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<\/a><\/p>\nI found national cycle route 68 Just south of Newhaven. This time none of the rough-forest-track nonsense I experienced up near Kielder on Friday, here it’s a smooth-surfaced former railwayline that consistently looses height over its 15-mile run to Ashbourne.<\/p>\n
Ashbourne is a pretty and busy Market town that could do with a bypass. I gave myself a tour, including the Ashbourne Treasures exhibition.<\/p>\n The day had brightened and I was treated to mile after mile of sunny, rolling country lanes linking pretty villages on my way down to the Trent Valley.<\/p>\n I turned down several farm shops and country tea rooms on the way to Burton-upon-Trent, thinking I’d have plenty of wonderful options in town, but its rough streets and bedragled precinct were on the verge of disappointing me until I spied a sign for Cafe B advertising its independentness.<\/p>\n After a bowl of pasta, coffee and carrot cake, I saw a different side of the town. Maybe approaching from the north with an empty stomach is’t the best way to experience it.<\/p>\n More beautiful, rolvling countryside took me through Coton in the Elms – no UK village is further from the sea – Clifton Campville and Austrey. I clocked up 750 miles for the trip in Sheepy Magna and took a break at Market Bosworth, where Richard III’s remains started their journey to Leicester Cathedral, after he’d been fiund buried under that car park.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n