The West Midlands: from Oxford to Derby

Stopping at: Winslow, Castlethorpe, Market Harborough, Cropston and Derby.

The Midlands. What is there to say? There was a lot of this:



and this:



BORING. Flat, and boring. It finally got more interesting yesterday, but seriously this is the most boring area of England - of Britain - scenery-wise that we have ridden through so far. Meh.

Perhaps the only interesting bits of the last few days (all about 30 miles or a bit more, for those keeping track) have been the towns we've ridden through - and how they compare with our expectations. Milton Keynes, as the prime example: we had expected it to be utterly, utterly dire: the middle of nowhere and a real nowhere town. However, almost because of being the middle of nowhere it seems to be the middle of everywhere - you can get to a lot of interesting places very quickly from there. Also, I don't know how but they have an amazing green belt, following a series of streams and canals; and fortunately for us the bike path followed through that belt. So it was a really lovely ride, and we saw more canal boats in that area than I have ever seen in one place before. Northampton and Leicester, though: both awful.

Of Leicester, let me tell you one story. As we entered the town, we rode along this trail:


If you look very carefully, you will see that every single pole has a white blob. Those blobs looked like this:

front and back.

For more than a mile, every pole we passed - left and right - had a wraparound sticker, identifying it as Route 6. Let me be clear: there were no turns along this path. None.

And then (I do hope you are all aware enough of narrative techniques that you knew there had to be an 'and then' coming up), just on the outskirts of Leicester - near the National Space Centre which we ignored despite the Soyez because it was too expensive - there were a series of turns and not-necessarily-that-tricky sections... which had no stickers or signs.

Gargh!

Anyway - we are now in Derby, which as far as I can tell is well on the way to being the Paisley of the South. Good thing our accommodation is lovely and has a selection of DVDs. Tomorrow we hit the Peaks district, which will at least be prettier, if also hillier.