Our room was very warm, but by leaving the window wide open, switching on the fan and removing the duvet from its cover, we slept well. Breakfast was served from 7:30 and it was busy right from the start. I enjoyed my mushroom omelette and the croissants were better than most.
It was mainly downhill along the B4385 to the resumption of the route at the Montgomery canal. The canal ran from Llanymynech to Newtown, passing through the county of Montgomeryshire but not the town itself. The canal fell into disuse following a breach in 1936 and was officially abandoned in 1944. At present, only 8 miles (13 km) from Frankton Junction to Crickheath Bridge is navigable and connected to the rest of the national Canal & River Trust network.
This took us scenically but slowly and bumpily to a large Morrisons supermarket at Welshpool where we bought our lunch. We were disappointed to find only one vegetarian wrap amongst a big selection of meat options so had to buy some rolls and cheese in addition.
We crossed the flood plain of the river Severn and then suffered an endless punishing climb up the appropriately named Long Mountain, too long and too high for my liking. We ate our lunch near the summit, we’d passed no other food outlets. We couldn’t enjoy the descent, very steep and pockmarked by deep dangerous potholes. That was the only bad hill but it had exhausted us for the minor ones.
Later we came upon a roadside pub and paused for drinks. The run into Shrewsbury was uneventful but threading our way through the heavy traffic to the station was unpleasant. The next available train to Bangor was the 17:27 so we had more than half an hour to wait. No bike reservations were available but only one other bike was on board and the conductor didn’t complain about a small encroachment into the aisle. The train delivered us punctually to Bangor station at half past seven, an hour later we’d cycled home, and a further hour saw us sitting down to a tofu stir-fry.