Our ride today was to a pair of neighbouring open gardens just of the A30 in Hook. The challenge was to plan a route to avoid as much main road as possible, as usual. The A30 has a cyclepath where we needed it, so that was no problem, but the Reading Road B3349 is difficult to avoid at some point.
Route
We started by heading to Bearwood Road, then Sindlesham, where we turned into Betty Grove Lane, where the road surface can be bumpy. A fair amount of rain yesterday, but you wouldnt have known. It was bone dry! We worked our way through the University Farm area, to cut through at Arborfield Church.
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| The off road section, with Arborfield Church in the distance on Church Lane |
We crossed the new Observer Way, and then to Swallowfield, working our way to Heckfield, then down Laundry Lane. At the bottom of Laundry Lane, we normally dog leg across, but we instead we turned left on the B3349, for about half a mile passing Hortus Loci, then soon into Vicarage Lane. John never been here before. At the end of Vicarage Lane, we turned left on Bottle Lane, to once more come to a junction of the Reading Road, between Mattingley and Rotherwick. We rode to Rotherwick, and in the middle of the village, a left turn at a cross roads. This is new for me and I always imaged it to be a dead end.
Its a nice lane, with an incline at the end as it rises to meet the B3349 (yet again) on a bend. There seems to be no avoiding this section, so since we were on ebikes, we switched on the power, and got it over with.
We were able to turn left into a new housing developement after half a mile or so, and following the road through the estate, we came to a gate which joined Searle Lane, where the two gardens were.
