Coast to Coast

On Bank Holiday weekend Ant and I poodled off to Whitehaven to start our Coast to Coast minibreak. We cycled from Whitehaven to Sunderland (or that was the plan... more about the finish later)...

Ant at the start of the ride. Apparently you should dip your back tyre in the water at the start and finish... so we did... risking slipping down the slimy slip way and into the water!A nice picnic stop... first day was very gentle uphill to Keswick

Lovely lakes... and sunshine!

This was taken slightly before the "great abandonment". Ant normally waits for me at the top of big hills (seeing as he is not what a helpful welsh man once told me as I huffed up a big hill "the weaker sex"). Anyway, when I reached the top of this particular hill he was no where to be seen... at the bottom of the hill he was no where to be seen either. This seemed out of character and lacking mobile phone coverage I sat and waited for about 30min thinking somehow I had missed him amongst a big group of cyclists at the top. As time passed I started to become slightly worried... perhaps he had fallen off into a ditch or something terrible and dramatic... cyclists were passing me and no one had seen "the man in the red t-shirt". It was about this time when thinking I might have to go back up the hill scouring the ditches that I discovered I had a puncture and Mr Geer had the repair kit.
This made me slightly more worried. Eeeek. Fortunately more cyclists passed and they offered to lend me their repair kit. Just as I was taking off the wheel Ant returned... having been spotted as the man in the red t-shirt, despite wearing a grey fleece, as he waited on a log up the road, smugly thinking he had got 30min on me going up the hill!
Arrived in Keswick in time to visit the Pencil Museum... we have been to Keswick several times and always thought this place sounded like a joke... but we finally succumbed and visited this time... and it was actually surprisingly interesting... considering it is a museum about pencils.

Turns out Ant was off the pencil measuring scale. Clearly a height-ist institution... or possibly just designed for children bored on rainy days in Keswick. Day 2 turned out to be wet and extremely hilly (nice combination) ... so I didn't really take many photos, except for this one at the top of a huge hill (Hartside), which fortunately had a tea room at the top. From there we could watch all the other cyclists huffing up the hill. Mostly men... mostly carrying their own stuff, although there were quite a few people who had hired vans (driven by women), which followed them around with all their gear/ spare bikes/ warm clothes etc. I think that would make the hills quite a bit easier!
The tea room on Hartside was #2 of the day... after this one: http://organicmill.co.uk/ which was amazing... and definitely worth returning to!

Just outside of Nenthead... where we stayed at a mad B&B

At the highest point of the ride... beautiful moors stretching out behind us!

Calm before the storm... about 2 min after I took this photo the black clouds reached us. They contained hail and the winds were +20mph coming from the side... and we were on a moor = exposed.
hmmm so basically for the 5min it took to get down the hill and off the moor we were battered by hail (no exaggeration - I even got micro hail sized bruises on my leg to prove it) and wind. It was almost impossible to stay on the correct side of the road. We had to really lean over the front of our bikes to keep in control.
Fortunately at the bottom of the hill was a tea room where we could dry off. (Do you notice the theme?)This was a steep assent. Quite rocky, and I ended up walking most of it.

Lovely heather clad moor

The Geer was in his element... in his most favourite eating place... McDonald's. This was my 1st trip in some many years, and Ant enjoyed himself bombarding me with McDonald FACTS... which I told him were probably out of date given its +10 yrs now since he worked there.
Apparently it is bad I didn't know exactly what a Big Mac was until he showed me his. As such I had to watch "you tube" video showing how they are made!

Art. Outside Consett.

The end... or so we thought. Nice sculpture at Roker, Sunderland.

We decided to dip our whole bikes in the water, rather than just the back tyres.
Ant.

Telfy (Geer)

Gorging ourselves on fish and chips. mmmmmmmm

That was supposed to be the end... we were supposed to get a train to Newcastle, and then London and then home. But alas the ticket lady had mis-sold us tickets on the Metro from Sunderland to Newcastle and when we tried to get on we were kicked off. Bikes are NOT allowed. This left us with just under an hour to get to our pre booked train in Newcastle. According to Ant's i-phone we could cycle the 10.8 miles and board the train in that time. So off we toodled at top speeds (not particularly high given the fish and chips settling nice and heavily in our tummies!) All was going okish, esp. after The Geer took one for the team and took my panier too, so I could go faster... that is until we hit a dual carriageway. Ant hadn't mentioned that his route would take us down a dual carriageway and he didn't seem too distressed, indeed I was told on several occasions it was the "only way" we would catch the train.
Fortunately most people who drive along dual carriageways have their windows closed. This means that they probably didn't hear me raging and screaming and ranting at the Geer... the road was exceedingly scary... especially the bit where we had to change lanes to avoid exiting onto the motorway... and when my chain slipped off on a large roundabout... and when there were random road works narrowing the road to the extent that no one could pass us, so they just all stacked up behind - nothing like the pressure of a long queue of potentially angry drivers to inspire a bit of speed!
Anyway... in the end... we made it... the train was 5 min late which helped somewhat too!
I sulked the whole way home. Of course.

All in all was a great minibreak :O)