After disturbing dreams involving sentient cables chasing me I woke up for what was our last day of proper cycling – a 33 mile trip to Brampton. Although we were in the middle of the countryside far away from major towns we still thought today was going to be the easiest day and a nice way to finish off most of our route back to Carlisle. How wrong we were.
As usual I had programmed the route for the day into my Garmin Baghead and after only a few minutes on the B road outside our accommodation we turned off to follow an alleged cycle path. The alarm bells should have been going off at this point as we had to unlock a gate and pass through an actual farm complete with chickens running around everywhere. As we trundled through to the other side of the farm, we closed the gate quickly to prevent any following chickens escaping before realising the chickens just jumped through the holes in the gate anyway. I look back now and wonder if the chickens were chasing us to warn us off going this way.
To be fair it got slightly better for a short time after this as we pedalled up a bumpy but not ridiculous path. A few miles on however we passed a car park with a group of teenagers gearing up for a hike in the direction we were heading and that’s when I thought, perhaps this isn’t a dedicated cycling route. The path got narrower and muddier and narrower until it disappeared and we were left on the middle of a boggy hill in some undefined moorland. Me being stubborn and loyal to my Garmin I stomped on for a few more minutes before conceding defeat and turning around to see John stood there shaking his head slowly. I knew there and then I had lost the Off Road Challenge. Even if John had suggested we find a river and try and pedal down it he still would have beaten me.
We stomped back to the car park, passing the teenagers who looked at us like we were foreign and idiotic (half right), and felt the smooth, compacted gravel below our wheels as we picked up the trail east again. Although I (with help from Garmin) had tried to establish an imaginary, non-existent path directly south to Brampton from our inn I now had to admit that the phantom, paved road did not exist. It made sense of course. As mentioned earlier, hardly any fucker lived round here so why would there be a road from nowhere?
After cycling on a lovely B road for a few miles (funnily enough the same road we had started the day on a lifetime ago) we re-joined a NCN and headed south towards Hadrian’s Wall. The old off-road signs started appearing again but at least we knew now that the route wouldn’t just end on the top of a hill so we made steady progress until we reached Military Road. We were only a short distance from Vindolanda Fort, a Roman military site which actually pre-dated the wall but we didn’t fancy any further excursions so carried on.
I also noticed a couple of signs just before we started on Military Road. A nearby village was called Once Brewed or Twice Brewed depending on which direction you approached from. The legend has it that Yorkist soldiers about to go into battle in 1464 had demanded their beer be brewed again as it lacked its usual fighting strength. It was at this point I wished I had anything brewed in my drink bottle.
We started to make good time on the busy Military Road (fast cars overtaking always adds motivation to pedal faster to get off these roads as soon as possible) until we stopped for a short break in Greenhead. We found a cafe that was just closing for the day (obviously) so sat in the car park to enjoy a sad energy bar and some sad energy drink while we rested our legs. We had about 10 miles to go to get to Brampton.
With the end in sight we got stuck behind a couple of tractors for a few minutes until we could pass and fought against a headwind for the last few miles. It was beginning to feel like the Truman Show where he tries to leave the town but traffic and the elements conspire against him. As we approached Brampton we were cycling parallel to the remains of Hadrian’s Wall.
All that remained tomorrow was a 10 mile jaunt along an A road back to Carlisle before a train ride and a reverse of the ride from Preston to get back home.
Place name of the day: Horneysteads. Indeed.
Daniel McChrystal 