Ern1e
Über Member
- Location
- ROSSENDALE LANCS.
Thankyou for such a riviting read and the pictures are superb ! I must confess this is something I would love to do and reading this well I think it's got to go on the "to do" list.
lellow bike, 'nover lellow bike exclaimed the little girl...
- Thread starter SatNavSaysStraightOn
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OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 8 (part 1 of 2) - Saturday 6th September 2014
Dalton Piercy - 96.56km
Well no-one came around for the camp fees and with nothing displayed, no honesty box and not even anywhere to leave some money (I had even left a voicemail message saying we were trying to pay…), last night became our cheapest night so far! Free. And the musical chickens were up and out this morning and entertaining Stuart no end – he is so easily entertained! It rained last night, but luckily by 6am this morning was easing off and starting to stop – breakfast was taken under the sheltered kitchen area of the campsite and whilst I took down a wet tent, it was dry all day bar one brief shower whilst cycling up a long, hot, sweaty hill and to be honest, the shower was a relief! It is also the first rain we have had during the day since leaving home 8 days ago!
The morning was pretty much spent cycling old disused, converted railways, dodging pedestrians and dog walkers and finding our route. We also spotted several curlews and herons on the Tyne estuary, but sadly with the light (grey and flat) against a grey mudflats on grey water, with grey (ish) birds, they would not have really been anything to see on a photo, so they were not photo’ed but the curlews in particular were very close to the cycleway; if only the light had been better….
The Wylam Waggonway was one of many paths today.
It was also spent with a realisation of what a lucky escape we had had and this was to become more and more apparent as the day went on. We were meant to have had a rest day by now, and should have been here tomorrow… Here being cycling through Newcastle Upon Tyne which is hosting the Great North Run tomorrow… lucky escape or what? As it was there were some events on and Newcastle was exceptionally busy and a part of the HCW was diverted (somewhere around the Millennium bridge). We stopped off at a cycling café just passed the bridge for a coffee and toast and whilst I was sitting at a bench watching over the bikes a cycling instructor (bikeability) came up to me to ask me if I was there for lessons – all I could do was smile, point to the 2 touring bikes (next to the table I was at) and comment that I thought I may be a bit passed that stage! Thankfully he saw the funny side of his mistake and after a quick chat about what we were doing went off to find his ‘pupils’ for the day!
Spotted - hard to miss really, somewhere between Newcastle Upon Tyne (sorry but I grew up in that other Newcastle so just have to use its correct name...
) and Tyneside.
Then we set out to find the end of the HCW on the north side of the River Tyne & also hunt down some gas for the trangia… I managed to get a good picture of Stuart with the end/start sign and then the sun came out, so the picture with both of us in it, isn’t quite so good…
View from the north side's East End/Start of Hadrian's Cycle Way. For some peculiar reason the end point is part way up a little steep climb... not at the top of it, or the bottom, but part way up!
Testing the lights OK... yep - now need to find somewhere to balance the camera or a person... no people around...
Err - not so good... oh well - I never look good on photos anyhow!
Cycling back towards the ferry, I spotted the old marker buoys that have the relevant NCR numbers painted on them – photo opportunity if ever there was one…
What to do with retired buoys! I know paint them and mark them up as cyclists signs!
A touch of light....
And then it was to the ferry for the end point on the south side of the river… The wait for the ferry was longer than hoped for but I did spot this marker sign for NCR 1 & 72. I saw it last time we were here but didn't photo it... this time I intended to...
Now where else can we randomly put NCN signs? inside of a doorway on a ferry that is only visible when the door is open? Yeh - that will be fine...
Dalton Piercy - 96.56km
Well no-one came around for the camp fees and with nothing displayed, no honesty box and not even anywhere to leave some money (I had even left a voicemail message saying we were trying to pay…), last night became our cheapest night so far! Free. And the musical chickens were up and out this morning and entertaining Stuart no end – he is so easily entertained! It rained last night, but luckily by 6am this morning was easing off and starting to stop – breakfast was taken under the sheltered kitchen area of the campsite and whilst I took down a wet tent, it was dry all day bar one brief shower whilst cycling up a long, hot, sweaty hill and to be honest, the shower was a relief! It is also the first rain we have had during the day since leaving home 8 days ago!
The morning was pretty much spent cycling old disused, converted railways, dodging pedestrians and dog walkers and finding our route. We also spotted several curlews and herons on the Tyne estuary, but sadly with the light (grey and flat) against a grey mudflats on grey water, with grey (ish) birds, they would not have really been anything to see on a photo, so they were not photo’ed but the curlews in particular were very close to the cycleway; if only the light had been better….
The Wylam Waggonway was one of many paths today.
It was also spent with a realisation of what a lucky escape we had had and this was to become more and more apparent as the day went on. We were meant to have had a rest day by now, and should have been here tomorrow… Here being cycling through Newcastle Upon Tyne which is hosting the Great North Run tomorrow… lucky escape or what? As it was there were some events on and Newcastle was exceptionally busy and a part of the HCW was diverted (somewhere around the Millennium bridge). We stopped off at a cycling café just passed the bridge for a coffee and toast and whilst I was sitting at a bench watching over the bikes a cycling instructor (bikeability) came up to me to ask me if I was there for lessons – all I could do was smile, point to the 2 touring bikes (next to the table I was at) and comment that I thought I may be a bit passed that stage! Thankfully he saw the funny side of his mistake and after a quick chat about what we were doing went off to find his ‘pupils’ for the day!
Spotted - hard to miss really, somewhere between Newcastle Upon Tyne (sorry but I grew up in that other Newcastle so just have to use its correct name...
) and Tyneside.Then we set out to find the end of the HCW on the north side of the River Tyne & also hunt down some gas for the trangia… I managed to get a good picture of Stuart with the end/start sign and then the sun came out, so the picture with both of us in it, isn’t quite so good…
View from the north side's East End/Start of Hadrian's Cycle Way. For some peculiar reason the end point is part way up a little steep climb... not at the top of it, or the bottom, but part way up!
Testing the lights OK... yep - now need to find somewhere to balance the camera or a person... no people around...
Err - not so good... oh well - I never look good on photos anyhow!
Cycling back towards the ferry, I spotted the old marker buoys that have the relevant NCR numbers painted on them – photo opportunity if ever there was one…
What to do with retired buoys! I know paint them and mark them up as cyclists signs!
A touch of light....
And then it was to the ferry for the end point on the south side of the river… The wait for the ferry was longer than hoped for but I did spot this marker sign for NCR 1 & 72. I saw it last time we were here but didn't photo it... this time I intended to...
Now where else can we randomly put NCN signs? inside of a doorway on a ferry that is only visible when the door is open? Yeh - that will be fine
...
Last edited:
OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 8 (Part 2 of 2)
The late ferry also meant we were not able to spend as much time at the south end of HCW as we had hoped. I needed food because I was getting the shakes (one of my medical conditions (Addison's disease) requires careful food management if I am not to get the shakes and need hospital attention) and unfortunately we had not managed to purchase any bread for lunch yet. At Fort Arbeia one of the men working there volunteered to take our photo at the Fort, which was really kind of him, but I did managed to have a quick look around the indoor museum. Whilst it is great to have finally completely a UK ‘long’ distance cycle path, it is quite an odd feeling as well…
Spotted whilst cycling towards the South End point of HCW...
The other end/start point of HCW - confusing isn't it. There are 2 of them on the East side of HCW... one on the north side of the river and one on the south. So which one do you set out from/end at? Both naturally!
Arbeia Fort
Arbeia Fort
Lunch ended up being a chip butty, but the chips were nowhere near as good as the ones at Allonby… Then we needed to escape the setup chaos that was the Great North Run… Oh I am glad we were not doing this the day of the run… talk about a lucky escape!
I had planned the route to follow NCR 1 this time, rather than freelancing out of Tyneside/South Shields as we had done when we were here 3 years ago, but I don’t think I had really taken into account the variation of surfaces we would encounter… Both of us liked the route, but we were both very grateful that we had not done it 3 years ago! I’m not entirely sure where we came across a massive flock of starlings, but they lined the roofs of a block of terraces, a village hall and all the surrounding trees but it was a great sight to see. I only wish we had been there around dusk…
Somewhere around here (on the NCR 1) on that long uphill where we over took quite a few mtb’ers it also tried raining on us…. I say try because it was one of those, where is that coming from – don’t care it is quite refreshing rains which lasted for about a minute of fine cool rain and then disappeared again…
Further on and the range of surfaces on NCR 1 was, well interesting. It went from broken tarmac, to shingle/shale, to large chunks of rock that our tyres rebounded off, back to tarmac, earth, mud, muddy single track and bizarrely, at one point board walks! I say bizarrely because I thought we were cycling along a converted disused railway, we were at the top of a long hill (where we had had great fun overtaking many mountain bikers…) and suddenly it resembled an abandoned canal with boardwalks for the only option…. Stuart nearly got to rescue a female cyclist who almost came off in front of him – we were at a passing point on the boardwalks when a long line of cyclists came through, she was the last cyclist and well, panicked for some reason, hit the brakes that hard that the rear wheel came off the ground by well over a foot and how she didn’t end up in the water was beyond all of us!
Why do hills never look as steep or the surface as bad in photos?
This bit ended up being a 1st gear grind simply from lack of grip... my rear wheel was spinning all over the place.
This was a disused railway, honest!
It was also at the top of a hill... Luckily boards don't phase either of us and these were more than wide enough and then there were even passing places!
We finally arrived at the campsite too knackered to really care that we were less than 3.5km off a metric century. We have stayed at this campsite before, but sadly it appears that they are trying to stop taking tents now, however with us having stayed before, they took us. The plan is to stay here for 2 nights, they have good facilities including washing machines and dryers… Sadly there are no musical chickens for entertainment, but it does seem that the local children (schools have not yet gone back here) think we are the entertainment! £10 per night for the 2 of us.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296272
The late ferry also meant we were not able to spend as much time at the south end of HCW as we had hoped. I needed food because I was getting the shakes (one of my medical conditions (Addison's disease) requires careful food management if I am not to get the shakes and need hospital attention) and unfortunately we had not managed to purchase any bread for lunch yet. At Fort Arbeia one of the men working there volunteered to take our photo at the Fort, which was really kind of him, but I did managed to have a quick look around the indoor museum. Whilst it is great to have finally completely a UK ‘long’ distance cycle path, it is quite an odd feeling as well…
Spotted whilst cycling towards the South End point of HCW...
The other end/start point of HCW - confusing isn't it. There are 2 of them on the East side of HCW... one on the north side of the river and one on the south. So which one do you set out from/end at? Both naturally!
Arbeia Fort
Arbeia Fort
Lunch ended up being a chip butty, but the chips were nowhere near as good as the ones at Allonby… Then we needed to escape the setup chaos that was the Great North Run… Oh I am glad we were not doing this the day of the run… talk about a lucky escape!
I had planned the route to follow NCR 1 this time, rather than freelancing out of Tyneside/South Shields as we had done when we were here 3 years ago, but I don’t think I had really taken into account the variation of surfaces we would encounter… Both of us liked the route, but we were both very grateful that we had not done it 3 years ago! I’m not entirely sure where we came across a massive flock of starlings, but they lined the roofs of a block of terraces, a village hall and all the surrounding trees but it was a great sight to see. I only wish we had been there around dusk…
Somewhere around here (on the NCR 1) on that long uphill where we over took quite a few mtb’ers it also tried raining on us…. I say try because it was one of those, where is that coming from – don’t care it is quite refreshing rains which lasted for about a minute of fine cool rain and then disappeared again…
Further on and the range of surfaces on NCR 1 was, well interesting. It went from broken tarmac, to shingle/shale, to large chunks of rock that our tyres rebounded off, back to tarmac, earth, mud, muddy single track and bizarrely, at one point board walks! I say bizarrely because I thought we were cycling along a converted disused railway, we were at the top of a long hill (where we had had great fun overtaking many mountain bikers…) and suddenly it resembled an abandoned canal with boardwalks for the only option…. Stuart nearly got to rescue a female cyclist who almost came off in front of him – we were at a passing point on the boardwalks when a long line of cyclists came through, she was the last cyclist and well, panicked for some reason, hit the brakes that hard that the rear wheel came off the ground by well over a foot and how she didn’t end up in the water was beyond all of us!
Why do hills never look as steep or the surface as bad in photos?
This bit ended up being a 1st gear grind simply from lack of grip... my rear wheel was spinning all over the place.
This was a disused railway, honest!
It was also at the top of a hill... Luckily boards don't phase either of us and these were more than wide enough and then there were even passing places!We finally arrived at the campsite too knackered to really care that we were less than 3.5km off a metric century. We have stayed at this campsite before, but sadly it appears that they are trying to stop taking tents now, however with us having stayed before, they took us. The plan is to stay here for 2 nights, they have good facilities including washing machines and dryers… Sadly there are no musical chickens for entertainment, but it does seem that the local children (schools have not yet gone back here) think we are the entertainment! £10 per night for the 2 of us.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296272
Dave 123
Legendary Member
- Location
- Cambridgeshire alps
Excellent, as ever!
OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 09 - Sunday 7th September
Today was a rest day, spent washing, eating, cleaning & drying clothes and cycling kit and moving the tent away from some very noisy neighbours in a caravan the otherside of the hedge! It was also spent eating and doing our best to eat our way through the Tesco Extra which was just (OK 13km bike ride) down the road... Their supply of vegan/dairy free veggie food was severely depleted...
Day 10 - Monday 8th September 2014
Fylingdales Moor - 85.9km
Last night Stuart asked a seemingly simple question regarding the Middlesbrough Transporter bridge – namely what time did it start running in the morning? Last time we had arrived on a Bank Holiday to use it and it had not long started running that day… So simply humouring him (this was after all a Monday morning, and not a bank holiday or a Sunday…) I looked it up. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it has been closed since January for repairs and a repaint! An alternative was needed and rather quickly and there are not many alternatives to the transporter bridge as it turns out! In fact for cyclists, there is only 1 alternative – the A1048 and it is a not a great alternative – but better than the A19 on a Monday morning. So with that sorted we settled down for the night – it was already starting to get chilly; in fact it is finally cool enough (not cold enough, just cool enough) to start using the sleeping bag as a bag rather than a quilt!
The morning dawned bright and sunny and before long we had a dry tent to take down despite a very heavy dew and internal condensation. It still never ceases to amaze me at how quickly this Hilleberg tent dries out after a quick wipe down! Not much really happened other than it clouding over by 8am. We got to the alternative bridge we had planned only to find it too was closed and the traffic was diverted onto the A19... We looked at the A19 – it was stationary so would not have actually been too bad, but decided to take the standard cyclist approach and ignore the road closed signs and were ‘rewarded’ with a small ‘access for cyclists and pedestrians has been maintained’ sign! That made life much easier and yes, the bridge was closed and just to make life fun the pedestrian/cyclist access side was the side we were not on and didn’t have a dropped curb… (This is a problem on a laden touring bike, I can’t just pick my bike up and lift it up the curb and even bouncing the bike up a higher curb can be difficult!)
We quickly re-found the planned route, picked up fresh bread and further on down the ‘road’ soon reached the conclusion that the planned route was not suitable for touring cyclists and tbh was may not have been a bridlepath either – but we only decided on that when we made it to the far side and failed to get our bikes through a locked gate (having cycled round the edges of numerous fields and tracks to get there)… bikes unloaded, lifted over the gate and re-loaded we were soon on our way again, but today was going to be one of those days… We soon found our way blocked. One way led to a farm and the other ‘access’ was a footpath and therefore not a valid option (laden touring bikes and styles are not compatible even if you are pushing the bike up the footpath…)
We had until this point been trying our hardest to avoid the A171 which runs from Middlesbrough south up and over the North York Moors. It is the main road that runs along the east coast and I wasn’t that keen to cycle it to be honest! It was also a national speed limit dual carriageway at that point… However, someone, somewhere was smiling on us today because the entire length of dual carriageway had the inside lane coned off in both directions for grass and hedge cutting and given that they had already cut the grass on our side, we had our own private lane!
Whilst cycling along this section, a roadie caught us up and pulled alongside Stuart for a chat, commenting that we were ‘well laden’… actually we are not, but hey ho… He then took great delight in informing us that the North York Moors are not flat… What is it with road cyclists and the <insert swear word here> North Yorks Moors? (This happened last time as well!) We know it is not flat... do you really think touring cyclists are that naïve?
Lunch was taken at the top of the first climb (15%) which we both did without stopping and which we both did on the pavement (sorry folks but it was safer than the d/c up the climb) and strangely we never encountered any pedestrians walking up the climb!
Lunch time views (or toilet view - read below!)
Lunch view... or toilet view...
We did have one laugh whilst eating lunch... A minibus arrived at the car parking area and out of it got a youngish woman (definitely city girl) who went straight over to the burger van and asked where the nearest toilet was... she was 'advised' rather loudly that she was looking at it (he pointed over to the gorse bushes beyond us) and told to make sure she found herself a good view and squatted down lower enough to be out of sight... the burger man even gave her a napkin and asked her to make sure it found a litter bin afterwards... I think we all contained our laughter until...
After that the pavement vanished and it was back to the road, now single carriageway, so for the duration, our rackpacks wore our hi-viz jackets and the rear lights went on… We are slow on some of the climbs and can be as slow as 4kph! For a while it was pretty rolling with easy climbs…
Who says the North York Moors aren't flat?
More of that rolling scenery...
And yet more...
The she's taking photo's pose...
OK - its not all flat - you get these sudden sharp dips, but they do give you something else to photo...
Then we dropped into Whitby and froze… it was a long downhill and neither of us were really expecting it! Sheesh it was cold…Spotting a café sign at a garden centre, there was little objection heard from my OH when I suggested a stop to get warm again… Not really knowing what to do with the bikes and with people taking really large ‘trolley’s into the garden centre, we just wheeled our bikes in as though it was a perfectly normal thing to do…
WhitbyCastle Abbey from the garden centre café.
Once we had warmed up, and put on some warmer clothes (arms added to our tops so converting them from short sleeved to long sleeved tops) we headed back out. It didn’t take long to get cold again and at one point my teeth were chattering as we finished the descent into Whitby! The climb back out soon had us warmed up again though! Also having made use of the wi-fi at garden centre we had checked out our planned route for tomorrow and soon realised that whilst we could do it, it might not be as enjoyable as we would like, so we rearranged our route for the rest of today, changed our planned campsite (nothing booked, just the one we were aiming for) and stayed with the A171. As it turned out, it was way too early in the day to have headed off to our original campsite as it was. 3 more +16% gradient climbs soon had us wondering about the wisdom of continuing and also soon had us much warmer than we wanted on the climbs!
At one point we had one of those “oh no please don’t” moments with an old (and I mean old) motorhome that got stuck behind us. It was only stuck because the driver could not make up his mind whether to overtake us or not… We were on the approach to one of those down and ups that the North York Moors are famous for, a sudden drop with a bad bend one way, then drop again with a bad bend the other way, then one of ‘those’ climbs…. On the approach I had seen a long line of vehicles all stuck behind a huge yellow double decker bus coming towards us. I couldn’t see all of the road in between me and the double decker and it was lost from sight, but I knew it was there… Cue the motorhome taking the most inappropriate moment to try to overtake us both! Just at the point where I had met the first of the bad bends (sharp right), the motorhome tried to overtake. I swore at him loudly – I may well have also been shaking my head at him as well… “not ****** now, not in front of that **** big bright yellow double decker bus that is about to come around that blind corner” I don’t know if he heard me, Stuart certain did because I heard him snigger, but luckily the motorhome driver changed his mind just before the bright yellow double decker arrived on the scene… Mind you talking to Stuart later on he hadn’t seen the double decker bus either!
We are now at Grouse Hill Caravan Park which whilst signed as being on the A171 is actually up and over a hill away from it, so that the road noise is not too bad and it is quite quiet (£15 for the night) and we have just watched a sundog (parhelia) which lasted for 10-15 minutes which surprised both of us because the cloud layer has been such that we didn’t expect to see a sunset let alone a sundog.
The Sundog (Parhelia) or a rainbow without the rain as I ended up explaining to someone once... For those wanting to know more (and it is actually very interesting) please see this link at the Atmosphere Optics website.
The 'full' view. Shooting into direct sun is quite difficult and even at -2EV the sun is desperately over exposed still, but this is taken with a little compact camera and not really the best thing to be dealing with the requirements to photo a sundog.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296220
Today was a rest day, spent washing, eating, cleaning & drying clothes and cycling kit and moving the tent away from some very noisy neighbours in a caravan the otherside of the hedge! It was also spent eating and doing our best to eat our way through the Tesco Extra which was just (OK 13km bike ride) down the road... Their supply of vegan/dairy free veggie food was severely depleted...
Day 10 - Monday 8th September 2014
Fylingdales Moor - 85.9km
Last night Stuart asked a seemingly simple question regarding the Middlesbrough Transporter bridge – namely what time did it start running in the morning? Last time we had arrived on a Bank Holiday to use it and it had not long started running that day… So simply humouring him (this was after all a Monday morning, and not a bank holiday or a Sunday…) I looked it up. Imagine my surprise when I found out that it has been closed since January for repairs and a repaint! An alternative was needed and rather quickly and there are not many alternatives to the transporter bridge as it turns out! In fact for cyclists, there is only 1 alternative – the A1048 and it is a not a great alternative – but better than the A19 on a Monday morning. So with that sorted we settled down for the night – it was already starting to get chilly; in fact it is finally cool enough (not cold enough, just cool enough) to start using the sleeping bag as a bag rather than a quilt!
The morning dawned bright and sunny and before long we had a dry tent to take down despite a very heavy dew and internal condensation. It still never ceases to amaze me at how quickly this Hilleberg tent dries out after a quick wipe down! Not much really happened other than it clouding over by 8am. We got to the alternative bridge we had planned only to find it too was closed and the traffic was diverted onto the A19...
We looked at the A19 – it was stationary so would not have actually been too bad, but decided to take the standard cyclist approach and ignore the road closed signs and were ‘rewarded’ with a small ‘access for cyclists and pedestrians has been maintained’ sign! That made life much easier and yes, the bridge was closed and just to make life fun the pedestrian/cyclist access side was the side we were not on and didn’t have a dropped curb… (This is a problem on a laden touring bike, I can’t just pick my bike up and lift it up the curb and even bouncing the bike up a higher curb can be difficult!)We quickly re-found the planned route, picked up fresh bread and further on down the ‘road’ soon reached the conclusion that the planned route was not suitable for touring cyclists and tbh was may not have been a bridlepath either – but we only decided on that when we made it to the far side and failed to get our bikes through a locked gate (having cycled round the edges of numerous fields and tracks to get there)… bikes unloaded, lifted over the gate and re-loaded we were soon on our way again, but today was going to be one of those days… We soon found our way blocked. One way led to a farm and the other ‘access’ was a footpath and therefore not a valid option (laden touring bikes and styles are not compatible even if you are pushing the bike up the footpath…)
We had until this point been trying our hardest to avoid the A171 which runs from Middlesbrough south up and over the North York Moors. It is the main road that runs along the east coast and I wasn’t that keen to cycle it to be honest! It was also a national speed limit dual carriageway at that point… However, someone, somewhere was smiling on us today because the entire length of dual carriageway had the inside lane coned off in both directions for grass and hedge cutting and given that they had already cut the grass on our side, we had our own private lane!
Whilst cycling along this section, a roadie caught us up and pulled alongside Stuart for a chat, commenting that we were ‘well laden’… actually we are not, but hey ho… He then took great delight in informing us that the North York Moors are not flat… What is it with road cyclists and the <insert swear word here> North Yorks Moors? (This happened last time as well!) We know it is not flat... do you really think touring cyclists are that naïve?
Lunch was taken at the top of the first climb (15%) which we both did without stopping and which we both did on the pavement (sorry folks but it was safer than the d/c up the climb) and strangely we never encountered any pedestrians walking up the climb!
Lunch time views (or toilet view - read below!)
Lunch view... or toilet view...
We did have one laugh whilst eating lunch... A minibus arrived at the car parking area and out of it got a youngish woman (definitely city girl) who went straight over to the burger van and asked where the nearest toilet was... she was 'advised' rather loudly that she was looking at it (he pointed over to the gorse bushes beyond us) and told to make sure she found herself a good view and squatted down lower enough to be out of sight...
the burger man even gave her a napkin and asked her to make sure it found a litter bin afterwards... I think we all contained our laughter until...After that the pavement vanished and it was back to the road, now single carriageway, so for the duration, our rackpacks wore our hi-viz jackets and the rear lights went on… We are slow on some of the climbs and can be as slow as 4kph! For a while it was pretty rolling with easy climbs…
Who says the North York Moors aren't flat?
More of that rolling scenery...
And yet more...
The she's taking photo's pose...
OK - its not all flat - you get these sudden sharp dips, but they do give you something else to photo...
Then we dropped into Whitby and froze… it was a long downhill and neither of us were really expecting it! Sheesh it was cold…Spotting a café sign at a garden centre, there was little objection heard from my OH when I suggested a stop to get warm again… Not really knowing what to do with the bikes and with people taking really large ‘trolley’s into the garden centre, we just wheeled our bikes in as though it was a perfectly normal thing to do…
Whitby
Once we had warmed up, and put on some warmer clothes (arms added to our tops so converting them from short sleeved to long sleeved tops) we headed back out. It didn’t take long to get cold again and at one point my teeth were chattering as we finished the descent into Whitby! The climb back out soon had us warmed up again though! Also having made use of the wi-fi at garden centre we had checked out our planned route for tomorrow and soon realised that whilst we could do it, it might not be as enjoyable as we would like, so we rearranged our route for the rest of today, changed our planned campsite (nothing booked, just the one we were aiming for) and stayed with the A171. As it turned out, it was way too early in the day to have headed off to our original campsite as it was. 3 more +16% gradient climbs soon had us wondering about the wisdom of continuing and also soon had us much warmer than we wanted on the climbs!
At one point we had one of those “oh no please don’t” moments with an old (and I mean old) motorhome that got stuck behind us. It was only stuck because the driver could not make up his mind whether to overtake us or not… We were on the approach to one of those down and ups that the North York Moors are famous for, a sudden drop with a bad bend one way, then drop again with a bad bend the other way, then one of ‘those’ climbs…. On the approach I had seen a long line of vehicles all stuck behind a huge yellow double decker bus coming towards us. I couldn’t see all of the road in between me and the double decker and it was lost from sight, but I knew it was there… Cue the motorhome taking the most inappropriate moment to try to overtake us both! Just at the point where I had met the first of the bad bends (sharp right), the motorhome tried to overtake. I swore at him loudly – I may well have also been shaking my head at him as well… “not ****** now, not in front of that **** big bright yellow double decker bus that is about to come around that blind corner” I don’t know if he heard me, Stuart certain did because I heard him snigger, but luckily the motorhome driver changed his mind just before the bright yellow double decker arrived on the scene… Mind you talking to Stuart later on he hadn’t seen the double decker bus either!
We are now at Grouse Hill Caravan Park which whilst signed as being on the A171 is actually up and over a hill away from it, so that the road noise is not too bad and it is quite quiet (£15 for the night) and we have just watched a sundog (parhelia) which lasted for 10-15 minutes which surprised both of us because the cloud layer has been such that we didn’t expect to see a sunset let alone a sundog.
The Sundog (Parhelia) or a rainbow without the rain as I ended up explaining to someone once... For those wanting to know more (and it is actually very interesting) please see this link at the Atmosphere Optics website.
The 'full' view. Shooting into direct sun is quite difficult and even at -2EV the sun is desperately over exposed still, but this is taken with a little compact camera and not really the best thing to be dealing with the requirements to photo a sundog.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296220
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OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
busy typing as I, errr, type this... just got the photos to edit (I don't take in JPEG so have to convert them to JPEG to be able to upload them....)Next installment please!
Hugs
Archeress x
OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 11 - (Part 1 of 2) Tuesday 9th September 2014
Goxhill - 85km
For some strange reason this morning, the tent was full (and I mean full as in +20 or more) of daddy long legs… Yuck... And that +20 count does not include the dead ones that I subsequently found between the innersheet and the footprint and also under the footprint. Double yuck... I guess the flock of pied wagtails is going to have had a feast when we left! We were also surprised at taking down a dry tent (inside)… Not to mention the fact that we were on the road for a reasonable time as well… And for the first hour we made reasonable progress, though why exactly we had to do so much climbing to come off the North York Moors I have no idea, but it did warm us up. Sadly, the decent off the top was not quite as good as last time we were here (when it lasted pretty much all day), but then the climb up had been much easier this time as well… Can’t win them all.
I tried for a picture of the view on the descent, but the scenery seemed to be in the way all the time and when I finally got a ‘view’ there was more shrubbery in the way…
The only gap in the hedge... there was a nice patch of light in the bay, but...
the scenery got in the way
I had one of those bizarre conversations with Stuart regarding the North York Moors and them being flat with all up/downhills being imaginary. We were on a steep downhill section at the time…
Him: could I let him know what it was he was not meant to see (downhill), so that he wouldn’t see it when it didn’t happen or not…
All I could do was remain silent whilst I had an attempt at translation. He followed on with him not seeing the short, sharp, steep, downhill flat section where we touched +60kph and set off a few speed cameras… Apparently he asked me, I said yes, so it is all my fault! With logic like that, I can’t argue after nearly 18 years of marriage!
I’m not sure at what point we upset a landrover driver… I assume we upset him with his hare-brained overtaking manoeuvre (in a 30mph zone) whereby he swerved back to our side of the road so violently that he hit the curb and mounted the pavement. I was so glad that there were no pedestrians around at that point! Perhaps it was the section where we set off the speed cameras…
Then we returned to following NCR1 and progress slowed considerably, as is always the way with Sustrans routes… At some point there was a Sainsbury’s so a café stop and some shopping was called for and Stuart got to cycle along the front at Scarborough so he was happy. 2nd breakfast was called for at Osgodby where the village green was really well kept and looked after and a new bench put in last year (talking with one of the volunteers).
The scenery was still rolling with one more +16% climb to come which was just manageable. Somehow knowing a climb is 16% instead of 15% make it so much harder!
Much more rolling and agricultural now, but there is still one more +16% climb to come.
Somewhere around Hunmanby Stuart made the comment that at the next bench we would stop to have lunch. Now we had just left the last town/village so we were really not expecting any benches, so you can imagine our surprise when less than 5 minutes later at a seemingly random crossroads there was a bench… lunch was taken much to passers-by surprise! I don’t think that bench gets much use!
After lunch the scenery became more rolling and agricultural, but the light made it really nice. We were then to part company with NCR1 – it doing a detour I had no intention of doing.
General Scenery
I just liked the trees, but sadly the light was not really in my favour at that point.
A pee stop with a view... I know you can't take me anywhere
Goxhill - 85km
For some strange reason this morning, the tent was full (and I mean full as in +20 or more) of daddy long legs… Yuck... And that +20 count does not include the dead ones that I subsequently found between the innersheet and the footprint and also under the footprint. Double yuck... I guess the flock of pied wagtails is going to have had a feast when we left! We were also surprised at taking down a dry tent (inside)… Not to mention the fact that we were on the road for a reasonable time as well…
And for the first hour we made reasonable progress, though why exactly we had to do so much climbing to come off the North York Moors I have no idea, but it did warm us up. Sadly, the decent off the top was not quite as good as last time we were here (when it lasted pretty much all day), but then the climb up had been much easier this time as well… Can’t win them all.I tried for a picture of the view on the descent, but the scenery seemed to be in the way all the time and when I finally got a ‘view’ there was more shrubbery in the way…
The only gap in the hedge... there was a nice patch of light in the bay, but...
the scenery got in the way
I had one of those bizarre conversations with Stuart regarding the North York Moors and them being flat with all up/downhills being imaginary. We were on a steep downhill section at the time…
Him: could I let him know what it was he was not meant to see (downhill), so that he wouldn’t see it when it didn’t happen or not…
All I could do was remain silent whilst I had an attempt at translation. He followed on with him not seeing the short, sharp, steep, downhill flat section where we touched +60kph and set off a few speed cameras… Apparently he asked me, I said yes, so it is all my fault! With logic like that, I can’t argue after nearly 18 years of marriage!
I’m not sure at what point we upset a landrover driver… I assume we upset him with his hare-brained overtaking manoeuvre (in a 30mph zone) whereby he swerved back to our side of the road so violently that he hit the curb and mounted the pavement. I was so glad that there were no pedestrians around at that point! Perhaps it was the section where we set off the speed cameras…
Then we returned to following NCR1 and progress slowed considerably, as is always the way with Sustrans routes… At some point there was a Sainsbury’s so a café stop and some shopping was called for and Stuart got to cycle along the front at Scarborough so he was happy. 2nd breakfast was called for at Osgodby where the village green was really well kept and looked after and a new bench put in last year (talking with one of the volunteers).
The scenery was still rolling with one more +16% climb to come which was just manageable. Somehow knowing a climb is 16% instead of 15% make it so much harder!
Much more rolling and agricultural now, but there is still one more +16% climb to come.
Somewhere around Hunmanby Stuart made the comment that at the next bench we would stop to have lunch. Now we had just left the last town/village so we were really not expecting any benches, so you can imagine our surprise when less than 5 minutes later at a seemingly random crossroads there was a bench… lunch was taken much to passers-by surprise! I don’t think that bench gets much use!
After lunch the scenery became more rolling and agricultural, but the light made it really nice. We were then to part company with NCR1 – it doing a detour I had no intention of doing.
General Scenery
I just liked the trees, but sadly the light was not really in my favour at that point.
A pee stop with a view... I know you can't take me anywhere
OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 11 - (Part 2 of 2) Tuesday 9th September 2014
(sorry took too many photos again!)
Just before Lissett we came across a war memorial to 158 Squadron of Bomber Command where the local wind turbines which have been erected on the site of the old RAF base have been named after the various Halixfaxes and crew/service personnel killed (Jane, Bondie, Zombie, Lili Marlene, Maori Chief, Goofy’s Gift, The Menace, Friday the 13th, Xpress Delivery, Git up dem stairs, Minnie the Moocher and the ground crew who died when a 1000lb bomb exploded without warning (Corporal Leslie Tomlinson Fielding, AC1 Jack Ezra Laycock, AC2 Robert George Mills, AC1 William Mithan, AC1 Lewis Daniel Moore and AC1 Kenneth Darwin Taylor)).
From there it was a case of we are too early to stop at our planned campsite (in Atwick) so we found the start/end of the Trans Pennine Trail in Hornsea and another cyclist volunteered to take our photo. He declined the return offer, on the grounds that he only ever takes pictures of his bike at the destinations rather than him and his bike. We were chatting with him when 2 road cyclists turned up having "completed the TPT" - this is in quotes because there is no way any road bike can complete the TPT in anything other than spirit (we have ridden it and even I would not take a road bike along some of it!). Sadly they were pretty rude actually so we said our goodbyes to the other cyclist and left to head out down the TPT to our next campsite option, just as the schools were coming out...
Us at the other end of the TPT - now all we have to do is get back to where we started the TPT...
We find ourselves the only occupants of this campsite, so hopefully it will be a peaceful night before we head off to York tomorrow.
Our campsite for the night...
And an unexpected sunset...
No Sundog tonight, but some nice colours in the clouds around the sun as it went down.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296223
(sorry took too many photos again!)
Just before Lissett we came across a war memorial to 158 Squadron of Bomber Command where the local wind turbines which have been erected on the site of the old RAF base have been named after the various Halixfaxes and crew/service personnel killed (Jane, Bondie, Zombie, Lili Marlene, Maori Chief, Goofy’s Gift, The Menace, Friday the 13th, Xpress Delivery, Git up dem stairs, Minnie the Moocher and the ground crew who died when a 1000lb bomb exploded without warning (Corporal Leslie Tomlinson Fielding, AC1 Jack Ezra Laycock, AC2 Robert George Mills, AC1 William Mithan, AC1 Lewis Daniel Moore and AC1 Kenneth Darwin Taylor)).
From there it was a case of we are too early to stop at our planned campsite (in Atwick) so we found the start/end of the Trans Pennine Trail in Hornsea and another cyclist volunteered to take our photo. He declined the return offer, on the grounds that he only ever takes pictures of his bike at the destinations rather than him and his bike. We were chatting with him when 2 road cyclists turned up having "completed the TPT" - this is in quotes because there is no way any road bike can complete the TPT in anything other than spirit (we have ridden it and even I would not take a road bike along some of it!). Sadly they were pretty rude actually so we said our goodbyes to the other cyclist and left to head out down the TPT to our next campsite option, just as the schools were coming out...
Us at the other end of the TPT - now all we have to do is get back to where we started the TPT...
We find ourselves the only occupants of this campsite, so hopefully it will be a peaceful night before we head off to York tomorrow.
Our campsite for the night...
And an unexpected sunset...
No Sundog tonight, but some nice colours in the clouds around the sun as it went down.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296223
OP
OP
SatNavSaysStraightOn
Changed hemispheres!
- Location
- ɐᴉlɐɹʇsn∀ 'ɐɹɹǝquɐƆ
Day 12 - Wednesday 10th September 2014
Stillingfleet - 104.5km
Humidity this morning was around 1,000% despite there not being a cloud in the sky and it was one of those mornings where a window scraper would have been more use on the tent than a towel! It was only what can be described as a wet take down and I really didn’t want to start the day off with a cold shower (shudders). Luckily there was some warmth in the sun from the word go so I soon warmed up again, then using the shortcut back to the TPT that had been pointed out to us (through a gate in the campsite and round the field perimeter) we were soon back on the trail and heading towards Hull.
The surface was, err, interesting in places and was usually worst on the tarmac sections where tree routes had grown up forcing the tarmac up and this hampered early progress
Stuart made it a staggering 3.5km before needing to scent mark an old railway platform – in fact I may name out next world tour (yes we are saving to be able to get back out on the road, but it will be a good few years down the road so to speak) “Scent marking his way around the world!”
Some of the barriers on the TPT left a lot to be desired (difficult with a touring bike) and some areas of Hull, err well I didn’t want to stop in, to be perfectly honest. Sadly my bladder had other ideas and we had to stop at an Asda in Hull for me to use the loos. Sadly because one ‘gentleman’ had Stuart that uneasy (mostly with the way he never said a word, staring at the bikes the whole time, and something to do with the way he looked) that Stuart didn’t even want to leave me alone, let alone me with the bikes… The shopping could wait – that way at least there would be bikes and a wife to return to!
5-10 mins further down the road and we found a park that we were happier stopping in – 2nd breakfast was called for – my body not giving me much choice in the matter – when it demands food, if I don’t eat I get the shakes and we go nowhere… and a little further down the road we came across a Sainsbury’s. Stuart by now feeling considerably happier and safer and happy to leave me with the bikes, went off and did the shopping whilst I sat with the bikes (and a drink). Before long I was in a conversation with a nice gentleman and his young son starting with the usual “I’ve never seen them (Thorn bikes) in the flesh before” (If you have a Thorn bike you will know this conversation…
Soon after that and we were going under the Humber bridge – more loos were handy and whilst Stuart scent marked one of them I took a few photos…
Looking quite nice for something man made!
The light helped though!
The TPT trail then decided to take us up the only hill in the area (at Welton)… Lunch was followed by a stiff climb. The view from the ‘top’ was OK but we have had much better/nicer and recently so we just enjoyed the downhill
Lunch View and a handy bench in the shade.
Apparently we haven't done enough climbing yet this holiday....
Then we were out on to the flat lands – it is the only description I can give with a variety of surfaces, usually tarmac, but not always. We also met a number of other tourers, who all seemed to want to give us advice! We are not certain if we look too fresh, too clean, too relaxed or simply too energetic/not knackered but almost everyone we have spoken to over the last day or so and especially today seem to think we have just set out. We are ‘only’ +550 miles into our trip which is coming as a surprise to most people when we simply comment that we are only using the TPT to get home…
Some of the varied surface of the TPT
At Blacktoft we made use of the village hall/old school for some help yourself for donation tea/coffee top and then pressed on to our next stop at Barmby on the Marsh where it has to be said that we were seriously doubting the trail at this point! The trail being 6-8 inches wide, gravel and resembling a little used footpath! It was only a tiny TPT sticker on a tiny post that confirmed we were indeed on the correct trail – it wasn’t as if the trail could have gone anywhere else, it is just you start to doubt yourself when it looks like this
More of that varied TPT surface!
We have reached the (premature) conclusion that the only surface we hadn’t done today was beach/sand when further on we came across a section of concrete blocks… we had forgotten about that as an option; cue the feeling of being back on a 1970’s BR train… chi-chunkichunk, chi-chunkichunk over and over again…
In Selby we had a TPT diversion sign and with Stuart now on the digital navigation due to a slight Garmin issues before we left, we managed to miss out Selby completely. The diversion was unknown to me when I mapped out our route digitally and spotting that our route went off in another direction, he bee-lined for it straight through a concrete (?) factory! Selby was therefore missed which was a shame because he had forgotten to pick up a few key items of food like jam, peanut butter and matches so we were now on a hunt the village shop option…
Somehow going through Barlby we missed all of the shops – this is something that trails such as this one (or any sustrans route) are exceptionally good at doing – taking you round towns and away from all concepts of food! The day was only saved in the very last village we were to cycle through which had 2 shops! (don’t get too excited, they were a Premiere and a Nasa) though I did have to send Stuart back in for matches…
Going through Riccall I spotted a water cooling tower that looked very alien, so in my usual style I commented that it looked like a monster, then tried for a triffid. Stuart in his usual style hadn’t got a clue about what I was going on about because also in his usual style hadn’t seen it… He finally spotted it when our route went within 20m of it and promptly corrected me, it was a Martian from the War of the Worlds… It has been one of those days.
Then it was onto a great cycle path that runs between York and Riccall and we spotted a 1/3rd size model of Voyager 1 on the trail – soon afterwards we found Neptune as well, but somehow seem to have missed Pluto… Sadly we had to turn off before we found anymore planets otherwise I would have been inflicting those photos on you as well!
Oh and to make life really good fun, my garmin decided to run out of power at 96.6km today! Ahhhhh so the stats for our 2nd metric century for the month came from my trip and Stuart’s Garmin!
The campsite (Home Farm - can't tell you how much because we haven't managed to pay yet...)
The sun had some interesting colour to it, but sadly was to fade out with the pollution in the air and there was no sunset.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296252
Stillingfleet - 104.5km
Humidity this morning was around 1,000% despite there not being a cloud in the sky and it was one of those mornings where a window scraper would have been more use on the tent than a towel! It was only what can be described as a wet take down and I really didn’t want to start the day off with a cold shower (shudders). Luckily there was some warmth in the sun from the word go so I soon warmed up again, then using the shortcut back to the TPT that had been pointed out to us (through a gate in the campsite and round the field perimeter) we were soon back on the trail and heading towards Hull.
The surface was, err, interesting in places and was usually worst on the tarmac sections where tree routes had grown up forcing the tarmac up and this hampered early progress
Stuart made it a staggering 3.5km before needing to scent mark an old railway platform – in fact I may name out next world tour (yes we are saving to be able to get back out on the road, but it will be a good few years down the road so to speak) “Scent marking his way around the world!”
Some of the barriers on the TPT left a lot to be desired (difficult with a touring bike) and some areas of Hull, err well I didn’t want to stop in, to be perfectly honest. Sadly my bladder had other ideas and we had to stop at an Asda in Hull for me to use the loos. Sadly because one ‘gentleman’ had Stuart that uneasy (mostly with the way he never said a word, staring at the bikes the whole time, and something to do with the way he looked) that Stuart didn’t even want to leave me alone, let alone me with the bikes… The shopping could wait – that way at least there would be bikes and a wife to return to!
5-10 mins further down the road and we found a park that we were happier stopping in – 2nd breakfast was called for – my body not giving me much choice in the matter – when it demands food, if I don’t eat I get the shakes and we go nowhere… and a little further down the road we came across a Sainsbury’s. Stuart by now feeling considerably happier and safer and happy to leave me with the bikes, went off and did the shopping whilst I sat with the bikes (and a drink). Before long I was in a conversation with a nice gentleman and his young son starting with the usual “I’ve never seen them (Thorn bikes) in the flesh before” (If you have a Thorn bike you will know this conversation…
Soon after that and we were going under the Humber bridge – more loos were handy and whilst Stuart scent marked one of them I took a few photos…
Looking quite nice for something man made!
The light helped though!
The TPT trail then decided to take us up the only hill in the area (at Welton)… Lunch was followed by a stiff climb. The view from the ‘top’ was OK but we have had much better/nicer and recently so we just enjoyed the downhill
Lunch View and a handy bench in the shade.
Apparently we haven't done enough climbing yet this holiday....
Then we were out on to the flat lands – it is the only description I can give with a variety of surfaces, usually tarmac, but not always. We also met a number of other tourers, who all seemed to want to give us advice! We are not certain if we look too fresh, too clean, too relaxed or simply too energetic/not knackered but almost everyone we have spoken to over the last day or so and especially today seem to think we have just set out. We are ‘only’ +550 miles into our trip which is coming as a surprise to most people when we simply comment that we are only using the TPT to get home…
Some of the varied surface of the TPT
At Blacktoft we made use of the village hall/old school for some help yourself for donation tea/coffee top and then pressed on to our next stop at Barmby on the Marsh where it has to be said that we were seriously doubting the trail at this point! The trail being 6-8 inches wide, gravel and resembling a little used footpath! It was only a tiny TPT sticker on a tiny post that confirmed we were indeed on the correct trail – it wasn’t as if the trail could have gone anywhere else, it is just you start to doubt yourself when it looks like this
More of that varied TPT surface!
We have reached the (premature) conclusion that the only surface we hadn’t done today was beach/sand when further on we came across a section of concrete blocks… we had forgotten about that as an option; cue the feeling of being back on a 1970’s BR train… chi-chunkichunk, chi-chunkichunk over and over again…
In Selby we had a TPT diversion sign and with Stuart now on the digital navigation due to a slight Garmin issues before we left, we managed to miss out Selby completely. The diversion was unknown to me when I mapped out our route digitally and spotting that our route went off in another direction, he bee-lined for it straight through a concrete (?) factory! Selby was therefore missed which was a shame because he had forgotten to pick up a few key items of food like jam, peanut butter and matches so we were now on a hunt the village shop option…
Somehow going through Barlby we missed all of the shops – this is something that trails such as this one (or any sustrans route) are exceptionally good at doing – taking you round towns and away from all concepts of food! The day was only saved in the very last village we were to cycle through which had 2 shops! (don’t get too excited, they were a Premiere and a Nasa) though I did have to send Stuart back in for matches…
Going through Riccall I spotted a water cooling tower that looked very alien, so in my usual style I commented that it looked like a monster, then tried for a triffid. Stuart in his usual style hadn’t got a clue about what I was going on about because also in his usual style hadn’t seen it… He finally spotted it when our route went within 20m of it and promptly corrected me, it was a Martian from the War of the Worlds… It has been one of those days.
Then it was onto a great cycle path that runs between York and Riccall and we spotted a 1/3rd size model of Voyager 1 on the trail – soon afterwards we found Neptune as well, but somehow seem to have missed Pluto… Sadly we had to turn off before we found anymore planets otherwise I would have been inflicting those photos on you as well!
Oh and to make life really good fun, my garmin decided to run out of power at 96.6km today! Ahhhhh so the stats for our 2nd metric century for the month came from my trip and Stuart’s Garmin!
The campsite (Home Farm - can't tell you how much because we haven't managed to pay yet...)
The sun had some interesting colour to it, but sadly was to fade out with the pollution in the air and there was no sunset.
http://www.strava.com/activities/194296252
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