LEJOG Day 20 - Penrith to Gretna Green, Scotland

Crossing the border into Scotland today.  After a long day and a hilly day, it will be interesting to have a border crossing day. Gretna Green is featured in romance novels as the place where the young lovers escape to so they can be married without a license.

Weather is 10-14 degrees today, winds with south in them, rain this morning and fining up in the afternoon.  Will we have the fabled tailwind?

As we travel further North, the routes become fewer, until when we get to the furthest points where there will only be one road and route to take.  Aside from the odd city / large town, the navigation duties will be greatly reduced - which will be refreshing compared to some areas in the South where at times I felt like I was spending more time looking at the screen than the scenery!

U.K. National Cycle Network routes

Had a conversation yesterday, as we were pedalling uphill and sheltering under trees from the rain, about whether we would do this trip again.  The answer is no - not because we haven’t liked it.  In fact, although it’s been really hard, we’ve loved it!  However, not being morbid about it but practically, in looking at our physical capability span and annual time available, we could do a big bike trip 20ish more times?  If that is the case, then there’s so many more to do - it’s not yet time to be repeating our pedalling journeys!  EuroVelo / wine regions of France next perhaps?!  

EuroVelo

That is a digression and the big focus is cimpleting THIS trip as we’re not done yet!

And on that note, stop press, as of 1:30 today we made it to Scotland!!!  That is 697 miles so far!

Today, after leaving the ‘least good’ place that we’ve stayed in so far (there is NO way that place got so many ‘real’ 5-star reviews!), the route was absolutely fantastic.  It was fairly fast, no tow paths, quiet roads and beautiful scenery.  We even enjoyed the ‘roller coaster’ roads - steep downs with enough momentum to get us at least half way up the next steep up.  Also, enjoyed Steve singing Scottish songs along the way.  Getting through Carlisle was quick and easy on the cycle paths into, through and out of town.  Winds stayed from the north and there was no tailwind, but it was a nice autumn day.

Last of the Lake District hills in the distance

Another farm - we see 10-15 of these an hour

Photo taking patience

Day breaking 

Cow-jam

Watching as they all head up the path, all 140 of them 

Rose Castle

Carlisle Castle

Had a good second breakfast in a little ‘front room’ cafe - they’d taken the downstairs of a 2-down /  2-up house and made it into a cafe.  We walked in, through the kitchen and into the front room where there were no tables so we were going to leave when a group of ‘likkle olds’ insisted we sit with them.  

Haven’t seen one of these before

Front room cafe

A ‘can’t finish it all’ breakfast

We picked up the signs to Gretna, 3 miles.  Hey, wait a minute, the gpx route says 11 miles!  Compared both.  The gpx route did a big circular before heading into Gretna.  Google bicycle maps took a left on a B road and went directly into Gretna.  We’ll take the direct route today, thank you!

Two ongoing ‘challenges have been resolved - the princess and the pea pain on the ball of my foot and the mystery squeak, squeak, squeak that we’ve had on every pedal rotation for the past 3 days.   The Engineer will cover the squeaking.  The foot pain resolution turned out to be quite simple, I was pulling the 2  Velcro tabs across my toes too tight.  If I leave those loose and only tighten up the ankle strap, no ball of foot pain!  Thank god for that.

There’s an outlet mall here, but no room for shopping ☹️.  Dinner at the hotel, it’s a small town, mostly chippies.

Counties in Scotland

The estuary pouring into the Irish Sea

Our first Scottish county

Gretna, famous for weddings, Old Toll Bar Cafe - over 10,000 weddings

Lands End, John O’Groats - the short route

Gretna pub

Penrith to Gretna

First Scottish pint

We made it, to Scotland that is!

LEJOG Day 20 - Stop Press!

 As of 1:30 today, we made it to Scotland!!!  697 miles to date!

LEJOG Day 19 - Kendal to Penrith

In Cumbria now!  Shorter day today, but with the big climb over Shap.  Rainy early so we’re having a leisurely start, as today is only 26 miles (not forgetting that big hill in the middle though!).  Chilly like yesterday, 52 / 11 degrees, so many clothes on, but not ALL the clothes.

Like yesterday, we’ve done today’s route before (seems so long ago) during the Shakedown Pedal.  It will be interesting to see how it feels this time - will we be stronger?  As Steve mentioned in yesterday’s comment, we are about 10 lbs lighter, 5 lbs each, but the warmer gear is about 6 lbs heavier so pretty much the same.

I have repeatedly evaluated the gear to see where we could reduce the weight.  When Steve wanted to take 3 sets of day cycling gear, I wondered if we’d really only need 2.  In the southern half, the heat wasn’t on in most of the places we stayed so things weren’t drying overnight so couldn’t guarantee that it would be ready for the next day, or even the day after that, and we need dry clothes every day.  The tools and chain lube we’ve used over and over so no cutting back.  Need the lock.  Have used virtually everything packed in the wash kits, day-to-day and ‘maybe we’ll needs’.  Stuff to wear at night?  Could cut back on a couple things for me, but Steve’s ‘man things’ are heavy so won’t really make a difference - and we won’t be wearing cycling gear in the evening.

Made it up and over Shap today, even with a view.  As we pedalled up, the hills weren’t even visible due to the clouds so we thought we’d have some great pictures of mist obscuring everything, but it worked out so that when we got to the top there was a break in the clouds for long enough to have a snack and get some photos! 

Climbing out of Kendal

Can see the first set of hills

Clearing skies and warming up

Sheep way, way up there and bracken covered hills

They watch as we slowly pedal by…

Cyclist in the mist…

A bit of sun breaking through as we reached the top

More bracken

Looking back at what we climbed!

Made it!

Stopped at one of our favourite cafes, The Abbey Kitchen in Shap.  Sheltered from a couple showers under trees as we headed into Penrith.

The Abbey Kitchen, again

The verdict is in - we are stronger, it’s a bit easier, but we’re not any faster!  We’re going up more hills on the bike rather than pushing, just pushing on the really steep ones now. The trip over Shap was nowhere near as gaspingly difficult as last time.

Fun talking with people on the way.  Had a guy on a bike turn around to talk to us because ‘people with panniers are always interesting’. A lady today waited quite a while for a break in traffic to make a u-turn so she could chat with us about her trip to Scotland a couple of weeks ago and find out where we were going.

Funny B&B, early rudeness, but we think they have redeemed themselves.  There was a tub and a heated towel rail. M  Had a bit of a search in town for a restaurant (it is Saturday night), but found a decent Italian and had a lovely evening.  

The Robin Hood Pub

Really, that’s all the wine you have?

So interesting!  This is seems to be the style for walk toopings up here - would love to know where it ordinated from!

After a nice dinner at Giannia’s in Penrith and a walk back to the B&B for a big rest!

On the ‘How cool is that?!’ list - sister Madge’s friend Alison texted her asking if we were going to be in Penrith tonight as she had seen a couple on a tandem - that was us!  What are the chances that family friends from the US are going to spot us in Cumbria while we’re on our LEJOG trip?!  Amazing!

Good day, better than expected…

LEJOG Day 18 - Home to Kendal

The laundry is done, the bike has been serviced, the bodies are rested - time to start the second half!  

It was good having a couple days to recoup and figure out our strategy going forward.  Although we thought we had trained pretty thoroughly, we’ve found two gaps.  The first is the extended number of hours we would spend in the saddle is much more than we trained for.  We typically would knock off a day of 40-50 miles in about 4 hours.  Due to the hills, it’s taking us longer, much longer.  Our record is 8.5 hours to do 45 miles.  And due to the climb after climb we’re in the seat longer ( or pushing 😂).  That’s why the bums are taking so very long to toughen up.

The second training gap, which thankfully we discovered on the Manchester to home day, is heavy rain and cold all day - getting very wet and very cold.  We’ve obviously been out in the rain before, we live in Lancashire!  But, we haven’t sought out a cold, wet, chucking it down rainy day - because why would you leave this to go out in the rain!

L

We should have, for no other reason than to test the gear in those conditions.  Knowing what we know now, we’ve rejigged the packed gear and upped the warm clothes throughout.

Left home at about 9:15.  Pedalled up Revidge, pedalled up to Longridge.  Went to Scorton for second breakfast. Very much our usual stomping grounds, so familiar with the route.  Out to Glasson Dock and the rail trail to Lancaster.  Actually it passes Lancaster which works well for us.  Then up into the Lake District through the parklands of an estate, swinging past a stately home as we went through and then taking a different route from there to Kendal is time - to avoid the aggravating bits from last time - many steep hills, no views.  We got the views and then some!  One last very sharp climb (push) and then the descent into Kendal.

The Sonata Guest House seems to be okay, clean and a quick walk to food.  Had to lock the bike inside their outdoor front railing, we’ll see how it is in the morning 🤞.  Dinner was at a very bustling Italian, good food and a nice bottle of Falangina.

Not as wiped out as when we did this trip 700 odd miles ago which is very nice indeed! 

Better run to Kendal this time!

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On top of the Lake Distrust 

Yep, this one’s going to take a while 

One of the prettiest spots I’ve ever been!

We’ll push that one 

Rest stop

The view keeps getting better and better

We should come here more often

Rt 700, on the way to Kendal

A lake in the Lake District

Old stone bridge

A stately home

A pub stop, just for a Diet Pepsi 

Village street

Old church

The hills in the distance

Train bridge on the way into Lancaster

In Scorton

Lovely first day of the 4th section.  We’re over 600 miles now!

A favourite

Night out at an Italian in Kendal