Day 10 - Day off!

As you can probably guess from the title, not a lot happened on our one day off in the trip. Lot of junk food was eaten, some TV was watched and the odd card tower made.

Oh, and Dave found a gun/knife shop and spent a fair amount of time in there.

Day 9 - Balloch to Fort William (Via Rannoch Moor)

Departing from the B&B on a full stomach and three or four cups of tea we quickly made our way up the side of Loch Lomond. All went fairly well until we left the Drover's Inn (Yeah, the one mentioned earlier) after.

Inside the Drover's is really quiet impressive, see for yourself:

Everything after the Drover's Inn was an uphill struggle, with a mixture of strong head winds, rubbish road surface and having to climb over rannoch moor. But for every up, there is a down! To be precise, half hour of downhill through the winding roads of glencoe towards the end of the day. (No chance of going back the same way though!)

We turned into a bunkhouse just just before 10pm, turned out to be around the same price as a campsite...so why not!

Day 8 - Crawford to Balloch

Following all hints not to go through Glasgow, we spent the day going around it, finding the closer you get to Glasgow, the more cars try to kill you. Towards the end of the day, we reached the Erskine bridge...things got very very wet after this point.

Just look at the picture for the contrast in weather (Sunny south on the right, black clouds of doom to the left...guess where we're heading).

After cowering in a phone box for 10mins from the torrential rain, we were rescued by Mark & Steve, the cyclists heading to John O'Groats from earlier. After some much needed piss taking by these guys, we headed up towards Loch Lomond.

At Balloch we stopped for the first time in a week in a real bed....amazing! There were two meals that night, real tea, a shower, clean cloths & a full English in the morning. What more can you ask for really?

Day 7 - To Scotland!

We woke up (quiet late) to find that our route had suddenly crossed over with the guys doing Lands End to John O'Groats. Every Pub after this point quickly identified us as cyclists (not entirely sure why, we didn't exactly 'look the part'....perhaps it's just that look of 'argh....feed me!').

We were eased into the first part of the 100 mile trek towards Glasgow by some friendly company in the form of two guys doing Lands End to John O'Groats. When our paths parted, they brought us both a couple of drinks, which was very much appreciated indeed at the end of the day. Over the next few days we regularly bumped into these two as it turned out we were heading along the same road up to Fort William after all!

Before stopping for the night, we stopped at a pub in Crawford. Here we met a couple of very jolly fellows who gave us this advice:

"Whatever you do, you have to go to the Drovers Inn!" (At least 6 times....you really do have to go to the Drover's Inn, seriously.)

"When you get to the Drover's Inn, you must have the Steak Pie!" (again, he wasn't wrong)

"Aye, if ye go over the the way....I say boot a mile or so.....*slur* there be a wee place where ye can free camp. Anyone can go up there, its free." (this goes on for a while and a little open to interpretation)

"....So do you know anything about Crawford? You do know it's the most haunted village in the UK right?" (thanks guys)

Me: "Oh, right. So we can order pizza to the woods then. Worked on Top Gear, honestly."

Day 6 - Lancaster to Carlisle

By this point we'd got ourselves a day a head of schedule by pure madness and a lack of knowing when to stop. So much madness that Dave had managed to work his bottom bracket loose. After a quick fix at Kendal, we headed on through the Lake District.

Some important food facts:

Three ice creams from iceland one after the other = good

Fruit loaves that are the best part of your GDA from asda = better

Moving on, we arrived in Penrith around 6-7pm and were thinking of finding somewhere to sleep for the night. For lack of a better option, and just to see what happened we found a local police station.

Apparently, police cells arn't open to the public....even if your a few hundred miles into a 1000mile trip. Oh well, at least we tried.
Sleeping arrangements got worse after this, after getting kicked out of a field (people are less welcoming around these parts) we carried on through Carlisle. In the end, we simply pitched by the roadside for the night.

[Aside:
If your a police officer in the Lake District, you really do need a rally car!]

Day 5 - Liverpool to Lancaster

With a very wet start to the day and waterproofs giving in, we decided to hide for a while in a MC Donald's. After a couple of minutes of standing around for a few minutes a wet floor sign was put up due to the puddle we'd created!

Eventually, we made our way to the Liverpool tunnel. This is apparently closed to cyclists apart from on Sundays :S. Given that it wasn't a Sunday, we were forced to take the train across.

This turned out to be a complicated experience given the platform was several floors below the entrance. Getting a bike with panniers and a tent into a small lift is an art in itself.

Once across the other side of the tunnel, we headed up to Preston. Arriving in Preston we decided enough was enough and a change of cloths was in order.

A place to change was eventually pointed out to us after a lengthy explanation as to why we needed to take loaded panniers into a shopping mall to the security team (twice).

Feeling thoroughly refreshed we pressed on towards Lancaster, stopping once more to ask for somewhere to sleep for the night. This was a more interesting experience than the previous time, meeting a fellow Scientist who originally taught in Hull. We also had directions and advice of "not Lancaster" from a Swiss chef, before heading once more for the coast!

After being persuaded that camping on the beach wasn't a good idea, we headed off once more into the night, but not before some fish and chips by the sea. At around 11pm, we'd had enough and Dave decided flagging down a random jogger would be a good idea. After advice of "camp anywhere" and not believing said jogger, we headed for a pub for better local info.

It turns out the jogger was spot on, as we were offered a variety of fields, barns and a morning brew by farmers and the like. We ended up setting up camp in a field at the back of the pub at midnight. Thanks, to all farmers around Carnforth!

Day 4 - On the road again

The plan for the day was to slowly make our way up to the north coast of Wales, stopping after 3 miles or so instead of having a day off after Snowdon. We didn't.

By lunchtime we had made it up to Conwy by the coast, so decided to head off on the A55 towards Liverpool. Apparently one 5 is good (i.e. A5), but even numbers of 5 is very bad indeed (A55) as for some reason cyclists are not permitted on this road.

No matter though! We found a better way, closer to the coast. It turns out there is a very flat, very smooth cycle route that follows the coast all the way round to Flint (Fflint if your Welsh). For those wishing to cycle along this splendid piece of genius (highly recommended), its cycle route 5! (naturally).

Quote of the day: "Slow down, your back wheel's going faster than the front!"

Turning point: Here we gave up on campsites, and opted instead for asking random people "Say, if you had a tent...where would you sleep round here?" Best reaction out of these being "My bed"