Well I know it has been a while but I have finally found a bit of time to add to this and thought I had better get some stuff on here. Andrea was working late shifts all bank holiday weekend, so I decided to take off camping for a night to a place in the Shropshire hills called Rushbury which is near Longmynd. Needless to say, what with it being a Bank holiday weekend in England it rained and blew but whats new. Got there late after finally getting to take a look in Decathlon which is like Rebel sports for all you Kiwis reading. Managed to get the tent up with a bit of swearing and cursing and got everything set up so I went off for a run. Was glad to see I had finally found some hills. 10k later and loads of mud and rain, I made it back to camp and cooked up a steak sandwich before settling back with a couple of Murphy's (cheap Guinness replacement).

Up early the next morning to find the rain had stopped and the wind had blown most of the water off of my tent so I got everything packed up and had something to eat before heading to the reason I had come here - Longmynd. It is a series of hills near the Welsh border which are about the same size as the hills of the Banks Peninsular and about as windy. I managed to cycle the first 100m of climb and negotiate a couple of rocky stream crossings before being faced with a rather steep climb, which I chose to walk. 150m higher it started to flatten out so back on the mountain bike and along the top. The surrounds were quite similar to the port Hills with a lot of bracken like scrub around and loads of sheep roaming everywhere. There are a few stands of trees around here as well which made a nice change from all the developed areas you usually see over here. Headed along and into some forestry trails where I fell off a couple of times as the ruts got deeper and I remembered how not to get cleats out while not moving. I decided at this point that the original plan of 42 k's was a bit much and began making my way back at about the 20k mark. Stuck to the country lanes mostly from here as the bridleways were not as available. Got back to the car and a short break before heading home for some well deserved food.