Today we need to get an early start. Brenda needs to catch a train in Berwick tonight, 50 miles away. We read all the notes left around about how to operate breakfast, brought in cereal and bacon sandwiches. Not spectacular, would have rather had porridge, but I guess it is fine. Rob checks the bikes and warns me that my back tire was a bit low. I had just changed the front one last night and knew that the back one was slightly low already.
I had broken part of the valve off a week or so before the trip and I could only either leave it the way it was or just change the entire tube, so I had left it the way it was. Once we set off, I make it about 50 yards before my tire really gives up. I guess the rocky road must have finished it off yesterday and it expired during the night.
Crap, but at least this time all my tools and tubes are on the top of my bag. Once the tire is fixed, the mud guard is scraping and making a horrible noise. I've had this trouble all along. I've taken it back to Condor a few times to have them try and adjust it. It just has so little clearance there and once the pressure approaches where it really should be, hard to do with a tiny portable pump, then it scrapes again. A few stops and starts and finally Dave A is able to work that workshop magic and it is perfect. Perfect to this day too, so happy with my bike again.
Problems fixed, off to Scotland now. Waterproofs on since it is raining, I'm sweltering as we start climbing the pass to Carter Bar and stupidly take them off since it stops raining then. Wow, on the way down the pass, it just opens up and it is like riding through a waterfall. I feel beat up in every direction by the wind and rain. But it is so fast going downhill and I keep hoping I'll be to the bottom soon, I don't bother stopping. At the base of the pass, it is much more reasonable, just a light rain then, gee, hardly even noticeable.
This next section is just really pretty. The way to Kelso winds through a few valleys. A few sections are really steep. A gas truck rumbles behind us as we make our way up one of them. We all pull off, except for Brenda, who doesn't want to break her stride. Once out in the open country, is it a bit more gentle. At one farm, a crazy sheep dog comes out to attack us. I really hope that it doesn't get in front of me because the way I'm struggling up the hill, I'm not going to be able to avoid it if it decides to be right where I'm going. No way I can manage any sort of manoeuvering besides just going straight. But I do have to say, it was a really nice stretch of road to travel.
In Kelso, we search for a suitable cafe. A series of signs leads us around in a circle, through a graveyard and past a church to one, but even though it says it is the best cafe in Kelso, or in the world or something, nobody can quite justify paying the prices they are asking. Apparently there is one by the castle, slightly out of the way over that way, so we decide to go try that one. On the way, I spot another candidate, looks organic, crunchy and all that, seems like it might be nice.
The menu looks pretty nice although the portions are a bit small. The soup is good but I get bread envy when later people order the same soup and they get like twice as much bread. No fair. Brenda dubs my open face sandwich as merely a half sandwich. But it is pretty good, mushroom pate, and lots of little things on the side, vegetables and stuff like that. It seems like after a few days on the road, and after too many bacon sandwiches, I'm really craving anything that is green and doesn't have lots of grease in it. So it goes down fine. Apple pudding for dessert and when the rest of the group arrives, we really should go. There is still 25 miles left to go.
We really did kind of peak on this last part. The four of us have our system down perfectly, the road is slightly downhill over all although it is rather lumpy in places. The rain has mostly stopped. We go 17 miles, into the wind, in a single stretch, stop for a quick snack, and realize how sore we are before we rush off to do the last part of it. We cover the entire 25 mile stretch to Berwick in a little bit less than 2 hours, which seems pretty good.
We have a humorous moment as we come to the A road which circles the city. A car pulls up beside us and the guy in the car yells out at us, you guys should be ashamed of yourselves. Huh? I mean we have gotten our share of abusive comments over the last week and fingers and all that. I've been following you for a while and you guys should be ashamed of yourselves for drafting off a lady like that. Brenda had been in the lead for the last mile or so into town. We laugh as he drives off.
But we have gotten to town in plenty of time. We have time to stop by the grocery store for some food, to the Backpackers to check in and leave our stuff there and then we accompany Brenda back to the station to catch her train. As we wait, Dave T makes it there followed a little bit later by most of the rest of the group, so it is a largish delegation to see her off. And then on top of that, when the train arrives, the conductor is rather nice and helps load the bike on the train. GNER, what can you say, they are so much nicer to deal with.
Back to the rooms, can we do some laundry, no, can't do any, ok, maybe you can but you can't dry anything, well, maybe you can dry things if you want. It is probably best because it starts raining again and nothing would have dried on the line very well in that. I feel slightly guilty since I had obnoxiously grabbed the single room. It is a rather strange room, much like the rest of the place. It overlooks the courtyard and the ceiling slopes madly down towards the window. It has a rather cavelike feel to it.
It also has the world's scariest steps leading up to it. The hallway is completely pitch black and the stairs split off into a V shape and are completely irregular. Every time I need to walk up and down them, I have to creep along, feeling ahead at every step so that I don't tumble down them.
We go looking for a drink before dinner. The pub across the street seems fine but doesn't appear to have anything local. So we have to wander around town for another 45 minutes looking for another one before asking somebody in a liquor store for advice and they point us back to the original pub. It had seemed fine to me in the first place but what do I know, I don't quite understand pub culture anyways since it is a somewhat foreign concept to me still. The beer I had there was fine though.
The walk around town was somewhat enlightening though. All of the times I've ridden a train through Berwick, I've thought it looked like the coolest little town and I've always wanted to actually see it up close. The actual reality of the town seems slightly run down and seedy but there are still parts of it that seem really neat. I don't have much time to explore town on my own tonight, I'll have to try and do that tomorrow morning before we leave.
Dinner is in the Indian restaurant across the street. Again, the whole curry concept is somewhat foreign to me, so I don't probably have the mad desire to have it all the time that seems to infect so many here, but the food seems to be good enough, not the best Indian (ok, not actually real Indian, but whatever gets called Indian) but not the worst either.
Back to the room, zoned out after the fast 53 miles today. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that I watched a little bit of the top 101 most embarrassing celebrity slipups, or whatever it was and ended up half asleep before I switched it off and went to sleep.
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