I got to bed super early last night, which of course meant I woke up super early. I considered 4 am a little too early to be getting up, so I just listened to the incessant rain. I was lovely and cosy though!

I eventually packed up at a more reasonable time and was on the road by about half 7.

It had stopped raining by now and it didn't rain again properly until the afternoon.

All of today was uncharted territory for me and my first stop was Worcester. Seemed like a very pleasant place, but I only had time for a quick breakfast before pushing on.

As you can imagine, the river Severn featured a lot today and I was often riding along its banks or crossing it on various styles of bridge.

I crossed into Shropshire sooner than I expected and things started to get somewhat interesting!

It would seem the county has an abundance of cycle paths, bridleways, disused railway lines etc. Which is great, but incredibly difficult to navigate - even with a GPS track to follow!

I kept finding it telling me to turn off onto a new path. But the new path would be directly below me with no obvious way down!

To cut a very long story short, lots of muddy footpaths, stairs and steep, overgrown banks had to be tackled.

Loads of cuts and stings to my legs and I was ankle deep in mud at one point trying to drag my bike down to the river path across a farm with lots of "Keep out or die" type signs!

I eventually made it to Bridgnorth, which was very nice, but I should have been there hours before I was.

I stocked up on food at a Coop and carried on. Next stop, Ironbridge.

What followed was more of the same and I eventually rocked up at Ironbridge way later than planned.

The bridge was very nice though! Much smaller than I thought, but still impressive.

It was getting late by this point, so I spent ages trying to find a suitable campsite. I found a really nice one, but it didn't have any showers. I can happily skip a shower, but not when I'm covered in mud!

I eventually found somewhere not too far away, but somewhat off my route. It should only have taken me about an hour, but to be on the safe side I told the lady on the phone I'd probably be two. That was a massive underestimate! Because what followed was hours of Google maps telling me to go down unridable paths with a whole bunch of nonsensical instructions.

Anyway, I got there eventually and pitched my tent. In the pouring rain. I should have mentioned that a lot of my earlier struggles were in torrential rain!

All is good though, as it has stopped raining now and I've just found a bar of chocolate I'd forgotten I had.

Looks like a fairly dry night from now on with only a chance of light showers in the morning.