Cotswolds: Pastoral perfection

Chipping Campden, a late 12th century market town, delivers picture postcard cottage and garden vistas at every turn. Photo / Robyn Langwell

The determination to one day ride over hill and dale in the Cotswolds was a long time in gestation. We first talked about biking the best bits of Britain way back when Martin Snedden was a lithe local Devonport lad and we turned out at Lords to watch him and the New Zealanders battle the English. Amid the champers, pork pies, strawberries and cream, and heaps of Hooray Henrys in their MCC ties, we decided damn it let's do it tomorrow.

We took a two-hour train ride out of London through fields of maize and mellow fruitfulness to a place called Stow on the Wold, at the very heart of the heavenly Cotswolds. This range of wolds (hills) stretches roughly 40km wide and 150km long across west central England and has been a designated area of outstanding natural beauty since 1966.

Here we hired a pair of bikes and juddered across a few fields and down a few lanes before fetching up at the Winston Churchill pub. And, confession time now, we didn't get any further. There was cider and a grand Ploughman's lunch and several hours spent in a blissfully sunny beer garden near a mill with a gently churning water wheel. It was bucolic and boozy and much later we wobbled back to the station and thence to London.

Ever since I've felt the Cotswolds by bike was somehow unfinished business.

Which finds me 20-something years on, alighting from a bus in the main street of Chipping Campden (home of arts and crafts movement founder William Morris) to meet Cotswold Country Cycles' Julia Jones.

Julia is a lively, mid-50s farmer's wife who has mixed her favourite pleasure - biking -with booming business. She has 35 bikes and offers anything from a day out leisure pedalling to serious week-long Cotswolds-wide safaris through a slew of market towns.

Having already provided my height, weight and head size, my trusty ride for the next three days was ready and waiting and Julia whisked me off on a whistlestop 24km ride through central Chipping Campden with its honeyed limestone cottages and gauzy golden light. We sped down luscious laneways of barley and oats and through lovely lemony fields of rape seed which provides, I'm told, a pure, clear oil.

There are many incarnations of sheep about, too, but none that look anything like our woolly jumpers. Julia points out the Texel, which are the new great eating beasts (not for me thanks) and then the North Country Mules. There are some with black faces and black spots, but Julia doesn't know what breed they are beyond "bloody ugly".

And just as soon as I'm getting used to her vivacious company Julia is dropping me at the gate of Home Farm in the charming hill village of Ebrington, into the hands of bed and breakfast proprietors Veronica and William Stanley and their boisterous border collies Gyp and Bob.

Home Farm is a beautiful 15th century listed Cotswold stone house looking out over 141 lush hectares and across the road from the front gate a fresh water spring gurgles. The Longwell was the raison d'etre for this village's existence for centuries and these days it's a welcome cyclists' pit stop for frigidly refreshing water straight from the bowels of the earth. I go to sleep in my 600-year-old room to the sounds of its soothing splash.

At breakfast I'm joined by four Canadians, two Londoners and two Melburnians (who are bikers like me) and fourth generation farmer William who talks a little about the farm and how it's not much more than a hobby now.

The bed and breakfast business started by Veronica is now a "gold mine" such is the tourist pull of the Cotswolds. William runs sheep (which don't even repay their costs) and beef, but all that's a sideline. "The B&B business now makes farm income look like a joke," he says happily. So much so that Veronica and Will each have their own planes down in the barn and an airstrip in the hay paddock. They amuse themselves in the off season by popping to Guernsey for "jolly" lunches.

But it's on yer bike time. It's Saturday which means a 56km pedal through the picturesque villages of Snowshill, Winchcombe, Broadway and Stanton.

You soon learn that Julia's instructions are crystal clear but fail entirely to mention gradients. There are indeed some quite demanding wolds scattered through this ravishingly scenic ride but they are surmountable if you take it slowly and are soon forgotten as the summer breeze kisses your face and the passing parade of nature works its seduction. Green grass of 50 shades rolls across stonewall-studded acres, the air shimmers lilac blue as you pass napping mares and foals and giant cattle beasts who bellow at your presence on their heavenly turf.

You can almost see the crops grow in sun-sated fields as big black cheeky crows loft and call and squadrons of squirrels skitter in silver birches, elms, maples and horse chestnut trees. A darting ginger presence suggests a fox out on an early afternoon reconnaissance as plump pheasants screech skywards.

I lunch in lovely Snowshill and meet a friendly lurcher (a large hairy dog) while perusing a striking stone church - the first of many I'll pass. These churches were all built with "wool wealth" in the Middle Ages when the Cotswolds sheep farmers were very rich indeed.

Next up I roll into Stanton, the cutest village, with classic thatched cottages and a hive of gardening activity going on with gardeners trimming the buxus and nipping at their roses in preparation for the upcoming village garden tour.

It's becoming very clear that you could spend a month in this lush landscape and still not see everything. Around every corner is another open home, farm park, garden walk, historic building or castle to explore - all offering lavish cream teas. But I'm just content to pull over, now and again, lay the bike down and stretch out among wildflowers, plumping blackberries and curious cows. It's restful and, better still, it's free.

Soon I'm homeward bound with a quick swerve past Broadway Tower, a tall but small gothic folly. The castle has views over 13 counties and was home to local hero and the much loved aforementioned designer and writer William Morris.

The sight of Ebrington village and her cooling water well was never so welcome as I find I've clocked up over 64km in the saddle today.

Dinner is at the estimable local, the Ebrington Arms, with ceilings so low-beamed that even short folk have to duck. And then it's back to Home Cottage and sleep.

My final ride is a 45km ride lazily looping through the Swells (Upper and Lower), Stow on the Wold and the Slaughters.

It's a hike up the hill to popular Stow on the Wold village and there are a lot of other tourists keen to get there too. They rip past on their Harleys and in their Range Rovers, BMWs and even a pack of 25 multi-coloured, multi-modelled MG convertibles necessitating the lone cyclist to have firm hands on the handlebars to deal with the "wind whip" that hits in their wake. Having said that most of the Cotswolds' riding is done on farm lanes so it's fairly safe as long as you are vigilant.

This one-time hillside sheep market (20,000 could cram into its cobbled square) is now an antique lovers' mecca with a plethora of shops displacing antiques at stinging prices as well as the usual knick knack emporiums with their "tourist tat" tee shirts and named tea towels.

After a browse, a strong coffee and pain au chocolat I drop down the other side and freewheel and sing all the way to the Slaughters, long regarded as the most beautiful of the Cotswolds villages.

Far from being a bloody place, the Doomsday Book records that these villages were actually named Sclostre, meaning watery or muddy place, relating to the River Eye which ripples through their midst.

And, here, in Upper Slaughter, I can report I found heaven on earth in the form of the 17th century manor house Lords of the Manor. The former refectory with 26 rooms and lawns rolling down to a gurgling weir with twittering ducklings and slinking trout is surely the ultimate place to lay your head in a Cotswolds reverie.

I parked my trusty bike at the front gate and was welcomed into this sumptuous hotel, bike pants and all, for a fine cream tea.

It was the moment I realised I'd fallen hook, line and sinker for this glinting green heart of England. And, although I may have sated my appetite for the time being, this is definitely still unfinished business. I just know I'll be back this way again soon and next time there'll be a smart dress packed in my pannier for a night out and a sleepover at the Lords.

CHECKLIST

Getting there: Cathay Pacific offers daily flights from Auckland to London via Hong Kong.

Cycling the Cotswolds: Check out Cotswold Country Cycles.

Where to stay:

Home Farm House B&B


Lords Of the Manor hotel

Further information: Go to visitbritain.co.nz

Robyn Langwell travelled to Britain courtesy of Cathay Pacific and Visit Britain.