England

The plan was to spend the last of the English summer meandering through some of the most beautiful parts of England: the Lakes District and Yorkshire Dales. Perhaps a day or so of hill-walking.

Summer. Ha. It has literally rained every. single. day. It became not a question of "will it rain?", but "how much?". We have heard time and time again "This has been the worst summer in 10 years". A cynical hostel employee told us that people say that every year.

From Carlisle , we cycled along the Hadrians Wall national cycle route. Hadrians wall was built in about 200AD by the roman emperor Hadrian, as the northern border of the Roman Empire. And there was some impressive ruins of the wall. (impressive if you know what they are, otherwise you'd just see parts of old crumbled stone wall, nothing to stop for...). The route was lovely but very undulating. still breathless from one short, sharp up-hill, as you go up the next...


We spent one night camping in Hexham and then took a train to Penrith, where we joined the C2C cycle route west, camping on a muddy farm campsite near Keswick. It cleared enough in the evening to take a walk to the Castlerigg stone circle. This stone circle was apparently put there about 1000BC (how ON EARTH would they know that??) and had wonderful surrounds.

We then headed to the coastal town of Whitehaven. We stayed in a camping barn just south in a small place called Sandwith (pronounced Sannith). A camping barn, is just like it sounds. indoors, shared sleeping platform with own bedding. As usual, once we decided to stay indoors, the sun came out and it was a beautiful evening. The owner declared it was the best weather for a month, despite the earlier rain that day. We went for a walk and enjoyed the amazing sea cliffs and setting sun...


Then the famous Lakes District. We headed over the Hardknot pass. which lived up to its name. it was hard. gradients up to 30%. narrow. lots of bends. We had to push our bikes up most of it, in the rain, providing entertainment for people in cars. There were a surprising number of cars given the road steepness, narrowness and wet conditions. I wouldn't drive it. The Hardknot pass was almost immediately followed with the Wrynose pass. ditto conditions. Fortunately at the top the weather cleared and we enjoyed a lunch with views...

We camped in a boggy campsite in Low Wray and spent the following day exploring the surrounds (in the rain). Beatrix Potter owned a large amount of land in the region and donated it to the national trust. We visited her country cottage, where she worked/holidayed. It was very cool. The had her books open to pages where the illustrations matched parts of her cottage or furniture, but obviously with Jemima Puddleduck or whoever....

We crossed a lake via ferry to Windermere. Byrdie purchased an umbrella. This shows how desparate we became with the weather. no umbrella the whole trip. weight. size. don't need it cycling etc.... and she also offered to contribute to a new waterproof jacket for my birthday. my red jacket was soaking up water and not drying = cold me. so I got a flash gor-tex jacket. and new thermal pants, so I could actually wear a pair cycling and have a dry pair for later. ENGLAND! this is supposed to be SUMMER. no wonder the Brits talk about the weather so much. I mean, I know it is England. We weren't expecting brilliant sunshine or anything but come on... Scotland had better weather.

THE YORKSHIRE DALES. We cycled east, and camped on a not quite so boggy farm campground. The next day, Friday, the forecast was that weather was going to close in, in the afternoon. So we made an early start, did a short day of cycling to Kettlewell. The visibility was impressively poor. We didn't even know we had a hill in front of us until we hit it. I'm sure the view would usually be fabulous. We were allowed to check in nice and early to the post office hostel. Satisfyingly it didn't clear. It rained all day and we felt like we were well justified being at the hostel...

Rainy the following day. surprise, surprise. We continued east over the dales. some amazing views. I love the dry stone walls and narrow roads. and the sheep are different from NZ sheep. more intelligent looking somehow. had a scary experience of brakes not working very well. fine I'll just go slow. but even with brakes on full/pumping them I just kept gathering speed down a narrow twisting road. thinking just stay in control, i hope i won't need to stop. fortunately the road flattened out before i came to any grief. bike dried out and brakes were tightened, rims cleaned before setting off again. needless to say I'm getting new brake pads...

That night we turned up at a campsite. The receptionist (with a rather orange face, obviously heavy handed with some 80's foundation), looked at us as if we had just come from another planet. It is boggy. It has been pouring down all day.... I'll talk to the boss.... The boss thinks you're crazy. you can camp for free if you can find a place... ha ha... (expecting us to take one look and leave).

turn down something for free? never. it was no worse than our campsite in the Lakes District. so we stayed. lined our tents with garbage bags (which double as our bike bags. very handy things).


The following day was our final day cycling in UK. We set off (guess what? it was raining). By midday the sun came out and the sky cleared. we squinted at the unfamilar sight. We experienced the aftereffects of the rain. twice having to backtrack when we reached impassable, flooded roads. The first time, I kindly let Byrdie test the waters. She went in and gave up once the front pannier bags were half covered in water. (luckily she had quadruple bagged the food). Meanwhile I was very supportive. laughing and taking photos. The next flood we came to had a post which indicated water levels to be at 4.5feet. no attempt made this time. 2 mile back track. (instead of the Brits converting to the metric system, visitors find themselves converting to the imperial system). We finally arrived in York to find the campground completely under water. All the campgrounds along the river were also, no doubt. So after a bit of research and hunting (no other hostels) we checked into a YHA hostel. which was £10 more for the second night because of a 'flexible pricing' system. They had two group bookings for that night. the less beds available, the more expensive. but without any other option we stayed there (£25 each for the second night. equivalent of about NZ$75!!). So, of course I had to get my moneys worth by having a large breakfast: baked beans, sausage, scrambled egg, hash brown. bread roll with cheese and ham. muesli, yoghurt and prunes. two chocolate croissants. 3 cups of tea. 2 cups of coffee. 1 glass of orange juice.

oh, and for the privilidge of staying with two large school groups. a midnight fire alarm (teenage boys at that awkward stage when they first develop B.O and notice girls = over the top deodorant, = fire alarm set off by deodorant). and a large,noisy queue for breakfast. and you pay extra for the privilidge.

York is a lovely city. It really helped that it was sunny. (boy, do you appreciate fine weather after crappy weather). It has very cute 14th century streets. We went on a fantastic free walking tour. (note the lack of quotation marks "free", it really was free. volunteers do it, no tip expected). It DIDN'T rain all day. except for a light shower later on. was fascinating seeing the flooded river. apparently most years it floods....

Today we took a train to London, where we are staying with aunt Anna.