Recycled ride to on Friday, 1st June 2018

Cyclists: Martin Bell, Adrian Benson, John Bodman Boddice, Paul The Jester Bonell, Nick Hart, Helen Kitson, Phil MacMullen, Ian Metcalfe, George Sweeting, Chris The Voice Safran, Bob Watson, Steve Superman Watts & Dave Big Wheel Williamson OYB

Outward journey: Market Cross – Walkington – North Newbald – Hotham – North Cave – Broomfleet - Lock – – Blacktoft and returning via

Weather conditions: Cloudy, still & humid in the morning with bright sunshine in the afternoon

Distance: 41.68 miles

The Canterbury Tales sometimes comes to mind as we wend around our rolling English countryside in sun, wind and shower like Chaucer’s travellers once did centuries ago. As in the book, there’s also a spectrum of colourful characters in our midst: a bagpipe playing surgeon with a preference for mud-splattered bikes; a man with a serious addiction to triple scoops; a tenor always ready to lead us in song; a lady wild thing; and a fixer of all things mechanical is to name only a few. We also meet a few interesting characters along the way with a story to tell. We’d met up with Annette, Trudi and Theo on the old stone bridge spanning the where it flows into the River Ouse.

Theo was having problems securing two awkward-looking canvass bags with string, one on top of the other, onto a narrow cycle rack – at one point they wobbled, nearly sending one over the wall into the murky canal waters below. His luggage still looked a bit precarious until Steve Superman Watts stepped in and lashed it all down with a bungee kindly provided by Nick. Annette & Theo, husband and wife, I should imagine, slipped easily from Dutch into English and vice versa, and a few hours before had arrived in Hull on the ferry having experienced some red tape in crossing the North Sea. Trudi, much younger, could have been their niece, but spoke with an Irish accent. (Later, at the Hope & Anchor, I heard her also speak in Dutch.) “We are retracing a journey on our cycles from Hull to Dublin made many years ago by my parents,” said Trudi, her eyes becoming serious. “A sentimental journey,” I replied, but straight away regretting my choice of words when I realised this trip would mean more to her than this over used cliché. “People have never truly passed away until there’s no one left to think about them,” were Trudi’s final poignant words as we all prepared to part company. Finally, however, a photo from Big Wheel which included our three long - distance cyclists who we’d chatted to so pleasantly in the sunshine.

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A final glance at the bridge made with enormous blocks of stone and its commemorative stone Anno Domino 1773: Mr Grundy – Engineer; Mr Allen – Surveyor; Mr Smith – Carpenter; Mr Jefferson – Mason and repaired 1826 by Joseph Whitehead. A glance also at the lock gates at the mouth of the canal so vital for this region’s flood defences.

Our destination today is Blacktoft. Folklore has it that Blacktoft was first settled by Viking invaders. Needless to say, the first man to have come down to this remote spot on the river’s marshes and mow down some reeds to create a piece of pasture would have been called Blake. Since it was his field, and people continued to speak Norse long after the Vikings had settled it was regarded as Blake’s Toft. Blacktoft is in flat, fenland country bounded by the M62 in the north and in the south by the loops and bends in the Ouse. A little eastward and in sight from the river bank is the confluence of the , Ouse and Trent and the scarp slopes of the Lincolnshire Heights.

The villages of Hotham and North Cave are linked by parkland and earlier we’d cycled through it along a narrow track: close by, on either side of us, were a dozen or so magnificent copper beaches, their leaves providing a dense, dark canopy. Just before this we’d taken a stop at the Officer’s Mess, Hotham (a bus shelter) so that Dave could place an order with Tina at the Wild Bird Trailer Cafe.

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He’s on loud speaker so we can hear the kind-hearted Tina’s many endearments. Feeding time for us and not the birds at Wetlands would be in about 20 minutes time according to Dave’s reckoning.

We settle down to the food provided by Tina in one of the covered in, heavy- timbered viewing areas at the North Cave Wetlands Nature Reserve and look onto some of the man-made lakes which have become a paradise for so many living things. A butterfly wafts by like a flying flower. It’s all very peaceful sitting there quietly and imagining the countless birds, moths, butterflies, dragonflies, bees, frogs, ladybirds and hundred other creatures of every size, shape and form that have made their home on these wetlands. “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.” Another quotation comes to mind when we leave, not a biblical one, but one from another Tina, Tina Turner in song, expressing our thanks to Tina and her cafe: “You’re simply the best, better than all the rest.”

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A so it’s on to our destination today, Blacktoft, but not before crossing the fumy, noisy bridge over the M62. Soon peace returns when we turn off and cycle along a straight and long lane called Walling Fen to the river banks where for part of the way a bumpy, flinty track leads to the Hope & Anchor at Blacktoft. There are big, flat fields of green ripening barley which will soon be turning paler and swaying in the wind. Some of the roadside hawthorn has now a pinkish tinge for the change into red berries. Only a short time ago it seems these branches were weighed down with white snowy -like blossom.

At the Hope & Anchor , there are tables outside on the riverbank.

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Behind tall rushes, the River Ouse, calm today, glides peacefully by. There’s a jetty a couple of hundred yards or so from where we are seated. Between 1873 – 81 the Aire & Calder Navigation Company, at a cost of £5,500, erected a wooden jetty which ran from the Hope & Anchor Inn to Blacktoft Landing. This was to provide a place where ships could moor up if they required two tides to take them from Hull roads to , and vice versa. This eliminated the problem of grounding, especially on Whiton Sands. It was 470 feet long and 22 feet wide and proved popular with the locals as the paddle steamers could call daily picking up passengers and merchandise on their way to Goole, Hull, Thorne or . This was the steam packet service and continued until around 1920 when the roads were improved and the odd car or taxi started to appear and there was less dependence on the river for locals in this area as a way of transport. Apart from the Packets, three or four ocean going ships would regularly tie up there on their way to and from Goole. A new concrete Jetty was opened in 1956 after the old one had become unsafe. As a result of foreign ships mooring at Blacktoft, and the crew taking a drink at the Hope & Anchor, Blacktoft was said to be one of the most widely known villages in Europe, often being talked about in foreign ports such as Rotterdam, Hamburg, Copenhagen and St Petersburg. Some people could even remember the infamous Lord Haw-Haw during a wartime broadcast saying, “Blacktoft docks have been bombed,” when he meant Hull!

The beer has provided some moistening to vocal chords and its now time for Sigmund Romberg’s Stout-Hearted Men, led by Chris The Voice Safran and other members of the Male Voice Choir. It’s not sung in English so was possibly followed by our bi-lingual visitors Annette, Trudi and Theo from the Netherlands and Dublin who are seated close by. From them there are smiles, a ripple of applause and thanks. It’s now time to leave the comforting presence of the broad winding river and the Hope & Anchor’s and face, in a short time, the steep climb out of South Cave with a pint or two swishing around inside.

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On either side of the gradually ascending ravine out of South Cave the hillside folds are very steep. Overhanging branches, dense with new spring foliage, block out the sunshine. The top which is around 138 metres is shown as The Beverley Clump on the ordnance survey map; after this challenging climb it’s a relief to think about some long downhill stretches for the remainder of the cycle home.

Finally, as the holiday season approaches two of our group are leaving for far off places. Helen leaves shortly for the edge of the world on a cycling odyssey to the Outer Hebrides; Paul is taking his motorbike to East Germany. We wish them well on their travels as we do Annette, Trudi and Theo who we’d met briefly at Blacktoft.

George Sweeting

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