Blog!ARU: Archive

Decided I needed to get some decent exercise today after a busy week at work and having not done much the previous weekend, so I spent a few hours this morning putting the roof-rack on the car, the bike rack on the roof-rack, packing all sorts of gear, swapping my peddles over for the clipless ones and finally getting away just after lunch time. Just as I was leaving Frome the heavens opened and it rained for 90mins all the way to the Quantocks.

As the forecast was for it to clear up I didn't mind, but as I drove up onto the top of the hills I passed through the bottom of the cloud layer where the visibility was poor enough for fog lights. The ‘car park’ sits in a hollow and although there were waves of mist blowing along a few metres up it didn't look too bad where I was, though I was cursing not having brought my helmet or woolly hat as my head would be getting wet when everything else would be dry under waterproofs. I ate my sarnies, got changed and went out for a look around to see how wet I might get if I went up onto the paths on the top. I only got as far as the lip of the hollow of the car park because the wind was so strong it stopped me in my tracks whilst blasting me with rain and spray.

So, I decided that with the 150yd visibility, the lack of a decent map (it's on order), the lack of head-gear, the rain and the strong wind to call it a day. So I sat in the car reading the paper for an hour or so, eating bananas and drinking milky tea. Rather annoyingly after getting changed again and driving down the hill I drove out of the cloud and not only had it stopped raining down there but a bit further away from the Quantocks the sun came out and followed me most of the way home. Bugger.