It was a slow start, we wanted to be up early and managed a 7:30 start, getting on the bikes before 9 for a change. Into the shop for a breakfast of pasties and flapjacks etc, then up the road to eat it overlooking the reservoir. A slow pace as we woke our bodies up, but after breakfast we averaged 14.5mph for 35 miles heading through Bellingham, along the B6320 and onto the B6318 that tracks along the route of Hadrian's wall.
This is Hadrian's wall:
Or lack of it.
This is Sam standing around quite near Hadrian's wall:
The wind nicely from the north as we headed more or less south was a nice touch and we arrived at High House Farm Brewery at 12:30, on time for a change. (Well, nearly). We were really well looked after, given a Drayman's lunch which was very, very tasty, a pint of one of their ales - I forget which ones, but they were both good - then Steve came out to give us a quick tour, gave us some tasters and we were on our way again with High House t-shirts in our bags. So there is an ulterior motive for saying that their beers were great, but I would honestly say that a visit to the brewery and shop for lunch and a look round is very well worth while and the ales pretty damn tasty. Couldn't help but be impressed by the set-up and we were interested to hear that they had a very good process for recycling waste produce from the brewery - an advantage of combining a brewery and farm. Prince Charles would be impressed I am sure.................
This made it all the more annoying that I forgot to take a photo of High House Brewery. This is something that will have to be rectified at some point, I can certainly see the place going from strength to strength over the next few years.
Next up was Wylam Brewery. I had already heard good things about Wylam from the unlikely source of my old man who had tasted a few of their beers on his way through the area on driving jobs. We turned up, again nearly on time, and were treated to a tour of a brewery that somehow felt 'right' if not aesthetically the most pleasing. Plenty of tasters, a good thing we were near the end of the day for sure, and we both settled on 'Turbinia' as the best pint amongst quite a variety - some we loved, some we found very average. I liked the outlook at Wylam and it seemed to have a pretty solid reputation, part of which was founded on the award winning brewery tap just down the road. So that was our next stop of course.
The day was warming up nicely now as the sunglasses and my squinting in the above photo of us with ........ testify. We rolled into the tap for another pint and some sarnies, then pedalled very steadily towards the pennines. We were looking at a youth hostel at Edmundbyers on the edge of Derwent reservoir as a place for the night and we would reach it before long, but not before being overtaken by numerous cyclists on the stretch alongside the lake. A time-trial seemed to have begun as we entered that road and we watched the cyclist become progressively better and faster as each in turn sped past us leisurely plodding along in the sunshine, wearing off the effects of the afternoon's entertainment.
The hostel was small but perfect for us and we ate there then played chess for a while before turning in. Floods in Sheffield? Not here, at least we were lucky to miss out on all that even if we had little luck with the weather otherwise on the trip.
Day 25 review
Mileage - 73
Breweries - 2
Pints drunk - a lot, not even sure how many, and they were all pretty good.
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