Day 4 Kendal to Newby (near Penrith)

Hello again B Road fans.

Well the start of the was wet and miserable and alarming.......

Here is the route video for today

We woke to the sound of the pitter patter of huge rain drops on the flysheets. The wind has not given up either. In fact it had swung round to the north west, so it was flapping the tents around. When I paid a wee visit for a wee, at about 05:30, I could see hundreds of rabbits on the camp field. Recon some must have snuggled up to the tents over night.

We were slow to get going and only emerged from the tents at about 8am.
Alex had not slept well at all and was just a tad grumpy ;0)
We set up shop in the backpacker hut where we could prepare out breakfast out of the rain which in the conditions was a godsend.
Unfortunately I managed to set off the carbon Monoxide alarm so I had to move the Trangia stoves out side :(
After a breakfast of Porridge and Toast we packed the soaking wet tents away and packed the car.
Alex decided that he was going to see the HardKnott pass and the roman fort. This is a hill climb that Bobby and I did on our coast to coast tour in 2015. It is a very hard hill climb.

As we finished packing up the rain began to ease and we decided that we would start the day without the waterproofs. This proved to be a good move, although it was very grey

Dry but still really grey

Again we were cycling along the lovely leafy lanes

Rolling along the leafy lanes

On the way down to that start of the cycle on Friday Alex and I had driven the reverse of the whole route. We got to this section and got stuck by what we thought was a collapsed bridge. Well today Bobby and I cycled the route and found the bridge to be in good condition

Bridge was fine

The river flowing by.

BUT Just around the corner was the real reason for the road closure

Not much road left.

I am guessing that because it is such a small lane it will be some time before it is fixed.

The major road that we would be on today was the busy A6. I is not the nicest road to be on so we planned to try and take a wee detour through a small valley that would run parallel to the A6. This turned out to be the most picturesque of valleys and was soooo quiet that we only met two cars on the whole section.

Some steep climbs

gentle long downhills

The Garmin was right. But the road was the Very old A6

View back down the valley

Once we emerged on to the A6 we decided to stop for lunch before attempting the climb up to the top of Shap summit.

There are not many quiet places to stop but we found one LOL

We decided to just sit on the road. Not as bad as it would seem

View from Lunch

We thought we had picked a quiet spot but Postman Pat and the Arga man both drove through while we ere camped on the road. Both were having a laugh with us about it.

After a yummy lunch we built up the courage to tackle the climb up to the summit of Shap. It is a realy long way and boy does it get steep in places. At one point you come round a corner and are faced with a steep down hill to the bottom of a small valley and just have to start the climb up again.

HARD WORK! but we got it done.

Todays selfie, taken on the climb up Shap

View back from the top

The memorial at the top

Attempt at a panorama shot in the strong wind

The ride down from the top was bliss. We made excellent time and were soon only 5 miles from the campsite. When I spotted some Limestone pavement in a field. As I had never seen any before I just had to have a look around. I bet the people driving past on the M6 must have wondered what we were doing/

View over to the M6

The loan tree growing out of the pavement

some weird bloke in a helmet

Could be a deep canyon somewhere :0)

From there it was a short hop over the M6 to the campsite again mostly down hill. What a good end to the day. 

Tents up

Buzzed a couple of times by a Chinook.

Pizza time

The results

This Blog has been writing today in the rather plush surroundings of the common room. As we are the only people on site we have this to ourselves.

The blogging desk

The kitchen facilities

The lounge area

The Ballroom :0)

Well that it from Me today. I will hand over to Alex for his part of the day.

Howdy folks.

Guess Who???

Well today started off as mentioned above with grumps and grumbles but I blame the weather and a bad nights sleep for that. While the other two had their days sorted mine started in disarray as I had no clue what I planned to accomplish with all the time I had spare. After successfully packing away my tent in the 3 seconds of a dry spell between downpours, I sat in the car with the AA travel map on my lap deciding what to do with my day. I eventually decided to, as mentioned previously, tackle the hard knots pass and the roman fort that accompanies it. Little did I know the task that was ahead of me. 

The steepest road I have even encountered

Off I went on another adventure in search of this Hard-knots pass that I've heard so much about...

Having successfully navigated some of the narrowest roads I've ever driven on i thought it could not possibly get any worse driving wise... how wrong was I...the roads were now not only narrow but savagely steep and with a huge drop on one side it certainly was a bum clenching moment. After reaching the peak of one pass I decided to pull over and have a break to try and unclench the bum cheeks. As I rested I saw in front of me a mediocre yet still sizeable hill and decided, as I haven't walked up a hill in a while, to conquer it. Against what I'd normally do I decided to just head straight up the face as I saw it and try and reach the peak that way... though my legs were burning by the end I somehow managed to reach the top and the views all around me were worth the pain.

^^ click on it if you really want to see what I saw :P

Having seen an accumulation of vehicles next to my car, I decided to descend the hill and return to the car just in case anyone made off with any of our belongings. Following this accomplishment I then went on to the Hard-Knots pass itself which is by far the steepest and narrowest road I personally have ever driven on. Every twisty-turny section had me on tenterhooks terrified that a car may be coming the other way but to my luck none appeared and the path to the roman fort was clear. The fort itself is nothing but a layout now but this is expected with such structures from that age. 

Sheep that I can only imagine have been there all their lives as the walls are just too high to escape from

To my amusement as I returned to my car I saw a rather old Mercedes failing spectacularly to reach the peak of Hard-Knots pass and having to revers back down the slope due to what I can only guess was a burnt out clutch.

Today on a whole was leaps and bounds better than the previous day and hopefully more of these sort of days to come. Thanks again for listening. Alex out...