Day 6 – A night I almost ended up sleeping outside

Todays been a really nice day of cycling. Lots of different landscapes and surfaces during the approx 95 miles.

The big news of today was that I almost ended up without somewhere to sleep. The usual process of checking booking.com at about 3pm and booking into one of the many choices didn’t work. Firstly, I kept going until 1730 before trying to find a room and secondly I checked in a pretty non-touristy area south of Manchester. There were no hotels available.

No rooms for 30 miles said booking.com. Oh. So I called Sarah and asked her to look on a pc to see if there were any options. Sarah called hotels that showed as fully booked, they all said no. She booked a slightly dodgy looking Airbnb that then cancelled on her. Finally Munro HQ suggested I catch the train from Northwich to Manchester and stay there. Sarah also booked a hotel right next to the Manchester train station. Fantastic help by Munro HQ to keep me off the streets. It will also teach me to perhaps book slightly earlier, and, maybe even further ahead. Sarah was also late for a parents event at one of our daughters schools- sorry Sarah and Ella and thank you Sarah.

More good news today- you are going to read the word lost much less on the blog. “Lost” was becoming the word of the blog a bit like “busy” can be in modern life. The reason for my confidence? The mapping app that I’ve had for years actually has a cycle route option that clearly shows the journey as long as you know the cycle path number. This would have saved me lots and lots of km if I’d worked it out earlier, but now I know. The sight of me getting my little LEJOG journey planner book out every few miles and trying to work out where I was by using google maps has gone! Yippee!

Really pleased to be going to Manchester tonight because cycling through the cities has been slow to date and a particularly navigation challenge. I’ll need to cycle out of Manchester on a quiet Sunday morning. Then it’s really pretty and hilly moorland. Will it be as beautiful as Bodmin moor and exmoor in Devon?