Probably about half past nine then.
We were delayed somewhat by a some confusion as to the state of our bill. We thought we would have one, the manager didn't. As I am not an old woman I don't have the required skills to force money upon people who have no intention of taking it so the upshot was that we had more money to spend on flapjacks. Which we almost certainly made the most of.
While it may well have been summer yesterday there didn't seem to be a meteorolgical clause stating that today would have to be the same. That means it was rubbish. We left Dent and headed for Sedbergh with our waterproof tops on, only for Sam to get a bit warm and take his off. Then he realised it was getting wetter and put his top back on, but the inevitable happened and he got a little warm................... A theme was developing somewhere but I was too busy to spot it.
Either we were ascending (posh word for going up) or the clouds were descending (Arabian word for turtle-neck sweater) as we headed into Kendall. The town of Kendall may be nice, when we arrived it simply looked damp and slightly cold, but on the plus side we did have a tasty sausage and egg bap each. If the weather was better and we didn't have a number of mechanical problems then we would have taken the A592 past Ullswater but the better option in the circumstances appeared to be to take the A6 straight into Penrith.
I didn't bother to take any photos on this stretch but if you can imagine something white and wet then that should suffice. This is a photo from yesterday in the Dales instead:
In fact it became whiter and wetter as we climbed up to around 1400m over Shap Fells to the point where it was actually pretty dangerous to be cycling, not that we had much choice. Fortunately we survived and sped down into Penrith for 3pm, the views becoming slightly better on the way down as we were able to see more than 12 feet ahead at times. We found the bike shop where we were charged a lot of money for a complete lack of improvement to the bikes and eventually we were on our way out of Penrith at about 5pm.
15 miles later we were at Hesket Brewery. However, 3 miles before we arrived at Hesket we became soaked as the heavens opened. Fortunately the heavens closed before long as otherwise dead people may have fallen through I assume. Can't have that sort of thing happening. We gently slowed to a halt outside the Old Crown where Michael Parker wandered out to meet us and we were led into the pub for a few pints of Hesket Ale. More info about Hesket can be found by clicking this link - Hesket Brewery.
In another display of spontaneous generosity our meals and a few pints were paid for by mr Parker. As we turned up over an hour late it was pretty good of him to stick around for us in the first place and after a chat about bikes and beers, an interesting tour and free food and drink we had formed a pretty high opinion of the brewery and it's head brewer, something which Prince Charles seems to have as well. Unfortunately this was the high point and it was downhill afterwards, not that there was much of the day left. We knew we had to leave at some point and it was probably best to do so before the 4th pint went down, but it looked wet and nasty outside so we dillied, dallied, dallied and dillied (lost the van and don't know where to roam...............).
After all this dilly-dallying we eventually headed out into the North Cumbrian countryside, which looked suspiciously like a river. 10 miles of cycling and occasional paddling through the rapidly darkening evening we arrived at the campsite, making a brief diversion into the adjoining hotel (it was posh and there was classical music, we are poor, there was no point in even asking), and met a very helpful warden. We also briefly tried to head to Calisle in order to get a nice dry room in a nice dry B&B, but this didn't work due to the lack of sunlight, the proliferation of darkness as a result of this, and the fact that we suddenly couldn't be bothered. A night in a wet campsite was for us, but first we found two of the best showers of the trip, which made things a little better. In fact the evening was very enjoyable despite the constant soaking, possibly the result of three tasty pints, and we went to sleep feeling pretty happy. (The end of day shower makes a big difference to morale on camping trips like this, later on we would become very irate largely as the result of crap showers).
Day 11 review
Mileage = 73
Breweries visited = 1
Pints drunk = 6 (and they were all good. Thankyou Hesket)
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