I’m in. I was thinking about this very topic ALL yesterday evening. Hope I can make whatever dates you decide upon.
OF – I’m happy to assist you in planning, guiding and gate-holding as you see fit. All the suggestions so far sound good.
Anyways, here’s a few more tips:
* Burrington Combe, the Inn and the now defunct garden centre has the largest free parking and is a good start-point.
* There is a wide bridle track for climbing over the back of Burrington Ham to reach the top of the combe avoiding the road. From there, the climb up to the summit if Black Down is reasonable and wide.
* We should definitely go to Cheddar, either down rocky Warrens Hill Road, or down the techy/scenic track atop Cheddar Gorge, although the latter can be difficult to access without a weensy bit of cheekyness. We can book up cream teas in Cheddar – yum
* Climbing “up” the Cheddar Gorge track top-track sounds a bit crazy to me 🙂 Climbing the road is easy enough and very scenic. Another doable off-road climb out of Cheddar starts at Bradley Cross, or climbing Warrens Hill Road isn’t too bad if it’s dry
* In Rowberrow Wood, it’s got to be worth including the upper-parts of “Santa’s Grotto” 🙂
* The funnest bridle path descent back toward Burrington is “Stony Lane” which is sandwiched between the hill fort and mendip lodge wood and ends at the Blagdon Water Gardens with a short road ride back to Burrington Inn.
* if you can squeeze the Limestone Link track from CLIC in, that’s always fast/furious fun
I might have a word with the Mendip warden to see if we can get dispensation to cycle through Velvet Bottom, seeing as the ground is nice and hard and links Cheddar Gorge nicely with Black Down.
What do you think ScienceOfficer?