Tuesday 2nd Aug Penrith to Morecombe

Well this was an interesting day.  We woke up to some torrential rain and I mean torrential.  We realised straight way that unless we got some covers for the panniers then everything would be soaked so the very first thing we did was to buy some pannier covers for the pig in a cycle shop in the town centre.  It was a good idea however they only rotected them so much against the Cumbrian rain.

We then had several miles of riding along the wettest roads ever

About 10 miles out of Penrith is a hill called Shap which is quite well known among cyclists.  Obviously we had the bad weather which didn't help, however we didn't think that Shap was too bad.  We just got into a low gear and kept on rolling.

After the summit it was a great downhill that seemed to go on for a long time and then dropped into Kendal.  By this time the rain had stopped and we were able to strip off the waterproofs and have a nice lunch outside a cafe.

We have met some very interesting people during this trip and one of our regrets is that we didn't take photos of some of the ones who have made an impression.  2 of these were at the cafe.  Anyone who watches Gavin and Stacey would have appreciated that fine old woman who played the sex made Doris.  I swear that the woman next to us who we got talking to was the spitting image. 

We then were approached by a guy who began talking to us and telling us how he had cycled 8,500 miles in 6 years but was now into hill walking which was much harder.  Once again we began to think about comedy sketches and straight away likened him to one of Paul Whitehouse's characters on the Fast Show "Cycling - hardest game in the world etc etc".  Might not mean much to others but after a few hours cycling in the rain up Shap it brightened us up for a little while.

It wasn't until we left Kendal that we realised that the weather had broken my cycle computer with all the rain.  There was nothing else for it but a trip to a cycle shop for a new one.  Again this was one of those situations were you had to be there to appreicate it, but it was a proper comedy sketch in our eyes.  It was a bit of a cross between Open All Hours with Arkwright and poor young Granville and an episode of Little Britain where there is the bloke in the shop who has to keep shouting to his wife who was round the back.  Like I said, you had to be there but they brought loads of fun to us 2.

The Black Pig with its new pannier covers.

After that we went to Morecombe which was for the first time for both of us.  We were very impressed with it.  We stayed at The Wilmslow and had a lovely sea view.  The sun shone for the late evening and we wandered along the prom for a well deserved curry.