Day 56 Slimbridge to Gordano – Thursday 7 July

Distance 33.46 miles, cumulative 972.81 miles, time 12 hrs 25 mins, walking time 11 hrs, pace 3 mph, Accommodation – Days Inn.
Our longest day so far, due to some extra-ordinary bad planning by Steve, but we made an early start to complete a difficult section. We crossed the M48, M4, M49, M5 and the M5 Avon Bridge. We also passed both River Severn motorway bridges. The M48 is crossed by a footpath which runs over the toll booths and the path goes under the M4. The day finished by walking over the M5 Avon Bridge to reach Gordano Services.

The route again followed the Severn Way until we reached Avonmouth where we picked up national cycle network route 41.

We followed the Canal to Sharpness which is very much a working dock facility. We passed the ship graveyard at Purton where ships at the end of their working lives were deliberately grounded against the estuary side of the canal to protect the canal bank. The path followed the bank of the Severn Estuary and we had our first brief glimpse of the Severn Road Bridge at 8.30am. We next saw it two and half hours later when we could pick out lorries crossing looking like Dinky toys. We crossed it at 1.50pm when they looked a little larger as we peered down on them from on top of the toll booths. The Severn bridge was opened in 1966, which makes it the same age as Lynn. It requires constant maintenance. 

The route was surprisingly rural until Avonmouth even as we passed the two decommissioned nuclear power stations at Oldbury and Berkeley. 

Avonmouth was a hive of construction activity and haulage traffic, fortunately the cycle route kept us away from the worst of it. 

Shortly after we joined the cycle route we met a couple cycling who stopped to ask us about the cycle route which at that point was unclear due to roadworks. They were travelling north doing LEJOG on day 5 and heading for Chepstow. We wished each other well. They were the first end to enders we had met for over a week.

After such a long day it was a bonus to find the room had a bath, which set us up nicely for a KFC bargain bucket. Tomorrow is a shorter day!

Congratulations to David and Chris who have completed their ‘LEJOG’ walk. We passed them near Falkirk.