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Lincolnshire - And Dryness
Ride Date 13 Nov 2025
By Ren Withnell
How do you know you're getting close to Manchester? It starts to rain. How do you know when you're in Manchester? You're wet. What happens when it stops raining in Manchester? It starts again. If you can't see The Pennines from Manchester it's because it's raining. If you can see The Pennines it means it's going to rain soon. Just some useful tourist information there if you're ever planning a trip to see if Lowry's pictures match the reality. Yes, we do all wear cloth caps and work in smoky factories and live in terraced houses.
Yes it rains an awful lot in Manchester.
This is one of the cleaner, nicer back streets of my home town.
BBC's weather team have come to the peculiar conclusion that it might not rain today here in Lincolnshire. Google tells me the driest area of the UK is East Anglia, Lincolnshire is next door to East Anglia and is considered quite dry too, certainly drier than North West England. After Monday's deluge and a couple of soggy days since, are we finally to be blessed with the dryness that the eastern side of England promises?
Anyhow enough public service guff. What shall we do today? With the hope of dryness Sharon is going to ride her Kwakker rather than luxuriate on the back of my bike. I've been scouring Google maps and found a random cafe outside Coningsby - we're going there for absolutely no reason at all. Wellllllll... Okaaaay... there might be a chance I spied the menu and it looks cheap. Deal with it.
It feels most peculiar to be riding along without rain on the visor. We're riding east through some charming villages like Orby and Candlesby, through the endless fields and enormous skies. There's clumps of trees and a few alongside the road, now naked in preparation for the forthcoming winter. The air is cool but it's not bitingly cold as yet. We're moving well with the light traffic.
Spilsby? I know the name, have I been before? Nope I can't think why the name rings a bell but with too much time on our hand I take the left, following the sign. Spilsby is it seems an ordinary small town - and I like ordinary small towns. We take a brief walk around the centre, buy some snacks from the Co-op and look at the prices in the estate agent's window. We could afford a humble home here - Sharon's eye of course is immediately drawn to the ones far outside our fiscal means.
It's alright is Spilsby. Note the weather!
From Spilsby we take the A16 south then turn onto the A155. Wait a minute! This is all looking familiar and as we ride through East Kirkby I know why. We were here in 2014, it was early in Sharon's riding career and we were on 125s. I wave at the campsite and wonder if Sharon will recognise it. Probably not... she's like a goldfish - "oooh look a castle!... oooh look a castle!... oooh look a castle!... oooh look a castle!"
Grafters cafe is not your quaint country tea room with doilies and stainless steel teapots that ALWAYS dribble. There's no cutesy village here either. We're on an industrial estate with metal railings and purposeful units, concrete pads and potholes. The cafe is a portakabin or container, or home made box, within one half is kitchen, the other a handful of tables. This ain't no fine dining.
All this means within the ladies running the cafe are delightfully friendly, the prices are better than fair, and the food is welcomingly tasty. No flim-flam, no pretentions, just grub on a plate, hot tea and welcome chit chat. Fabulous.
Grafters is actually a shop, I figure the cafe is an add-on out front. Within the shop, much like the surplus shops in Ingoldmells, is a bewildering array of dog leads and tubs of Roses chocolates, frying pans and tubs of salt for snow. This one seems to have a lot of non-perishable out of date foods. It's my understanding - that "use by" means the food must be eaten before the date otherwise it could cause you illness (or death). "best before" is more of a suggestion, the food is still edible after this date but might not be as tasty or fluffy or well presented. The stuff here is out of date on the best before. We do purchase a few tasty treats.
Right, good. We have food in our bellies and a few out of date treats for "ron" (later-"ron"). What we don't have is our next destination. It's only just turned 1200, it's not like we need to rush back particularly as it's not raining... and whisper it quietly... the sun is out. Aha! Weeks ago I did my research and saved a number of suggestions of places we might like to visit. Gibraltar Point, that's where we're going next.
The advantage of sat-nav is I can plan quite a complex route. Google wants me to go along the main roads but by jiggling and fudging the screen I have a cross country on back lanes kind of route set up. I can't avoid Skegness though, there's only one road to Gibraltar Point and that starts in Skeggy.
It takes an hour and a half to ride 30 miles. We're riding quiet lanes between wide open fields under blue skies with fluffy cotton clouds. Admittedly we're not troubling the tyres with crazy lean angles, this is dawdling along single track while looking into farmyards, pondering what that crop will grow into, daydreaming about owning that barn and using it as a workshop, and enjoying the sensation of "dry"!
Dry!! You can see for miles here.
We miss the worst of Skeggy's town centre and follow the long lane to Gibraltar Point. There's a car park and cafe in the visitor's centre. Oh get this - we're sitting outside with our brews!
Gibraltar Point is - ahem - a big flat expanse of hardy grasses with the sea in the distance. That is in fact grossly unfair and I'm being an ignorant fool. It is a rare section of coast unspoilt by development, a haven for a vast range of wildlife, and an essential area to protect the land from flooding from within or the sea. Alas there's no breathtaking mountains, terrifying gorges, or sinuous challenging roads.
A different kind of scenery, and quite rare these days.
Even so, it's quite lovely to sip our tea in the gentle breeze without freezing and hear only the noise of the birds.
Still with time on our hands rather than ride through Skeggy town centre and back to the static, we take a detour. We skirt the town centre and follow a main road west, inland, then sat-nav takes us to Bilsby once again. Why? Cheap fuel of course! Yes yes yes we've probably spent £3 getting here to save 50p on filling each bike. But we've had a nice ride in the countryside so it's worth it OK? Shut up!
We're back at the static by 1515 and the sun is still out. After a cup of tea as the sun starts to set we take a little stroll around the site. It's all rather standard. An entertainment hall, a pool with a few basic slides, a few statics for sale, shops that are closed at this time of year, nothing bad, nor exceptional.
There is one thing we spot that could be a real issue. We kind of experienced this in Wales this year but the situation could be worse here.
Quite a significant number of the statics do not have tarmac running by them. There is plenty of space to drive a car between the vans but on the grass - fine in a warm dry summer but if the rain has been siling down for any length of time? I'd argue too that you could easily be parked in if another holiday-maker parks inconsiderately. The bike will always get through but parking on grass, particularly sodden grass, is not without it's issues.
Don't fancy this much if its wet and full of cars.
Anyhow - that's enough being adventurous for one day. It's dark, it's getting cold and it's time for tea. It's been a pleasant day today, greatly helped by the weather. Speaking of the weather the BBC is offering nothing but heavy rain tomorrow. Great. That means 175 miles of cold and soggy riding. Dagnammit!
Advertise here - contact ren@bikesandtravels.com
Prologue And A Rough First Day
Prudent as ever Ren accidentally stumbles into a super cheap static caravan north of "Skeg-Vegas". All that remains to be done is getting there. If previous experience of heading east is anything to go by - it might not be that easy.
Lonesome In The Flatlands
Ren is hoping for a better day weatherwise and riding-wise too. Ingoldmells is deserted, Skeggy and Mablethorpe ain't up to much, luckily the countryside is better than expected.
Bothering The Locals And "Hills"
The Dynamic Muppets are bothering the good people of Lincolnshire as well as bringing the house prices down. There's tea and cake and sweeties too, hills, and spooky stuff.
Lincolnshire - And Dryness
There's something new in Lincolnshire today - DRY! Contain your excitement folks, Ren has found a cheap cafe and there's an awful lot of flat.
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Travel StoriesFrolicking In The Flattish Lands