Liverpool to Newcastle via the Lakes District and Hadrian’s Wall

It was four days of riding to get from Liverpool to Newcastle, it covered a range of landscapes and some cultural stuff. Here’s a quick post about it!

Liverpool seemed to be predominately about the Beatles, and I wondered what sort of state it would be in without them to boost their tourism!

It was pretty standard riding the first day out of Liverpool. There wasn’t really a good cycle path to follow, so I made my way along country roads as best I could, glad I had my GPS.

I stopped just north of Lancaster at a campsite about a kilometre outside a town called Bolton-Le-Sands – really English sounding name eh!?! It was a nice farm campsite that was pretty busy seeing as it’s the start of the school summer holidays.
That night was the London 2012 Olympics Opening ceremony, and I went to the pub in town to watch it, which was nice to view it with some locals. I was too tired to stay up for the end, and only stuck it out till New Zealand came out (which was still at like 11.30pm).

Here’s a pretty boring photo of the beach in front of my campground.

The riding from here was nicer, if hillier, heading into the Lakes District. A couple of my friends, Eli and Claire who I stayed with for a week in London (and who are leaving the UK soon) were doing a quick road-trip around Britain and were passing through the Lakes District when I was, so we caught up for a coffee and lunch which was good.

Heading around the lakes was nice, and a lot of the area felt like the Southern Lakes district in New Zealand, except that the hills were greener!

It was some really nice riding, although there were rain showers on and off.

From the Lakes it was down through some more countryside that looked a lot like parts of Central Otago (or maybe I’m seeing things).. I stayed at a very soggy, but well equipped campsite.

It was a very wet night and morning- and whilst everything stayed dry when inside the tent, the tent was saturated when I took it down.
Riding through the countryside I came across this cool building with a crack and almost another building inside!

It was clearing up a bit as I made it to Carlisle and joined the Hadrian’s Wall cycle route. Carlisle seemed like a nice town, although it was pretty sleepy on a Sunday morning.
Here’s Carlisle Castle from across the street:

The ride along Hadrian’s Wall was interesting in some ways- it really did feel like frontier country. However there isn’t a huge amount of the wall still visible, at least not from the cycle route, which follows nearby roads. I think if I was to do it again it’d be nice to walk it- there’s a walking path the follows the actual route of the wall.
Here’s the most obvious part of the wall that the road follows:

I stayed at a big, quiet hostel in a small rural village that night so I could dry out. It was great- there was a drying room so I could get my tent and clothes completely dry! It was an old Methodist Chapel, and I had a room to myself which was great.

The next day was a chilled out day following the Tyne River downstream with a tailwind to Newcastle. On the way I passed this gate to a big country house.

So I’m not in Newcastle, staying with my friend Hilary (who featured in this post), and am heading along to the NZ-Brazil Olympic mens football game tomorrow. Then I’ll head up the coast to Scotland for some riding around there!