Day 3. Milton Keynes to Cambridge: 54 miles (Total 152 miles)

We woke to another sunny day and after a delicious breakfast with Ami and Jazz we were on our way by 8.30. Breakfast of danish pasteries and weetabix got us up and going. It was sad to say goodbye to Ami, and Mia was in a stop for us leaving!

Out through Newport Pagnall, a town significantly prettier than suggested by the M1 motorway services that make the name familiar, and soon into pretty countryside mild undulations and fields of yellow corn and barley. Although day 3 legs were felt on the rare steeper hills, it was mainly easy cycling in the cool but sunny morning.

All roads seemed to lead to Bedford but we managed to pick a route out skirting north of the town in minor roads. We paused on an old stone bridge over the River Ouse and ate up miles to get to St Neots for morning coffee overlooking the Ouse again. David’s map-reading found us minor roads again and we stopped for a lunch of pasties purchased in St Neots in a shady churchyard in Caxton where there was a beautiful old church dating from 1400.

The last leg took us into Cambridge and although main roads could not be avoided, being Cambridge there were bike paths taking us into the centre to the door of Westminster College, where we were staying. 53 miles and we were there by 2.30, giving us time to shower and do some washing and then look around town. We jostled through the hoards of tourists and language students, over Magdeline Bridge and into the centre. David and I had to sort out a glitch with the ipad at the Apple shop while Kate and Chris looked around some of the colleges and walked along the backs. David went to get his haircut while I went to rest my eyelids back in our room! We brought a delicious dinner of chicken and salad, which we ate at a picnic table on the lawns.

While we were laughing a chap kept looking anxiously at us through a ground floor window. As the strains of a music concert drifted out of the window we could understand why he was anxious that our laughter did not drift back in to the concert room. We dutifully kept quiet and listened while we ate cheese and biscuits and strawberries, sipping chilled white wine but the music was too modern for our tastes so we left them to it while we headed back for a restful evening.