In my time I’ve done a little budget travel. Never the two-minute-noodles-every-day-for-dinner kind of budget travel, but certainly the $10-per-night-backpacker, cook-in-the-shared-kitchen, do-your-own-laundry-spread-it-out-everywhere-to-dry kind of travel. Back in those days I didn’t stay at castles, though I would have liked to.

No matter how you travel, there are things you need to take care of. After yesterday’s downpour we have two main things to do: Neil’s brakes, and a pile of wet clothes and shoes that haven’t dried overnight.

Remember, we’re staying at a posh place. We try to find somewhere unobtrusive to take care of the bike repairs and get shoes and clothes dry. We try the castle garden, but realise we are getting in the way of others who are coming out to enjoy the gardens and take pictures, so we relocate to the car park.

Neil sets up at one end to work on his bike, and I spread the washing out over what could be a several-hundred-year-old wall, feeling very much like a backpacker, and expecting to be moved along at any time.

Nobody comes to arrest us for sullying the castle landscape, fortunately, and we get the bikes fixed and clothes close to dry before we check out and head off from the castle. It’s been lovely, but we are now on our way to Bath. Sadly though, it is our last real day of cycling for this trip.

We head into Thornbury and pick up some supplies from the local supermarket. Once again we are a centre of attention, with people stopping to talk, including a woman who is a keen touring cyclist. She warns us we have a bit of a climb to get through today. Oh wow. Something new.

We climb our way out of Thornbury with busy traffic, then head onto quiet country roads. I rip one of my fingers on a rogue blackberry when I veer to close to the road edge trying to keep out of the way of cars, and vow to be selfish from now on. The cars can just bloody wait!

It’s not a long trip today, only around 35km. The day is English glorious, warm and sunny. We make only one stop along the way, at Westerleigh, the seeming funeral capital of this part of the world. The nearby crematorium brings a stream of people to the town, and the local pub, where we stop for a drink is the post funeral party centre. There is a wake in full swing, and we are sorely tempted to make off with leftover food.

I’m concerned about reaching our B&B on time. I had guessed that we would be there by about 3pm, but when we reach the bottom of the massive hill that lies between us and Bath, and watch tiny trucks crawling on the road way, way above, I realise that with a bit more than 10km to go, we are going to miss that mark by quite a lot. I call and leave a message for our host, and then gird myself for a slog.

It is a slog. My chest is quite sore from yesterday’s crash, and when I get a bit of huff going on the hill it hurts like mad. I worry that I may have cracked a rib. I edge my way up sounding like a steam train about to explode. This road, with its beastly 10% grade, is becoming one of my unfavourites for this trip. It isn’t the main road into Bath, but is pretty busy. Each time I stop to puff, cars zoom by.

At the top of the hill we have about 4km of flat before we plummet down into Bath on a steep, sometimes over 10% grade. Heading into town we dodge buses and cars, before getting off and walking through the town centre.

Bath is busy. We have spent so much time journeying through small villages on country roads that it is a shock to enter a tourist city. Part of me wants to turn around and head back to quiet rural safety, but then I start thinking about relaxing in those baths tomorrow, and push on.

Neil has warned we have a climb out of town to reach Abbey Rise, our home for the next two days, but it is minor compared to the rest of the day, and we walk our bikes uphill to find our host, Katherine, waiting for us on the porch.

Katherine has had an interesting life. She worked at Buckingham Palace back in the Diana days – she recalls Diana coming in with the young princes – and has travelled extensively. She set up the B&B to provide a stable home for her son, who is now grown. She is well networked into the Bath community, and provides us with a discount tag to use at attractions around town. She welcomes us and and bikes inside, and provides space in the inside conservatory to keep them safe.

We shower and change and head out to enjoy an end-of-trip beer and explore Bath. We find a pub near the Theatre Royal Bath for a beer, and buy tickets for tomorrow to see North by Northwest, a production I saw in Melbourne a few years ago, but which Neil is very keen to see.

We spend the remainder of the evening filling up on Italian food, walking the Bath streets, and enjoying a gin at The Bath Gin Company – a place I highly recommend for all gin lovers. The choice here is mind boggling, but there are extremely knowledgable bar tenders who guide you through the range and then mix and garnish your drink appropriately. I settle on a house rhubarb (yep, you read it right) gin, a pink blushed gin that comes garnished with flower petals and pear slices.

Stats for the day

• Distance travelled: 34.6km
• Climb: 433m
• Moving time: 2:17:29
• Average speed: 15.1km/h
• Average temperature: 24C
• See our ride on Strava.

Along the way today: