Alston to Wooler

Tuesday September 28, 2010

The hostel in Alston.

After a late night, it was a struggle to wake up in the morning.
I still got organised quick enough to get away in the morning, just.
I had a strong tail wind when I started and thought "the ride today's going to be a breeze.

Riding out of Alston, heading towards the Northumberland National Park.

However, my direction chopped and changed, the roads were hilly all day and off-road for a significant part, mostly rough gravel roads through pine tree plantations, very bumpy traveling.

Northumberland National Park

Northumberland National Park

Northumberland National Park

Northumberland National Park

At one point I rode past another guy riding the Pennine Trail. He was going so slowly though! And he was packed a lot lighter than I was too. He said "we might meet again then". "Doubt it" I thought, not if you ride at speeds like that, I'll be in Ireland by the time you get to Scotland."
I stopped in a town called Bellingham for lunch, and decided to mix things up a bit, I bought a loaf of bread, tomatoes, cottage cheese and already had some canned salmon. I wasn't sure how it would all taste together.

Sandwiches with tomato, cottage cheese and salmon.

I could only just keep it down, it became sickening! The cottage cheese had pineapple in it, which was a little strange. It tasted alright to start with but maybe just because I was so hungry.
Nothing really notable today, nothing to write home about really. The sky was cloudy all day, but the rain was holding off.

On the road in Northumberland.

I was going through Northumberland National Park most of the way, but it was really just paddocks with some pine tree plantations and a few little natural forests if you're lucky. These natural forests seem uncommon in the UK, in contrast to Australia.
After about 100 km, I was actually ready to set up the tent if I saw a good spot along the way. I didn't, then it got dark, so I rode on toward Wooler following route 68 of the National Bicycle Network.
Probably the only notable thing that happened was that I was riding along a little road in the dark, not too far from Wooler and next thing I know there's a river in front of me. I checked the map to make sure I was actually still on the road, and I was, and there was definitely no bridge across this river. I thought "come on, what kind of road is this?! You'd want to be in a 4WD to go through that!"

A river near Wooler, Northumberland, which stopped me in my tracks.

I really didn't feel like getting wet feet again, nor could I be bothered taking my shoes and socks off to cross it. So I turned around, turned to Google Maps, made my way back to the main road and followed that to Wooler. And I was really powering along for the last 15 km, again I was quite motivated as I was getting towards my destination, knowing that there was a youth hostel that I could stay in as soon as I got there.
So I made it to Wooler just before 9 pm. It was a good average speed I'd kept up for the day, 19.6 km/h, blew my previous highest average speed out of the water.

I checked in to the hostel, the manager was fat, ugly and smoked, the place stank of it.
I went to the supermarket, and to make the day more interesting, I bought 5 L of milk! 3L of it was just plain milk but it was reduced to clear, so I couldn't pass it by. Then there was some chocolate flavoured milk and banana flavoured milk also reduced to clear, I couldn't pass that by either. And what do you know, there was also a pizza reduced to clear, and a packet of five sausage rolls reduced to clear. Afterwards I was so full with pizza and sausage rolls and milk! By the way, their chocolate flavoured milk has nothing on Australian chocolate milk, it really wasn't very good, just tasted like coco.
There was only one other person in the hostel so I pretty much had the place to myself. I was so tired by the time I got to bed.

Ride stats
Distance: 126.88 km
Average: 19.6 km/h
Maximum: 65.0 km/h
Time: 6:28:26