Yesterday it felt like everything was just too hard and too difficult. Today, at least during the day, nothing seemed impossible. However, as I sit here in Kendal - famed for its mint cake - tired and aching with my hotel beer I realise that there are limits and I was probably quite close to them.
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| Moffat |
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| Moffat |
It was always going to be a fairly nondescript day. I was aiming to get miles in to allow me an overnight stay with friends at Much Wenlock on Sunday. That meant an easy route, which meant main roads if at all possible. I may have been crossing the Lake District in the latter part of the day but I would be doing so on the A6 main road if all went to plan and I was not optimistic about the scenery such a main trunk road would afford.
I set off after breakfast to finish what I had failed at last night. It was an easy enough ride to Lockerbie now I was rested and I made good time. The scenery was very mundane: now the road had descended from the high ground the views of rolling hills had gone; I was now trapped in a world of road, hemmed in by trees and shrub at either side. But it was the beginning of the day, my legs were fresh and my mind was focused so I was not looking to my surroundings for distraction.
I bypassed Lockerbie, stopped for a coffee at tiny Gretna Green and pressed on to England and Carlisle. I passed directly through the city on a long and straight main road, definitely not seeing the best and wondering if I were seeing the worst. Then it was into the northern Lakes and sixteen miles to Penrith.
The A6 was not an overly busy road. Like yesterday it paralleled a motorway which seemed to absorb most of the traffic, a motorway I could occasionally see as my own route rose and fell and approached and distanced itself from its much faster and bigger cousin. For miles I climbed long but gentle inclines which were followed by similar descents: today the route took but it also gave back. It was like some long, tarmac roller coaster that stretched itself through the gentle hills of the northern Lake area, gently rising towards Penrith and for which payment was my own effort and sweat.
I reached Penrith early afternoon, raided a delicatessen and took stock of the day. I had thirty miles to Kendal, the last few of which were descent, and I was making good time. Until now I was not sure whether I would make it to Kendal but, unlike yesterday, today the maths worked out. As the day wore on and I approached Bretherdale Bank, the high point of the climb, I was tiring, a gentle rain had begun and a headwind was building up reminding me too much of yesterday. But it was late in the day, the hard miles had been done and apart from a couple of unexpected climbs it was ten miles of sweeping, rainy downhill from the high of the brown fells to the green fields and small villages of the valley. When I saw Kendal in the gloomy mist three miles away and pleasingly still below me I knew my mind could now turn to thoughts of hot showers, warm rooms and the plan for tomorrow.
