first and foremost the officials:
“Happy Birthday, mum!” from Oli and a happy birthday to you from me as well.
‘Highway to hell’ would be my inofficial hymn of the day as we set put in wet weather at 8 in the morning. Imagine how glad I am that we didn’t know that wet wet wet would be the day. On my very personal opinion the first 140 kilometers are among the worst bike- wise that I have done so far. It was nature who suffered most under these circuMstances as we could not be bothered to stop as often for pics and disbelieving head-shakes as duringe the last days. Solid wet for what felt like a week at least is why almost made my day. Thanks to whatshisnameI did bring my raingear. Oli did not and paid for it in the end, middle to put it correctly. Tyndrum’s the name of the place where he geared up with some waterproof stuff. In the end it’s ben worth going back the 5 miles after brekfast at ‘Crianlarnick/-arick’. Due to the weather it took us 5 hours for a distance that usually would be dealt with on a heartbeat and Glasgow would be only half the way…
That’s when e finally decided to step up to it and stop being whimps.
One of us came up with the secret word ‘motorway’ – the faster the better and we agreed on speeding down towards our final destination. It would have taken us another 5-6 hours on the initially planned route, given all the circumstances!
Two and a half hours later ( not counting the numberless raingear on-off stops) we arrived at the Grasmere youth hostel. A place that can’t be any more idyllic from the looks of it and the surrounding area. Lake District it of for tonight and a fair part of the morning.
It’s still raining now, or again as you want it hopefully this will change when the new day dawns!
For the stats: 280 miles that is in 9 but closer to 10 hours on the road…
Again, hoping for rays of sunlight in the morning, we wish you all a good nights sleep!
F&O