It promised to be
a fine day for our final visit to Chirk of the year and when we arrived at the
café there was a good group to meet us. Six of us (John, Jim, Dave H, Chris,
Brian Macca and myself) were interested in a moderate ride but no-one had a
ride prepared. So I looked through the past rides on my Garmin and came up with
41-miler. It looked vaguely oval with Chirk at one end and the village of
Baschurch at the other. But ‘what is the pub for our lunch stop?’ came the
question. ‘Haven’t a clue’ I answered and no-one else could recall a pub we had
been to in Baschurch either.
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| Photos by Macca |
And so our ride
became a bit of a mystery tour and we set off blindly following a thin red line
on a tiny screen. The route out of Chirk took us down to the canal and across
Telford’s viaduct, dodging the pedestrians along the towpath. Then we were
dodging the traffic as we crossed the A5 roundabout before we reached the
relative safety of the Shropshire lanes. We headed south through the villages
of Hindford, Tetchill, Hordley & Bagley and approached Baschurch with lunch
on our minds. However it soon became apparent that we weren’t going to pass a
pub in Baschurch. So I expanded the map on my Garmin and discovered that the next
village was Ruyton-XI-Towns. Mystery solved – our lunch stop was to be the
Talbot Inn.
The last time I
visited the Talbot it was under new management. It appears that the new
landlords are intent on the place becoming a bit up-market from the village pub
that it used to be and this was reflected in the cost of a lime & soda – a
whopping £2.40!!! However the sandwiches proved to be good value and we each
tucked into one as we sat out in the sunshine.
Our return journey
started with the short sharp climb up towards Wykey which got our legs working
again. We passed through West Felton and Maesbury criss-crossing the A5 three
times to enter the outskirts of Oswestry. We avoided the town centre and headed
up past the old hill fort, then following the contours to Weston Rhyn. Finally
we dropped down to Chirk Bank to re-join the canal where we retraced our route
back into Chirk. Another great day’s cycling – good weather, good countryside
and, above all, good company.
TC
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