Stage5

 

“bottle of Lance Armstrongs finest”

Stage 5 Dunfries to Kendal

Proper day of two half’s today! First bit lovely and flat, second bit horrible and hilly!

Left Dumfries at 7.30am under a bit of a cloud. Everyone feeling a hangover from the day off. Not alcohol induced but tiredness. After 6 days together and about 4 hours sleep a night tempers can become a little frayed!!

First 40 miles lovely and flat, called in Gretna Green for a quick whizz to the shop to buy Scottish tat from an overpriced shop, only to be told by Dave I could have saved some money and bought it all from morrisons probably in the first 3 aisles! Can only assume the vernon household doesn’t have tat!

Just after Gretna we saw the sign for England. Happy days, on me way home now love!

45 miles in twas time for lunch. Just on the edge of the lake district.

We managed to beat the van to our rendezvous point so we stood under a tree to keep dry. We told drive that’s where we were……….. There’s a lot of trees in the lake district!!!

We saw drive turn up at the roundabout we were near, happy days we said and started to walk towards him. Just as he drove off!! Back under the tree, no reception to phone him, let’s wait.

Shortly afterwards he came back,

• Pulled up next to us

• Drove away

• Reversed

• Stopped

• Drove forward

• Stopped

• Drove into someone’s yard

• Stopped

• Reversed

• Disappeared behind some trees

• Reversed some more

• Pulled up next to our tree and shouted at us!!

Choice words aplenty!!!

After lunch we knew it was going to go uphill fast, and it did!!

First mountain took us to just over 1000ft which being such professional cyclists didn’t really bother us to be honest! The down hill was amazing though.

And then……………… The highest point of our journey! The Keswick pass…….. 1500 ft straight up in 3 miles!

This is a mountain that people go on holiday to walk up, this is a mountain where people go to “find themselves” this is a mountain that took me just over an hour to get up!

However, we seem to have a future Tour de France King of the mountains in Mr Christopher Walker.

This is a man who had a “bottle of Lance Armstrongs finest”  went up the hill in one go! In one go ladies and gents. The same hill it took me so long to get up! The whole team looked knackered at the top and couldn’t wait for the downhill.  Downhill at a gradient of 20% don’t take too long! Hit the bottom and made a dash for the hotel.

Unfortunately the hotel is on the opposite side of a busy dual carriageway. Drive came over and said “you can either run across the road or go up about a mile to the roundabout and come back on yourself” by the time he said “you can either” we were already running across with our bikes on our shoulders! There was no way I was going any further!

Just popped in the petrol station to get some Kendal mint cake. Cheaper than a tat shop! See, I do listen to the boss sometimes.

Tomorrow another big day, food then bed.

 

Ben