Monday, July 2, 2007

Durham to Bellingham - 85k - Thurs 28 June

We always look out the window or out through the tent flap to see what the weather is doing first thing in the morning. Our hopes are always for a fine dry track, but again this morning it looked bleak and potentially damp. As well as that, the wind was blowing from the north west, and thats exactly where we were headed, so it would be into the wind again today. After a great breakfast at the 'Gilesgate Moor Hotel', we had to head back down into the centre of Durham, then to climb out on the north western side to take the A691 initially to the village of Lanchester.

It was eveident that our hill free week had come to an end. We had left the fens finally for good, and the hills of Northumberland were already starting to test our legs. The wind was also a challenge, so all the way to Lanchester we stayed in low gears, but enjoyed the ride and the beautiful green countryside, patterned as far as we could see with stone fencing around sheep paddocks and cattle grazing lands. This was northern England, and quite a sight to behold and to enjoy from a bike, despite the testing hills again.

The sign entering Lanchester indicated the Roman Fort, so we headed into the village to explore, only to be told it was there on the hillside, but hadn't been excavated yet! It was still covered by nearly 2000 years of accumulated soil. The chap we spoke to though told us about the cycle track to the village of Rowley, which was on our way, so we thought we'd try once more to trust the NCN. It was really lovely for a while, going up and down and in and out of beautiful Northumberland farms on a narrow bitumen track, weaving in and out of farm yards and down through incredibly beautiful sheep filled, stone walled meadows. However, we came to a fork in the road, and no sign either way, and we lost our faith in the NCN and found the nearest gate and hopped back on the nearest road, finding out where we were at the next village. We were more or less on course.

We never saw Rowley, but got to the town of Castleside, out of which the road dropped at 12% gradient, so while hitting 60kph going down, all we think about is the corresponding massive climb at 12% out the otherside, which comes up awefully fast. We crawled the 2k or so out the other side at speeds of 4-6 kph.

The weather was getting more bleak as we headed on a long downhill again into Broomhaugh, heading for the Hadrian's Wall town of Hexham, the site of early Roman occupation. After darting across some minor roads, we came into Hexham thinking about our Jam sandwich lunch, still using the Bramble and Apple Jam from the Moors in Cornwall. It was a cold bleak day. The wind was blowing a gale, and we just wanted a quiet corner somewhere to sit and enjoy lunch. We never found one - so we huddled on a seat in the main shopping plaza at Hexham which the wind used as a tunnel to rush down. We enjoyed though sitting beside an Irish tourist who was so lovely - we all reflected on the lovely summer we had all come to England to enjoy for holidays. Meeting such people is a daily highlight for us.

We left town in threatening rain for Wall, a village just on the edge of Hadrian's Wall - the stone wall built by Emperor Hadrian about 1700 years ago to keep those pesky and annoying Scots from coming down into England and being a nuisance. Julie still maintains it had something to do with rabbits, but if it did it was a miserable failure. The rain was now falling as we passed through Wall. We didn't stop. It was too cold. The wind off the Arctic was bitter now. As we hurtled out of Wall down to the river, we passed the only section of the famous Wall we have been able to see. We didn't stop, crossed the raging river and turned left (west) on a side road that I was hoping would run parallel with several miles of the Wall. Despite our hopes, we climbed another massive hill to a lovely stone settlement of houses and farm yards at the top, but no signs of the infamous Wall.

We met some hikers who were doing the 'Wall Walk' so we followed them up a farm lane, but when they climbed over a ladder fence into the next paddock, we just had to keep riding, Julie leading me to neither of us knew where. We eventually came out on the road that we left when we turned west at the river, and it was the right road to Bellingham.

We were quite cold and wet now, and all we wanted was to see the village of Bellingham, which sits about 40k from the Scottish border. It was another hour or more in the cold wind and heavy rain, when we came down the final long and very cold descent toward the village that we could see when we crossed the final ridge. As far as we knew, the campsite was the only accommodation, and we hit the campsite first a few k short of the village, and turned in. The owners were lovely, and after a laugh and a chat about the lovely weather, he showed us to a patch of trees where he thought we would be nicely protected, and left us to set up, saying he would return in a few minutes with our code for the showers.

It was then that Julie started swatting. I was telling her to not worry about the bugs, and just get the tent up. It was raining afdter all, and time was of the essence. Then I started swatting too. They were in our hair, ears, eyes and anywhere where we had bear skin. We neede four arms and two legs to keep them at bay, and even then we couldn't. The owner then retuned and he said ''Are they midgees? I've got to get you out of here!''. This was our first experience with the famous Scottish midgees. Like fleas, they can hardly be seen, but in seconds they had infested us. We were near crazy with them. He told us then to set up in the wide open area in the middle of the caravans, but we unfortunately carried them with us for a while. So it wasn't a great introduction on the eve of our crossing into Scotland. The rain fell all night, and although we were relatively dry inside, it was probably our lowest ebb since starting out from Paris.

The weather really has been appalling, although we have been safe from flood. But the night was cold, and although we finally rid ourselves of the midgees, the rain was so intense overnight that our normally dry tent had to give in a little to the water overnight, and we had puddles in our 'lounge' area in the morning.

We even zipped our bags together and slept in the double bag for the first time, such was the feeling of cold. Actually, we didn't do the usual sleeping bag strangle, so the zipping together is not a bad way to go. We went to bed and woke the next day to the same sound - very heavy rain on the roof. We dropped off to sleep dreaming of the crossing into Scotland sometime the next day.

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