This week I pedalled from Long Eaton to Conkers parkrun. It’s been two weeks since my inaugural overnight Pedal to parkrun adventure, when I cycled to Grantham for Belton House parkrun – you can read more about that trip here.
Last week I’d kept it local, cycling 4.5 miles each way to Wollaton Hall parkrun. It was the fourth time I’d run at Wollaton Hall and so I finally increased my P-index from 3 to 4 as it joined Beeston, Colwick and Long Eaton in the list of courses I’d run at four or more times. I met up with my friend and former colleague, Chris, and then we were unexpectedly joined by another former colleague, Marcus, who I haven’t seen for a couple of years and was there to do his first ever parkrun! He’d been encouraged to come by Izzy who is about to embark on a 50k ultra run so was sandwiching the parkrun in between running from and back to Long Eaton. Hats off! It was a warm and sunny morning and we all had a great run!
So this week I was ready for another mini-adventure, and this time set my sights on Conkers parkrun. I was joined by my 14-year-old stepdaughter, Ellie. It’s only been about 12 weeks since Ellie broke her ankle and she just had braces fitted on her teeth last week, so I was very impressed with her positive attitude towards the trip!
Pedal to Moira
Our ride was to take us from Long Eaton, just outside Nottingham, to a bushcraft campsite near Moira in Leicestershire, which is about two miles from Conkers. Ellie’s mum lives in Long Eaton so I drove over there and we left our van outside her house. It saved us about 5 miles of cycling both days, which we felt would make things a bit more manageable. It was a very windy day – the BBC forecast said winds of 16-17mph all day.
Camping meant loading our bikes up with lots of gear, which we just about managed to squish into our panniers although we had to strap the tent onto the top of Ellie’s pannier rack.
We had aimed to set off at around 12.30pm but I ended up doing quite a bit of faffing with a handlebar bag that I ended up abandoning in the end because I couldn’t change gear with it in the way, and so we were a bit later than intended.
After cycling out of Long Eaton through Sawley, we joined a really pleasant path alongside the River Trent. Despite living not far from here for almost a decade, I’ve never been down this path before.
The path took us over a bridge and onto a short section of canal before popping out in Shardlow. Interestingly, the point at which the canal meets the river is the end of the Derwent Valley Heritage Way, a 55-mile walking route that starts at Ladybower Reservoir in the Peak District. I think I might have to put this on the future challenge list, as I could basically walk all the way home!
The next part of the route took us along a brand-new cycle lane alongside a new housing estate. This involved the first hills of the day, which were not huge but certainly felt it with all the weight on the bikes!
Not long after that, I heard a voice behind me say those words I absolutely did not want to hear, “Cally, your back tyre looks completely flat…”. I limped along for another 200m or so, until we came to a patch of grass next to a fairly busy road where there was space to sort it out.
At this point I was very pleased that Ellie had spent so many weekends working alongside her Dad at Nottingham Bikeworks. I do know HOW to fix a puncture, but my practical application of this knowledge hasn’t been tested very much to date! It turned out the culprit was a small piece of glass. We were back on the road after about 30 minutes – it took quite a lot of thumb power to get my tyre back on!
From here we cycled past Donnington Park race course, and round the back of East Midlands Airport.
We reached the outskirts of Wilson, where we briefly debated and decided against a four-mile detour to a café, and made our way down some steps to the Cloud Trail.
The Cloud Trail is a lovely traffic-free cycle route on the old Midland Railway line. It was really quiet and we probably only saw about five other people in the four or so miles we were on it.
We’d just passed Tonge and had stopped under a bridge for Ellie to do her 4.30pm mouthwash!
As she was putting it away, a man who was cycling from the opposite direction stopped to inform us that there was a tree that had just blown down in the wind and was blocking the whole path. He said he’d just about managed to clamber through but that with all our bags we would find it very difficult! We thought he was possibly overexaggerating a bit…he wasn’t!
We took about 10 minutes to clear as much of the loose debris as we could to try and make our passage as free of obstacles as possible. Then we took all our bags off the bikes and somehow managed to get everything out the other side. We couldn’t really fathom out how the man had done it without clearing some of the branches!
The rest of the Cloud Trail passed without incident, and we came off it at Worthington. After a short road section, we made our way down a gravel track and into some woods. This was the second particularly hilly part of the day and it was quite tough going. It was a really pleasant path though and we were treated to a nice sweeping downhill afterwards.
After coming to a bit of a dead end I realized that the route I’d plotted took us through a gate we’d just passed on a very narrow path straight to the A512.
I knew this next bit would be the most unpleasant part of the day and I wasn’t wrong. We braved turning right on the three-lane roundabout with multiple sets of traffic lights and luckily we had a kind lorry driver behind us who gave us plenty of space. We rode through Ashby-de-la-Zouch along the busy high street and out the other side.
It was another few miles until we finally reached our resting place for the night.
Camping at Beehive Bushcraft
There isn’t a sign at the entrance to the site and so we were initially on the wrong side of the road at a padlocked gate. A quick look at the OS Maps App confirmed that Beehive Wood was on the other side. We spotted a driveway a bit further down so decided to give that a go.
We soon stumbled across a shipping container where we found Paul, the owner of the site who gave us a warm welcome. Beehive Bushcraft is a 20-acre woodland where you can camp wherever you like for £7.50 (under-16s go free). There are various wooden shelters and firepits scattered throughout the woods. They don’t have a website, but there’s a Facebook group where you can find all the information.
Paul took us on a walk through of the site, showing us the camp kitchen where we could get water from a selection of jerry cans, and the ladies composting toilet which he assured us was much more luxurious than the men’s equivalent.
He asked if we wanted to be in the sunshine, and as we still had a couple of hours of it left we decided that would be a good idea. So he showed us to a grassy area at the bottom of the hill where we could still catch a few rays.
We quickly got pitched up. Ellie was sleeping in the one-man tent she had carried, and I had decided to sleep in my bivvy bag. I’d brought my tarp to give that a go for the first time, but as we weren’t inside the woods there weren’t really any suitable trees to use and it didn’t look like it was going to rain so I didn’t bother with it.
We’d worked up quite an appetite so the next job was to make dinner. I’d tried to get organized in advance for this so I’d bought pre-sliced halloumi and had chopped up some mushrooms and courgettes and put them in a tupperware. The week before the trip, I’d bought some mini plastic bottles off eBay which we used to transport cooking oil and some mixed herbs/chili flakes. We boiled up a pan of water first which we threw on some cous cous, and while that was soaking I fried up the rest of the ingredients. It took a little bit longer to brown them than it does at home, but soon we had ourselves quite a feast!
Once we’d finished dinner we decided to light a fire. The sun was going down and it was getting a bit chilly, and besides being a source of warmth, it also gave us something to do! On this task however, I was rather less prepared than I had been for dinner.
Ellie had done a marvellous job of collecting dry leaves and firewood. We spotted a couple of large charred logs in the undergrowth that must have been used for a firepit before, and we borrowed a few bricks from a nearby woodland camp that no one was using so that we could make a full circle.
Now it came to actually lighting the thing. My initial idea was to use the gas stove (which has an inbuilt ignitor) to light the fire. So, I held it to the leaves (on its side) and turned it on. This was not a good idea. Large flames appeared but they were just lighting the gas rather than the leaves and it was rather terrifying to be honest. So, I abandoned that plan.
Next I got a firesteel, which someone had bought me as a present as part of a survival kit, out of my bag. Ellie did a great job of using it to create sparks but none of the sparks seemed to have any effect on the dry leaves. We watched a quick YouTube video, decided that we should probably have packed cotton wool and Vaseline, and abandoned plan number 2.
Finally, we did what is probably incredibly obvious to everyone else. We got a long, thin twig, lit it on the gas stove and put it in the leaves. This still took about five attempts because it was so windy it kept blowing out between the stove and the firepit, but eventually we had success!
We tended the fire, chatted, and had a cup of tea as it went dark. Eventually we put it out and made our final trip up the hill to use the loo before bed.
It was lovely to go to sleep under the stars, listening to the owls hooting in the distance. I didn’t have an amazing night’s sleep – I always wake up a few times in the night when I’m camping. At one point I woke up to a few gentle spots of rain on my face, so I hunkered down a bit and pulled my drawstrings a bit tighter. Thankfully it didn’t really come to anything.
Conkers parkrun
We woke up to a much greyer day than the day before, but the wind wasn’t too bad first thing. We had a cup of tea and a porridge bar each, packed down the tent and packed up all the rest of our gear, and dismantled our fire pit.
Everything took slightly longer than expected and we were in a bit of a rush by the time it came to set off. It was quite a hill up to the top of the site so we carried our bags and pushed our bikes separately until we got to the track. I ran the chairs back to the kitchen and the bricks back to the other camp.
It only took us 10 minutes to cycle to Conkers and we arrived at the parkrun briefing area with 12 minutes to spare!
As we arrived, we spotted a few people in red and white and then a man dressed in a knight’s costume carrying a huge England flag…at which point it dawned on me that it must be St George’s Day. 10/10 for effort!
We locked our bikes to a tree guard, although Ellie was going to be staying with them while I ran. I went to the first timers’ briefing and then listened to the main briefing, which was delivered as an amazing rhyming poem!
After that it was a short walk round the corner to the start line. They had people holding signs for your expected finish time at five-minute intervals. This seemed like a good idea, because it was quite a narrow course at the beginning.
Then we were off. It was a really nice one-lap course. There were some short, steep hilly bits but nothing mega – 40m of ascent in total. The marshals were really friendly and encouraging, which was great. They also mentioned in the briefing that they have a specific walking contingent, which I thought was a good thing and a lovely way to make it feel more inclusive.
I finished in 27:35 which was about 25 seconds slower than Belton House two weeks previously, but it was 25m more hilly!
I don’t normally do post-parkrun cafés but as Ellie had been sitting in the cold for the last half an hour (I had said she should go for a wander but she didn’t bother), and I felt in need of a rest before getting back on the bike, we headed inside the Discovery Centre. It gave us a chance to fill up our water bottles too!
In the café queue we got chatting to a man called Robert. I mentioned that my Dad is about to turn 70 and is a faster parkrunner than me, and Robert said he used to hold the course record for the WM70-74 age category at Beeston (my home course) so perhaps I should challenge my Dad to beat it. I have since looked him up and it looks like his fastest Beeston time is 22:54, which is about a minute and a half faster than my Dad at the moment…so Dad, if you’re reading this, that’s something to aim for! It looks like Robert has been beaten since though as the current VM70-74 record at Beeston is 21:56.
Conkers itself is a large visitor attraction within the area of Leicestershire known as the National Forest. It’s built on the site of a former colliery. There are loads of things to do indoors and outdoors, and a lot of it’s aimed at families. Parking is free, so there’s no charge for parkrunners, but if you want to stay and explore you’ll have to buy an entry ticket.
Pedal home
Suitably refreshed, we set off for the pedal home. We decided to go a slightly different way back, avoiding the mega roundabout and calling at the café for lunch which we hadn’t bothered with yesterday. I hadn’t pre-loaded the diversion into the GPS, which made it…even more of an adventure!
We cycled back through Ashby-de-la-Zouch again, but branched off in a new direction just past the town centre. I was hoping it would be a quieter road as it’s a B-road but it was still pretty fast and busy.
After about half an hour, I pulled over to see if we could find an alternative route. As I rode onto the pavement (there was a dropped kerb but still quite a bump) the plastic part of the clamp that was holding my camera onto my handlebars snapped and the camera went skidding across the concrete. Anyone who read my previous blog post will know this is my second bit of bad luck when it comes to camera clamps! Annoyingly this time there does seem to be a bit of a scuff on one of the lenses but I’m hoping it won’t cause too much of an issue.
Anyway, it looked like there might be some possibilities to come off the road further up, and sure enough there was a driveway into the Staunton Harold estate a few minutes later. We had a lovely picturesque little pootle along there, but eventually had to come up an incredibly steep hill and pop back out on the main road again.
It looked like there was a permissive bridleway on the map, just 100m or so up the road, so we gave that a go. In all honesty, it was probably a footpath (in my defence it’s hard to see how long a dash is on an online map where you can zoom in and out), but it seemed suitable for bikes so we gave it a go. It was a little tough going but we made the best of it!
After that we did give one more path a go, and although it gave us the opportunity to see some lovely bluebells, we had to admit defeat that time and head back to the road for the final approach to the café.
I’ve been to Staunton Harold reservoir once before, on my one and only walk in this part of Derbyshire. I remembered there being a nice National Trust café, and thankfully my memory was correct! There were some very friendly robins hopping around looking for crumbs!
The windmill was built in 1798 but fell into disrepair by 1884. The reservoir was formed in 1964 and meant flooding a village which is now 80ft below the water.
After lunch we cycled through Melbourne and into Wilson, where we rejoined the route from yesterday. The bit between Melbourne and Wilson was really hard going – it was uphill and into a really strong headwind. A definite “put your head down and just keep going” kind of slog.
The wind was our constant companion for the rest of the ride, making even the downhill sections quite dicey as it whipped across from the side and threatened to take our bikes from under us!
If you’d like more information on the routes taken, you can find maps and more description on the Cycle Route page.
Final thought
This was a really lovely mini-adventure. It shows how much you can pack into 24 hours and has definitely inspired me to keep exploring areas relatively close to home as there is still so much that I haven’t seen!
I have no problem with travelling solo, but it was really nice to have Ellie’s company on this trip. She seems keen to do more, so stay tuned for further escapades!
Here’s a little 60-second Instagram reel video I made of the trip!