Day 5

It is amazing that there are any wild animals left in Britain. Most seem to have met their maker on the roads we’ve travelled; the number of carcasses on the tarmac is shocking. Rabbits, foxes, hedgehogs, birds of prey, and probably yetis are all displayed in pressed pelt format. The freshest ones are certainly worth avoiding, especially as you have a fellow cyclist behind you as your rear wheel does tend to fling road detritus up towards face level. Worse than a mouthful of badger intestine, though, would be joining the ranks of pavement pancakes, and we very nearly managed that on two separate occasions today. More of that later.

There were no signs of the impending dangers at the beginning of day 5, which started out with a fantastic breakfast. The Bates Motel turned out to have a rather decent catering department and it was a welcome break (excuse the service station pun) to avoid the Rubbish Chef and sit down at an oak table to be served with a full English breakfast with Radio 3 and a bottomless pot of tea. However, best of all, the dining room also boasted a pool table THAT WAS FREE TO PLAY. What an innovation! What breakfast can’t be improved by a round of “winner stays on” afterwards? Genius…

So, suitably fortified, we drove back to Seathwaite (the other one) and got back into the saddle. The views were spectacular as we peddled through the Lake District and, for once, the sun was shining and all right with the world. If Wales had the villages that hope forgot, the Lake District has the villages and towns of the blessed. We passed through one beautiful spot after another, all of which helped to take our mind off the ridiculous number of climbs on the way to Carlisle.

We actually broke for lunch at Gretna which meant we had crossed the border. However, the last five miles to get there were absolutely terrifying and presented our first opportunity of the day to be killed by a random juggernaut. There are currently roadworks on the A55 so it is down to two very narrow lanes leaving nowhere for cyclists to go to avoid the lorries. That left the riders horribly exposed (Matt was nearly smeared over the carriageway by a Marmite lorry) and by the time we turned off for Gretna there were a lot of relieved faces that we hadn’t ended up on the menu at the Roadkill Café. Motto? You kill ‘em, we grill ‘em. Lovely.

After lunch we thought we were ahead of the game by using our Scottish intelligence provided by Fraser to avoid the deathtrap that is the A74. No problem for us: we headed out on the B-roads to enjoy the afternoon sun on a road renowned for its beauty. Of course, dear readers, you know that this won’t last and it didn’t: due to a navigation error, nine miles later we found ourselves back on the A74. This is where the second opportunity to get whacked by a juggernaut offered itself. Rather than doing the sensible thing and cycle back to where we took a wrong turn and go back onto the B-roads, we looked at the A74 and thought it didn’t look too bad and even had a small cycle lane. So, off we went on our merry way until about a mile later when the cycle lane disappeared and once again the trucks were thundering passed us about 10cm away. This time, discretion was definitely the better part of valour so we called Matt to come and save us; he drove us back to the B-road and we got back on with cycling with much less chance of joining the reams of squashed beasties splatted on the tarmac.

Thus we spent the afternoon thrashing along B-roads as we headed towards Dunfries and then onwards towards Kilmarnock. Progress was good although made more difficult by the poor road surfaces on the B-roads and a strong headwind that simply wasn’t fair on us poor fat boys. However, we made it to Dumfries and even had enough energy to push on another eight miles – so this evening we find ourselves a little bit ahead of the plan, which is great news.

A little less exciting is the cuisine on offer in Dumfries. We circled the town in our trusty van, looking for somewhere, anywhere that actually let you eat food in the restaurant. (Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised: it seems that you are not encouraged to linger anywhere here – we passed a couple of locations lit with a particular type of blue light that prevents you from finding a vein into which you might choose to inject heroin.) Eventually we found a rather good pub, and promptly ordered the chicken, ham and mushroom pasta bake (mmm, carbs). What we were served was three pieces of fusili, a couple of pieces of processed ham, several chunks of what we suspect was cat, all smothered in about a pound of cheese. Topped with the contents of a bottle of vegetable oil. Distinctly not what the sports dietician ordered. Dinner was productive, however: we formulated a new, highly aggressive plan for tomorrow which we hope will result in us chalking up 100 miles for the day. Ultimately, this would help us complete the journey a day early. Check back tomorrow to see if we made it.