Our lovely Australian host in Bonchester Bridge served us up a bit of breakfast and bid us farewell. The first 10k of the ride was fantastic: a 400m climb up and over Bonchester Hill, a popular location for hikers and mountain bikers. We had the road almost to ourselves, and often it narrowed to one lane. Much managed logging by Scottish Forestry has resulted in strategic bare patches on the faces of the huge hills. After about 45 minutes we reached the summit, enjoyed beautiful views through the misty air, and began an exhilarating descent. The payback!
We arrived at the border to England and Patti sprinkled her Mom’s ashes on both sides. A bit in her family’s ol’ Scotland, and another shake onto English soil. Helen would be very pleased with the setting, I’m sure: the middle of a forest, with Northumberland’s rolling hills in the distance.
We carried on to the area’s highlight – the Kielder Waters – a large lake created by the huge Kielder Weir holding back the North Tyne River. The lake hosts many campgrounds, and must be a very busy destination in the summer. As we entered the area we pulled off the road to see the Kielder Viaduct, a beautiful train bridge built in 1862 to carry the Borders County Railway (sadly decommissioned in the 60s) line over the North Tyne. The viaduct is noteworthy for its ‘skewed’ bricklaying, as its supporting pillars are set at an angle to the direction of the railway tracks. It’s an engineering marvel.
After a few conversations with a few locals (recumbent trikes are always a curiosity) we carried on to the the Kielder Tourist Centre for a quick coffee and warmup. (Grey skies and mist can seep into your bones after a while.) A fellow triker (he was on a fabulous Harley-Davidson version) commiserated with us over Trump for a few minutes. About 5 minutes down the road he passed us and gave us a hearty wave. He’s not impressed with the cost of petrol. Thank you President Trump.
Scotland’s fabulous big hills behind us, the ride into Bellingham was flat and easy on a one-lane back road: just us and the sheep.
Squint: Hills. Clouds full of benign mist. (Grateful that it never outright rained.) Decommissioned train tunnels. And one recumbent cyclist, lower right.
Riding summary: 60 kilometres from Bonchester Bridge to Bellingham, most of them easy after those initial 10 km of unrelenting ascent! No need to put our reserve third battery into employ.
The Black Bull pub welcomed us with a charming room (complete with a telescope and a skylight). We did our usual, quick, sink-laundry and shower clean-up, then we set out for a quick walk around town. We found a spot for an 8am breakfast in the morning (can’t miss the ferry check-in in Newcastle tomorrow, we want to start earlier than our facility here will open) and then stumbled upon the First & Last Brewery, a charming little ma and pa shop on the edge of town. The young couple who own and operate it are friendly and informative, and the brewmaster is “Emma”, a.k.a. “Red”. I bought two bottles which are helping immensely with the crafting of this blog post.
We’ll have a pub dinner here at the Black Bull, and get a good night’s rest for a long (80 km) ride tomorrow to the Newcastle ferry dock.
Here’s a view of the famous bridges over the River Tyne in Newcastle. We’ll ride by these bridges on the way to the ferry. Patti’s found her Gravol, so she’ll dose up before we get on the boat around 3 tomorrow afternoon for the overnight crossing to Holland.
Wasn’t Peter in our class at UofT. He was the guy that loved trig so much.
He did find advanced calculus a little challenging but who didn’t.
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