After a peaceful nights sleep I went into the bathroom to jump into the shower, only to be greeted by a third room guest – a fucking massive spider. Perched above the shower head like Edgar Allan Poe’s raven, it seemed to look at me with it’s many eyes as if to say ‘You jump in, I’ll pour the shampoo on for you.’ John offered a solution which was to use the rather powerful shower to whizz it off down the plug hole. Which I then did, the only problem being that I didn’t see it go down the plug hole so then had to endure a tense shower where I kept expecting to hear ‘Nevermore.’
I packed up and then waited for John to pack up. He couldn’t find a sock for what seemed like an eternity and then his toothbrush went off in his pannier bag when he had packed everything on top of his toiletry bag. For some reason, me giggling ‘Your dildo is going off!’ didn’t amuse him as he had a sweat on at this point.
Bidding the very cycle-friendly hostel goodbye we cycled back into the centre of Penrith to rejoin the NCN and were instantly greeted with some steep ascents. Although today we would only cover about 33 miles there was also 4,500 ft of climbing to endure.
A few miles in and heading up a long but relatively flat climb we were stopped by a farmer on a quad bike. He told us that his herd of sheep were being, well, herded down this road we were headed up and if we could politely pull over and stop until the passed. As we stood there waiting for the herd I wondered if there was anything that could be more quintessentially British; waiting in a countryside queue while livestock were being shepherded down the road. Even though we stood quietly when they did begin to pass they were still terrified and doing the ‘jumping into the nearest wall’ trick to try and get away from us.
As we carried on with the route we came to another of those forks in the road on the coast to coast. We could either stay on the road and go a longer way up a hill or go off-road and take our chances on rougher terrain. I left this decision to John after our beach odyssey a couple of days ago so off we went, off-road. It started off okay but the path quickly degraded and we were left walking through rocks and mud, occasionally interrupted by the odd stream. I told John that the fuck up score was now even at 1-1 after my beach decision and John’s off-road choice.
I’m sure we would laugh about it later but for now we agreed that the definition of off-road could do with padding out. At the moment it just seemed that any terrain that wasn’t a road was off-road. Which when written down I know seems obvious but it would still be nice to know whether the off-road option consists of a nice gravel path or big fuck off boulders and rivers that have to be crossed.
About half a mile in a local approached us walking the other way and started giving us a boring local history lesson about the path. Some shit about ponies from Whitehaven or something. We were listening as we didn’t want to appear rude but were also walking on at the same time, determined to get off this path as soon as possible. He compensated for our increasing distance by shouting, the last thing we heard something about a local mine in the 19th Century. It did not help his credibility that he looked and sounded like Mr Tumble.
After a couple more miles of mostly walking our bikes and shouting at rocks for being too big, we rejoined a lovely paved road and continued our ascent up the imposing Hartside Pass. We knew it was the biggest climb of the day but the gradient did not vary much so it was just about keeping a steady pace, keeping the legs spinning and hoping your heart didn’t explode in your chest.
At the top we took in the view of the surrounding area, including the hilltop cafe which was very much closed and derelict (unless it was going for the open-plan, ‘no roof’ and burnt out effect, in which case, the place looks lovely).
The good thing about getting to the top of something big is, as we all know, there is a rather large going down bit that traditionally follows. In this case it was a very exciting four mile descent which required no pedalling and felt amazing. I imagine it’s a bit like how Rose must have felt at the front of the Titanic, except a) I am not on a doomed ship and b) that bullshit at the bow never happened anyway (also, give him a fucking go on the floating door). At the end of the descent we stopped briefly at a small village called Garrigill, which was either in the middle of a siesta or was all just closed (I’m guessing the latter).
We got back on the bikes and had to haul arse to get out of the village on one of those short but very steep ascents, which feel like they take so much more out of you than longer but lower gradient climbs. At the top of it, there was a sign warning cyclists about the descent, then there are at least half a dozen more ascents to get to the top, which was a bit soul-destroying for my legs at this point. There was also another sign warning us to look out for red squirrels which are endangered in the UK. I wondered if they were extinct as I have never actually seen one. In fact there were more signs warning us about invisible squirrels than there were for the coast to coast route we were following.
Crossing from Cumbria into Northumberland
To be fair when it finally came the descent was fantastically steep and I was glad to be going this way rather than up it. At the end of it was another small village called Nenthead where we took our last brief stop for the day. We knew there was one more steep climb and then it was all downhill to Allenheads, where we would be spending the night in a 17th Century inn. It was a nice feeling when we got to the top of that last climb, to know we could just cruise the rest of the way. We still had to be careful though and mindful of the mindless sheep that were near the road, hoping they didn’t panic and run directly into your path while freewheeling at about 35mph. Thankfully they didn’t, they survived and so did we.
We locked up our bikes and after a couple of celebratory pints we headed up to our room. Obviously we had not ascended enough that day so our room was on the top floor at the back. The room itself was nice enough, considering the building was 300 years old but there was still something off with the physics of it and it was a bit like the first room in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory where the room gets smaller and smaller the closer you get to the door.
We couldn’t complain though, it was a proper pub with great food. I don’t really need to recommend it as if you are ever in Allenheads there isn’t actually anywhere else to stay. Unless you go off-road and sleep in a ditch.
Place name of the day: The aforementioned Nenthead. Sounds like it could have been an insult.
Daniel McChrystal 