Day Six - Now It Starts To Get Good

With a less than stellar evening behind us, we had the Lakes District to look forward to today. Mountains! Problem is, the weather for the day looked bad. Dismal, to say the least. We woke up to rain, low temperatures, and wind. Spirits were low today. We had 84 miles to cover and a decent bit of climbing, so we headed down to breakfast and packed our bellies full of yet another full English, bundled up and tried to make ourselves as waterproof as possible, then dragged ourselves outside.

Soaked through in half an hour. We were not enjoying this.

To be fair, Bolton is a bit nicer on the other side. We were staying in the dodgy part, it would seem. Still, we won't be going back. Myra was given a fond farewell on our way out by an OAP (old aged pensioner) who, while driving about 10mph as she pulled up next to us, decided to turn into a car park, which was on the other side of Myra. Somehow missing the bright yellow high-vis rain jackets we were both wearing, she ever so calmly squeezed Myra into the kerb and just missed taking her out as Myra slammed on her brakes. Incredible, but so incredible that you almost had to laugh at it. Almost.

Leaving the urban/industrial sprawl that is the area surrounding and between Liverpool and Manchester, we climbed up into Yorkshire and got our first taste of what we were really looking forward to.

Yorkshire also granted us a reprieve from the rain so we had a chance to dry out, and was kind enough to help us out with a bit of a tail wind. The views were amazing, with a few large looking mountains on the distant horizon. I was pretty pumped. We stopped for lunch just after a long grind uphill and realized that the (only) upshot of the rain was that it kept the midges away, which were now trying to feed on us while we trying to feed on lunch.

We happily went on our way again but the wind changed to a pretty strong head and cross wind, so the miles were harder to come by, with 40 to go, but we kept a good average speed to end the day at 14.1mph. At this point we had also done the majority of the days climbing and had some massive descents to look forward to, so things started to look up. This came as a welcome surprise to us as we felt like the hills and the wind were keeping our pace down, and although we felt pretty tired all day, it never actually affected our pace. All in all, pretty happy with our performance so far.

The closer we got to the Lake District, the nicer things got. The hills got bigger (around us and not in front of us, luckily) and the sun actually got hotter, so by the time we reached Windermere, it was probably the nicest weather we had up to this point. We were tired though, and I had consumed all of my liquid with about 10 miles to go. We weren't that far from Windermere so I was counting on coming across a petrol station where I could fill up, which was the case, so I guzzled back a bit of juice and watched as a big ol' unit in a new 'Vette peeled out of the other petrol station across the street. You just knew he was American (no offence to any Americans).

The sun in the Lake District was putting smiles on our faces, especially as we were on the home stretch. We put the last few hills behind us and stopped to take in the view as Lake Windermere appeared, nestled amongst the surrounding hills/mountains. The last few miles seemed to take absolutely ages. We were ready to be done, but it seemed like there was always one more corner to turn and one more steep little hill to climb.

At last, though, we reached our destination, and it was another really nice one. The town is way nicer than I thought it would be, first of all - definitely worth the visit, and our B&B was equally as nice. Kind of posh, even. We arrived in decent time and had a relatively relaxed evening after a mediocre dinner, and eventually went to bed looking forward to great views and a slightly shorter day tomorrow.

Note: Looking at these pictures again, it strikes me that my usage of the word "mountain" is slightly out of place here. Although I was convinced at the time that some of them (not pictured here) could be legitimately called mountains (which I maintain), I may have been a little excited at the time and given them more credit than was due. The real mountains (at least the UK versions) are to come. The other side of the lake, which is to come tomorrow, is where the more rugged hills/mountains reside, but as there will probably not be room for all the good pictures in the next installment, here's one for you now.