Lejog day 5 Monmouth to Bishop's Castle

Today we were scheduled to ride from Monmouth to Clun but Michele and I were booked into a place called The Poppy House six miles north in Bishop's Castle. It was only 62 miles with about 4,500 feet of climbing so I was able to ride the whole thing, but slowly.

The roads were rough again but not as bad as yesterday.

Picturesque Weobley

Lunch was at the New Inn in Pembridge - I remember it was excellent last time and it was excellent this time too.

The New Inn in Pembridge

After lunch it started to rain.

I noticed a lot of cars and vans with damaged passenger side mirrors. Mark explained it's because of the narrow roads, and having to drive so close to the hedges and trees, especially when passing oncoming traffic.

Driving narrow roads

Lot's of scenery like this

As we got close to Clun we saw a signpost that said Clun left, Bishop's Castle right. We checked Google maps and saw we could take a shortcut to Bishop's Castle. Yay, we saved 2.5 miles. We thought we were going to avoid a steep hill from Clun to Bishop's Castle, but we had to climb Stank Hill which was a long (1.5 mile) 8% grade. Michele had been getting stronger each day and really cranked up it. She was rather proud of that.

The Poppy House was built several hundred years ago and has sagged in places. I swear our room's floor was a foot higher on one side than the other. We set off exploring for food and stumbled upon the Bishop's Castle Delight which was one of the highlights of the day. The guy running it was so happy and talkative you could tell he loved what he was doing. He offers a wide menu, but we were up for fish and chips. We each got his cod and chips for six pounds fifty. A fantastic meal, so big that even though we had just ridden 60+ miles, we couldn't finish it. We had to bin a few of the chips.