20260515 -16. Richmond to Durham for two nights, Friday and Saturday night. Close encounters with cows. It’s a Durham thing.

Richmond to Durham was a long ride: 62 kilometres, one of the last long rides of this trip, the cycling portion of which will end in a week. Ack!!!

We encountered a few little manmade barriers to the cycle trails we had chosen for today’s ride. Councils in various towns have control over the impediments they place on cycle paths to keep motorcycles out. Unfortunately, some of them are crunch for us. No worries: on this particular day it was just a matter of stripping panniers off of the bikes and lifting them over the steel bars meant to keep motorcycles out. And a herd of young cattle were very intrigued by our visit.

Sometimes our route becomes more of a hiking path. This is a 360 video so grab it with your mouse to look around.

Further along, we enjoyed the baked corned beef and potato pie we picked up from that butcher shop in Richmond that I mentioned in the last blog. We kept following the familiar and reassuring National Cycle Route – NCR – blue signs, leading us on into Durham. We would have made it to Hotel Indigo sooner but Patti had to stop and wait for a nonchalant peacock to get out of the road! I’m forgetting to mention: the ride was very hilly, and we had a thrilling descent (yay) into Durham.

Hotel Indigo was the former city chambers for Durham. It’s a beautiful Victorian building. Highly recommended. We checked in for our two-night-stay, walked across the bridge over the River Wear, and up the hill to where the cathedral and castle share a quadrangle. The castle is now residences for lucky students at Durham’s University. Durham’s population is 55,000, and 26,000 of those residents are students. Because it was a Monday, there was no Evensong programmed, so we skipped what was offered – Evening prayers – and went back to eat dinner in the hotel.

The next morning we had a great tour booked through Viator: Characters of Durham. I’d highly recommend this gentleman’s tour. GREAT story teller.

Further on in the tour, our guide took us to “the ugliest building in Durham”, the student union building at the University. Designed by Sr Ove Arup (1895 – 1988), it’s brutal, but can’t be torn down because it’s a listed historic building. He also designed a pedestrian bridge right beside that building, over the river. It’s not so bad…

After the tour, we had a pint with a young couple who had done the tour with us, back at the tiny DunCow Pub which we had talked about on the tour. Conveniently, it was right across the street from our hotel… A Grade II listed pub, parts of which date back to the 15th century (BTW – the pub is for sale for 500,000 pounds – NOT a good investment). In 995AD, Lindisfarne monks searching for a resting place for the body of St Cuthbert came across a milkmaid looking for her lost cow. She directed them to Dun Holm (Durham), and the pub is named after the historic animal. There are references to cows throughout Durham. (See photos.)

We visited St. Cuthbert in the cathedral, picked up falafel dinners to go on our way back to the hotel, ate them and watched a cheesy movie, and went to sleep.

62 kilometres on Friday, and 5400 steps. 14,500 steps on Saturday.