd shared Cliff's sandwiches at the top and I was asking how quick the descent would be that he came clean. He wasn't intending on abseiling back down Wellington's obelisk. No, he was going to be picked up by a fellow crazy morning person in a hot air balloon! And now that I was up there and attached to his ropes, I couldn't exactly say I was off, scarper down the monument, and run off with his climbing equipment. I had no option but to wait for transport and climb into the basket!
Mind you, it was a good view from the top of the obelisk...
...even if there hadn't been much space for the two of us on the point while we'd been eating sarnies and waiting for the balloon.
My problem then, so it turned out, was that Cliff and Skye (our pilot) weren't planning on dropping down to terra firma in Wellington. They were heading back west to somewhere in Devon, which wasn't at all helpful for me because there was no way I wanted to redo the last 87km or possibly more! I was fast learning that Cliff was the dangerously resourceful type, always planning for the unexpected, and it appeared he'd planned to bump into a random sleep deprived nutter with a possible head injury unable to make sensible decisions. He knew he'd convince them to scale the outside of the enormous monument he was visiting, not telling them until much later that there's actually a staircase up the inside, and that they wouldn't want to go to his final destination with him. Yup, Cliff had a handy parachute packed up in the corner of the basket, which he strapped onto my back and gave me vague instructions about making sure I roll when I land. I think a little more instruction on the technicalities of parachuting and landing with a parachute is probably ideal, perhaps with some practise on the the ground before taking to the air, but given my predicament I wasn't in a position to argue much.
We hadn't actually been 'flying' long when I got my bearings and saw the park. Cliff gave me a leg up onto the side of the basket, Skye did something with the burners (heck, they're noisy!), and before I knew it I was throwing myself off the basket with Cliff calling out that he'd pick up his parachute from the biggest beech tree by the lake in the park the next time he was passing.
I didn't have time to 'enjoy' much of a free fall because I was busy trying to remember which cord I needed to pull to open the parachute, and that I needed to roll when I landed so that I didn't break my legs or die. Thankfully, and totally by the grace of God, I pulled the right cord, and I'd jumped out at exactly the right spot because there below me was my little tent along with several others that belonged to some local folk who'd gathered and been enjoying the party in the park I'd started.
Yeah, they hadn't even noticed that I'd been gone all night, but they were very excited to see me approach by parachute. The party that followed was something else...
They're still at it and have been partying on all through the weekend. I however, moved on from Wellington on Friday, but I'm still catching up with my blog writing, and recovering from the craziness that Wellington brought into my life. Never trust a sleepy-looking place to be as innocent as it looks.
I'll try to catch up with myself as soon as I can and will post again shortly about my trip to Wookey Hole. In the meantime, please do sponsor me for my virtual bike ride and blog writing at my Just Giving page to help me raise funds for Pop-Up Gym. Every penny helps, and every penny is gratefully received.
**All photos in this post, except of the MotoMed screen and of my tent, were taken from Google Images
