Last night’s B&B had the elevated Severn Valley Steam Railway line towering over it. Today’s ride followed this line north on and off until Bridgnorth where the steam train reaches it’s destination before returning to Kidderminster. The route out of Bewdley climbed up and into The Wyre Forest National Nature Reserve which winds through the forest tracks where the forest floor is covered in ferns.
The downhill runs here were very exhilarating to say the least, but the up hills had us removing layers of clothing! From high above Arley we had fantastic distant views of Shropshire. The route then dropped down and took us through the former Alveley Colliery. This has been transformed into the Severn Valley Country Park where we were on tracks and paths which ran within a few metres of the steam train line.
We followed these until Hampton Loade Station where we decided to have lunch on the platform with the hope of maybe seeing a steam train pass through. We were very lucky with our timing.
Further on we found ourselves in Bridgnorth ‘s busy Saturday afternoon’s traffic, but thankfully we were soon out of it and onto the disused section of The Severn Valley Railway which runs all the way to Ironbridge (we wondered what the town of Ironbridge was called before it had it’s Iron Bridge?). We turned left before the famous bridge and joined the Silkin Way, a mixture of disused canal beds and train lines which led us into Telford for tonight’s hotel.
Total distance today 34 miles
Total Hill Climbs today 2370ft
