So near and yet so far

We're threading our way out of Stafford along labyrinthine one-way systems and scraps of edgeland cycle paths. The route dives beneath a railway line, then crosses sprawling watercourses. We pause before a narrow bridge that bisects the floodplain, waiting for people who are walking in the opposite direction to pass.

Looking around, I can imagine it as the marshy island where Mercian prince Bertelin supposedly established his hermitage around 700AD. That, if you believe the story, was the origin of Stafford (although Bertelin is said to have had second thoughts later and moved somewhere hillier). How we came to be here is another story.

It's the school summer holidays, so G and I have time for adventures. I'd offered him some options. How about we catch the train to Oxford and ride home through the Cotswolds over a couple of days?

He was interested, but it proved hard to find accommodation at the halfway point. What about the same idea from Abergavenny? When we looked closer, the distances didn't work: it was too far to ride in one day and not far enough for two.

I put forward a third option, a day ride. It wasn't as obviously picturesque as the other two but it would give us just over 60km of riding, mainly off-road along canal towpaths and old railways. G liked the sound of that, so we planned it out.

We'd catch the train to Stafford, then ride south on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire canal towpath until we hit Wolverhampton. There we'd divert on to the old South Staffordshire Railway path for a while, before returning to the canal for a final stretch to Blakedown and the train home.

So that's how we came to be cycling through Stafford's edgelands. But there's another way to answer that question, 'How did we get here?'