Morning again, up before most everybody else again today. I didn't sleep so well most of the trip, so if I got a bit crabby at times, sorry all. But I had been eyeing that river for a few days now and was determined to try it out. If those local kids could manage it, then surely I could too. I wander around the garden and trees before hand, steeling myself for it. Supposedly there are red squirrels out here somewhere but I never end up seeing them. I did see them in Scotland just back in March, so I'm not overly disappointed. I try to figure out how the mill works too.
There is a waterwheel, but the water must have come in from pretty far upstream, or the river has sunk quite a bit since they used it. Not really sure. But enough goofing around. Yeah, it was cold, quite bracing. It was a hot evening though and my arm wasn't feeling so well, so it was quite refreshing despite the cold.
So, my porridge seemed to go over pretty well yesterday, so I go in and start to make more for breakfast today. We need to move on today, so things have to be packed up and ready to go soon too. My glorious plan to have the perfect packing system in my two bags is already starting to fall apart. When I get a puncture a few days later, the merits (or lack of) of having my tool thingys in the very bottom of my bag are highlighted. Everybody assembles outside and packs their bikes up.
I end up taking one of the left over wine boxes from last night since there is room on my rack. Rob grabbed it off my bike when we reach Carlisle later that evening and I never see it again. Wonder what happened to it.
Our route today will take us west to the coast at Maryport and then we will work our way north and east along the Solway coast and then cut over to Carlisle from there. Matt, Brenda, and I end up in front and speed our way to Maryport. The day is nice and the route is somewhat downhill much of the way. We are quickly there and we stop first to see if we can find any food and then head down to the harbor to take a look at that. It is pretty, lighthouse, Scotland off in the distance, and all that stuff. Eventually we think we should go look for the rest of the group, surely they would be here by now.
We find them on a high overlook and we all decide to head on north to Silloth. But we are not sure of the cafe situation there, so maybe picking up some food, maybe even a picnic sort of situation would be nice. Unfortunately, not much is open in town and the sandwich shop we pick seems completely unprepared to handle more than maybe one or two orders a day. Every time you order something, they have to run upstairs to see if they have it, then to place the order and then keep running up and down to see if it is ready. Maybe one of those hollow tube things they yell into on ships would help them (engine room, full speed ahead). So, it ends up taking absolutely forever to get the food. It is getting so late that I'm tempted to just eat it right there. But I'll hold out. Well, for a few minutes at least.
Back on the road again. We encounter a rather stubborn small child on the north side of town. We have to pass through a gate, the type of go into it, swing it around you and then go through that opening type. (I'm amazed at how many different ways there are to secure a gate. I think in the 10 days, I'm not sure I saw more than 4-5 gates that were secured the same way.) But the gate was barely big enough to take a bike, especially one loaded down with baggage. But he insists on standing there with his tiny bike watching us try to squeeze past him. But that done, off to face traffic and the wind. Our drafting skills are greatly improving now, forming a rather efficient peloton.
But Matt complains about sore feet and wants to stop and shift his shoes around. I take the opportunity to devour my sandwich. So much for waiting for lunch, which is fine because 2nd lunch is at least 20 minutes away. When we arrive, we park our bikes in the park in the center of town and go and join the queue for fish and chips across the street. Still, I don't understand fish and chips. Maybe it would be better if you could slather it with ketchup or something to actually give it flavor, but then again, they always charge like 20p for each of the tiny little bags of ketchup. And so much oil too, it hits hard in the stomach. (Fish and chips moratorium, in addition to the bacon one.)
We set off again after lunch. Dave A seems keen to try the drafting rotation. Although the first time he leads, he zooms off and we all have to try and chase him down. Well, his first shift was on a horribly potholed road too and that adds to the challenge. His next shift, he never takes his eyes off the speedometer and maintains a steady 12.77 mph. A little practice and we all have it down pretty well. Around the coast and inland for a bit until we pop out on the north side and see the ocean and Scotland off in the distance. We stop just inside a gate for a snack and then head off again for Port Carlisle for the meet up point for lunch.
The rest of the group was supposed to take the shorter route and not take the whole route around the peninsula. Maybe they did, maybe not, I don't know, out of sight, out of mind. But they show up for lunch a bit after we get there. And Gary and Aileen had a train to catch in Carlisle so they had to rush out there ahead of us.
The town of Port Carlisle is hopping. A bowling tournament is in high gear across the street from the pub. They all look sharp in their whites. The competition looks fierce. Apparently the home team eventually wins, so all is right with the world. We try a variety of tables in the pub and eventually settle on one outside in the back. Four teas please. Umm, and a latte. Brenda makes the poor bartender struggle with the machine, taking, it must have been five minutes to make that latte. All that work and he charges like a ridiculous 80p or something for it. (Ok, compared to what prices they normally command.)
We try a variety of industrial strength pre-packaged cakes. They claim to be different flavors, but mostly they seem to be a bit of spongy doughy things with a thick coating of sugar on the outside. Amazingly, some of them don't get finished.
Once the rest of the group arrives and has their drinks and food, we wander off to look at the old canal, see, Port Carlisle is the port for the inland Carlisle. Then back on the bikes and off for the last bit of the day. I can't remember much of the stuff before Carlisle, so I don't think it was terribly memorable then.
Carlisle is fairly big. We have no idea where we are going, just have an address and a map that vaguely shows us where the train station is. We could have sworn that Caroline and Dave A were right behind us as we get to town but maybe not. We go way out of the way, busy roads, large circle off ramp and end up down in the pedestrianized central part of town. We find the train station but Gary and Aileen's train already left a few minutes before, so we couldn't say good bye. Hmm, now where, anybody know where we are going? We have an address but have no idea where it would be. Eventually we ask a few people and get a general direction to travel.
Once we find the place, we are slightly surprised that we were the first ones there since it took us a really long time to find the place. The B&B owner seems slightly stressed out by the room arrangements and spends about 10 minutes going over and over them with us. Brenda gets a single room and Matt is slightly sick so he takes the other one to not spread whatever it is he has. The remaining rooms are some sort of arrangement of twins, doubles, triples, or I'm so glazed over from his explanations (and the sun and the need for a shower) I have no idea what they are. The only thing that ends up registering is that here, you are in this room number, it is a double, and something about Dave T. Then he explains it a few more times and it makes even less sense.
See, I see where I went wrong, just tell me, this room has one bed, this one has two, etc. Don't deal with technical terms like twin/double/etc. Especially when I'm tired and just want him to stop so I can go take a shower.
I get to the room, oh no, this can't be good. That bed (the one bed in the room) is tiny. Now, I have nothing against Dave T but I tell you, that bed would be much too cozy sharing it with anybody, whoever they might be. First things first, must shower then I can be distressed later. So, after Dave A and Caroline arrive, my panic returns and we go and get the explanation again from the B&B guy. Dave T is actually in another room, so everything is fine. I still don't know what that guy was going on about, but all was right in my world, so that's good then.
So dinner, it is a B&B so we must go searching for food then. Caroline had been in town before so she said X, can't remember the name of the place, was pretty cheap and the food and beer were fine. And yeah, it was, nothing amazing but the chicken sandwich was fine. What was it, black sheep ale or something, was nice too. And apparently my sandwich isn't sold without a beer, so I had to have another one when that arrived too. Great trauma, I tell you. We sit outside and enjoy the night, the last warm and nice day for a while.
Bedtime. I think like 57 miles for the day.
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