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I am spending two weeks in Copenhagen, which is pretty much close to perfection if you believe that cycling is a symbol of quality of life. However today I had a perfect treat, possibly the only way I could experience … Continue reading
Yesterday I ride from Epsom in Surrey to Wokingham in Berkshire as part of my cycle tour before the Rugby World Cup final. During the ride I had a section of stunning autumnal beauty which will live long in my memory.
To travel along the side of the old Basingstoke Canal from Byfleet to Deepcut was like spending a day inside a series of paintings, or a perfectly designed Japanese garden. The colours of the trees and the undergrowth mirroring on the still waters of the canal were like a series of tableaux coming round each bend until I was almost experiencing sensory overload. This intensity was maintained for nearly 20 kilometres, giving me a period of absolute delight. With many stops for photos and just to breathe in the images I must have been there nearly two hours.
I have written in blog posts from Belgium that I find the big wide shipping canals of Europe somewhat featureless, coming back here reminds me of the intimacy of these small British canals that were built for the narrowboats of the 19th century. Having fallen in to redundancy as trade routes their restoration as cycling and walking corridors is an absolute joy.
If any of my English readers live near enough to nip down there this weekend for a ride or a walk I say take it now, I guess I have been lucky enough to be there just as the autumn colours reach perfection. Oak, silver birch and horse chestnut all make their contribution but the stars of the show are the golden beeches, in some places the leaves have formed such a dense layer on the water that they have formed a magic carpet of orange that could tempt the unwary to take a walk on the surface.
The camera alone cannot capture it, the temptation is to portray it as an impressionist painter, perhaps Monet would have done it justice.
However if you do go to visit the Basingstoke Canal as it passes close to Woking you might have to look out for another name. Because as it passes through Woking the canal towpath is called the “Saturn Trail”, which gives me a lovely link to the author H.G. Wells whose quote inspires the title of the this blog.
Back in 2008 I was on the board of a group called Cycling England who were advising the government on their cycling strategy. As part of our work the Board selected the town of Woking to get extra funding to become a so called Cycling Town, beating off over 70 other applicants. One of Woking’s main strategies was to create a cycling network and learning from other successful towns they decided to give each of nine trails a name and a colour. Inspired by the H. G. Wells novel “The War of the Worlds” which was written while Wells was living in Woking they chose planets and moons as the theme. Today the cyclists of Woking can navigate by Mars, Pluto, Ceres and Venus as they move around the town.
At the heart of this planetary story was Saturn. In 2008 the Basingstoke Canal through Woking was a series of muddy tracks and even grassy fields that were only usable by dog walkers in sturdy boots and the occasional mountain biker, probably breaking the rules to ride in places. Resurfacing, widening and clearing the towpath turned it into the flagship route of the network. When I used to meet the Project Manager Paul he would talk about the whole Cycle Woking project with enthusiasm as one might expect, but I could always detect an extra gleam in his eye when talking about the canal restoration, it is an incredible legacy. (Before and after photos can be seen here)
Which is actually why I chose this route for my ride. When my route planner offered me “Via the Saturn Trail” as an option for the ride I could not resist the chance to catch up with the route and the project and of course to pay homage to H.G. Wells. So I also ended up having lunch with a Martian invader, just of the canal in Woking town centre.
All is not perfect, the surface is not the perfect smoothness of a Dutch cycle path and the heavy leaf fall made some sections of the route a bit slippery, but because it is shared with walkers that is probably a sensible bit of subtle speed management.
Of the 20 kilometres the trail section through Woking is the best maintained part of the path, to the far Western end near Deepcut I think it must be out of the scope of Woking’s project because it was wet and muddy, testing the capabilities of a small wheeled bike after the rains of the last two days. But as that section offered possibly the very best of the views and was absolutely deserted I can say that it was worth every splash and wobble.
Which makes it time to say thank you. Thank you H. G. Wells, thank you to our Victorian canal builders and especially to Cycle Woking. And to nature’s timing of course. By their efforts and inspiration I was given the finest of cycling hours in an unexpected corner of South East England.
Uplifting. I do not despair.
I wrote recently about Belgium’s undiscovered gems of history and tourism. Bruges in West Flanders is not one of those, it is possibly one of the two or three best known places in Belgium to visit along with the WW1 battlefields and Brussels Grand Place, especially for the English speaking world.
I have previously been there out of the main holiday season when the cobbled streets, squares and canals were not over-run by fellow tourists so it was with a little trepidation that we booked to go to Bruges on an overnight visit in early August. We hoped past pleasures were not going to be swamped by the sheer volume of people, especially as we were introducing two friends to Bruges for the first time.
No need to worry. Despite the fact that it was much busier the town retained its charm, beauty and sense of history throughout the weekend. In fact just a few minutes from the hot spots around the main market square there were oases of peace and tranquility tucked away to delight the senses, and the camera.
That is helped by the fact that the city has very low traffic volumes and speeds. It isn’t quite car free, but here the pedestrian is king, closely followed by the horse-drawn carriages, bicycles and tour boats.
In visual terms there are some wonderful set piece locations that should feature in any montage, especially the views over the canals.
The open water area in front of the gate of the Beguinage is especially stunning at night.
(To see the photos below at their best click on any image in the gallery and it will appear full sized on your screen.)
But the best of Bruges also encourages me to look beyond the set piece, especially to look up above the heads of the tourists. There the Flemish stepped gables mingle with the grey rooves of the great churches and the coloured facades glowed in the sunshine of a bright day.
Of course while I was there I couldn’t help be drawn in by the fact that Bruges is one of Belgium’s top cycling towns, so in the next post I’ll post a little photo essay on the cyclists of Bruges, but for today I’ll just let these picture of the city speak for themselves Definitely one of my top recommendations for any tour of Europe, not just of Belgium.
Wednesday’s bike ride was enjoyable enough because of the cycling.
But there was one other feature that made the day memorable, not least because it came upon me completely by surprise and gave me unprecedented access to a Belgian transport landmark.
I was cycling along the Charleroi-Brussels Canal that makes up Ravel 1, one of the longest off-road cycle routes in Belgium. It was deserted and a thick mist had come down so there was a sense of riding along a narrow closed corridor.
I got my first surprise when I realised I had started cycling out onto a huge viaduct with the ground disappearing away to the mist on my side. As someone who sometimes suffers from vertigo this was more than a little un-nerving but the infrastructure was big and wide so I was quite relaxed.
Then out of the mist came the shape of a lock gate so I cycled up to the edge for a look, but the view made me stop in amazement. There was no lock gate. In fact there was not even a canal. Below me there was a something resembling a huge railway yard sloping into the distance, with not a drop of water in sight.
Then I realised that projecting down the hill was a boat sitting in a massive tank of water. The tank was on wheels and it was waiting to descend the slope.
I had stumbled onto The Ronquières Inclined Plane, a boat lift that can carry up to 5600 tonnes of water and boats between the two levels of the canal almost 70 metres apart in height. It is a notable local landmark and visitor attraction but I hadn’t paid enough attention to the maps to realise that it was on this section. Taking 8 years to build in 1968 it replaced 18 lock gates and is still the largest boat lift of its kind in the world.
After a few minutes taking in the view of the long slope disappearing in to the mist I rolled my bike down only obvious route out, a steep ramp down the side of the structure. To my amazement I popped out almost under the giant tin bath carrying the boat, right beside the huge cables that pulled and lowered them down the ramp.
It was canal infrastructure on an enormous scale, made all the more impressive by realising the weight of water that was above me. I was having a close encounter with one impressive piece of engineering.
I was a little surprised to discover the cycle route ran right down by the works but I enjoyed the descent, it was amazing.
I now know that it is over 1400 metres long, which is why I could hardly see the end in the mist. However there was a shock at the bottom when I found it came to a complete dead end against a huge wall and some locked gates. Ooops, I had the dawning feeling I was not meant to be there and I had come into a part of the works that was really not for visitors. And now I had to climb back up the 1400 metres of steep incline, although it did give me a spectacular and imposing sight view of 5000 tonnes of boat and water creeping down from above me.
I puffed my way almost back to the top when I noticed a side gate where I was pleased to throw my bike over the top and get out on to a service road and back to ground level. From there I was able to ride round the sides of the embankment and reappear at the bottom and look back up to the top shrouded in mist once again, only this time from the right side of the fences. And in all that time I never saw a human being and I was never challenged by a security guard or anything. A remarkably laid arrangement that gave me a privileged access.
In the summer it is possible to ride a cruise boat up and down the lifts and to go into a panoramic tower that looks down over the spectacular works and the surrounding countryside but I rather enjoyed the way this monster came to me out of the winter mist. I may not have had a railway set as a child, but I am a bit of a sucker for spectacular engineering and by chance I had a very special view of Le plan incliné de Ronquières.
Now I know it is there I may well go back, but I very much doubt I will get anywhere near the workings. As well as my dull and misty photos the incline has its own supporters association with some spectacular photos and a fuller history, I shall read up on it properly before I go next time!
I Do Not Despair 