KENNET AND AVON 2

KENNET AND AVON CYCLE RIDE Day 2 Kintbury to Devizes

We were expecting rain and it did, occasionally quite violently.

It was not until we had ridden 30 miles in the wet and was almost into Devizes that the sun shone over the Wiltshire downs and a skylark rose high above us to pipe us into the town.

Crofton Pumping Station Bit and Pieces lying around

Will it ever stop raining on my drawing     LITTLE BEDWIN

The mid ride drying off point was the warm café at the Crofton Mill Pumping station. The pumping station is a wonderful place of Victorian architecture and engineering; the boilers that drive the apparatus to lift the water from nearby lakes to the canal are still regularly fired up. There is a lovely four-minute film on this link http://bit.ly/1jKCcri

DEVIZES and the WILTSHIRE DOWNS

Mid afternoon we ‘shortened course’ to minimise the soaking and pulled over for a cup of tea in Pewsey Village, here the canal is almost at its highest point before dropping down into Bath and Bristol.

Devizes was the overnight stop and we we stayed at the Southdown B&B (http://www.whitehorsewalking.co.uk) in Roundway just outside the town and took a taxi in for an excellent meal at the Crown Inn http://www.crowndevizes.co.uk/home very close to the Wadworth Brewery.