We did safely arrive in England, although we have been literally too busy to post an update. It was even easier to fit the trikes into the hire car than it had been with our car, and we had a very pleasant drive up through The Midlands and The Lakes to Whitehaven.
Our first day of riding was from the Irish Sea at Whitehaven up into the Lake District and Keswick. The route passed through lots of small farming hamlets and fields with sheep. There was even a runaway chicken that had escaped onto our path.
The weather was very warm, even by our Australian standards. That could have been emphasised by the two stiff climbs that dominated the day. In particular, the ascent up to Whinlatter Pass was a “long pull” (in the words of a friendly local).
We didn’t even get to feel the wind in our faces on the descent, as it was down a steep and rough gravel forrestry trail. We took it steadily and the trikes managed fine.
We arrived a little late at our accommodation, and took advantage of the long evening light to walk down and see Derwent Water. It was beautiful in the soft evening light, and the sheep frolicking on the shore surprised us.
It really is pretty here.
For a bit of fun, I took my GPS receiver with me tucked into the elastic band of my goggles (I have found that the device sometimes struggles to get good signals when it is in a pocket). I wasn’t afraid of getting lost, but the experimental scientist part of me tends to get excited about the datalogging capabilities of my GPS receiver. I was actually quite surprised at some of the information it recorded; for instance, I was a little unnerved to find that I had been travelling at up to nearly 50 km/h on the snow!
I like this post. and your painted eggs are awesome! maybe when Jasper is...
