The Somerset Levels

Come on a bike ride down on the Moors!

To do this trip from Glastonbury, you need to own, beg, hire or borrow a bicycle. This is the best way to access the Moors - you will see, hear and feel everything, and visit some of the best parts of the Levels. It's a nice flat ride!

Much of the Levels is pastureland ('green desert') reserved for cattle grazing, but on the bike track to the Peat Moors Visitor Centre (where there's a good cafe!) you see the area in its more natural, wilder state.

Ride down Benedict Street from the Market Cross, over the bypass and follow the blue signs for the Peat Moors Visitor Centre. It's about five miles, and it's best to choose a day when it's relatively still, or a gentle breeze blows from the west (which means the wind is behind your back on the way home!)

Soon you're out of town, riding across the pastures, bounded by ditches or 'rhynes'. Follow the signs and you come to the Willow Walk, a fascinating ride along a Willow avenue. Willows, a wetland tree, have always been important as a source of whicker. Then you follow a quiet road past peat diggings. Until the 20th Century peat was dug and dried for fuel, but in recent decades it is packed to supply garden nutrients sold at garden centres.

This peat mining is regulated and it has one advantage. The diggings flood and become wetland pools - habitats to ducks, waders, swans and herons. It is unusual that you don't see any of these great birds when you ride along this track.

Soon you join the old Central Somerset railway track, now reserved for walkers and cyclists only. This is birdwatchers' country - watch out for people in dark green and beige, stumbling around with enormous cameras and telescopes, sometimes to be observed eating sandwiches.

First major stop for the cyclist is Ham Wall nature reserve - a good place to sit and stare. It's often really quiet - though it's also true that birds as well as humans are periodic practitioners of politics, and at times you hear it! Take some binoculars and a wee snack.

A bit further along there's a viewpoint overlooking a big pool on the right, and a paved walk on the left leading to a few hides, where you can do your ripple-watching and bird-ogling meditation. Back on track, further up on your right you see the old Glastonbury Canal, a bold venture from the early 1800s, which was quickly superseded by the railway along which you're riding.

Then you ride over an old railway bridge to the old Ashcott station and pub, over the road, and on to the wider expanse of Meare Heath on the right and Shapwick Heath on the left. This is a nice smooth run for a couple of miles, with a number of stops and quite often plent of bird activity.

Part way along, if you turn right over a bridge and into the woods, you come to an indoor hide - but enter only if you wish to sit calmly and watch for a good while because, often, there are seasoned birdwatchers in there, and it's a bit like being in a library!

After continuing along the old railway, when you reach the end of the track, five or so miles from Glastonbury, you just turn right, cruise along the road and swing in to the Willows Centre and Peat Moors Visitor Centre. There you can get rested and stoked up for the ride home!

The cafe is commendable, and the visitor centre has replicas of the prehistoric trackways built up to 5,000 years ago across the marshes by ancient residents of the area. There are some reconstructed Celtic round huts too, and an exhibition and periodic events.

The great thing about the ride home is that you get to see it all again from a different angle and see what has changed in the bird life since you last passed by. As you progress, the Tor and the Isle of Avalon loom larger ahead. By the time you reach the Willow Walk, you're on the home stretch.

At the end of the ride, it's a bit tricky when you reach solid land - the Moors, after all, are really an enormous soggy natural compost heap! Just after crossing the by-pass you have to ride gently uphill - a bit wearing. If you have to ride up the High Street too, well, it's great for your blood circulation!

But then, the thing to reflect on is that first cup of tea and sit down, followed by a hot bath in the evening! It was all well worth it for that. And you'll remember your meeting with the birds for a long time.

A trip to the Moors is an integral part of sampling the mysteries of Avalon. But if you just do it by car, you'll miss a lot! Get on yer bike!

To find out more about the Somerset Levels, try here:

The Avalon Marshes site

Somerset Levels and Moors Project (LAMP)

The Willows Centre, Westhay

Peat Moors Visitor Centre

Somerset Nature Reserves - Somerset Wildlife Trust

Shapwick Heath nature reserve

Westhay nature reserve

The Sweet Track

River Parrett Trail - on the southern Levels

North Somerset Levels and Moors Project