The Story So Far...

I'm writing now in Sheffield, where we've just ridden all the way from Lands' End.

We got to Lands' End late on the 26th May, where we jumped on our bikes and rode as far as St Ives, arriving after the campsite office closed. Setting off early the next day (about 7am) meant that we camped for free! A brilliant start!

The weather the next day, however, was not quite so brilliant. It rained steadily for most of the day, stopping briefly for us to put them up again about 50 gruelling and hilly miles later, just beyond Newquay.

The next day the weather was considerably better, although we saw little direct sunlight. We made exactly 50 miles, arriving at a campsite just beyond Bude at 5 o'clock, exactly as planned!

Over the next few days the weather got unbearably hot, and the hills got much steeper (25% descents, followed by 20% ascents in Devon!), making the riding pretty difficult at times. We made relatively good progress though, doing at least our planned 50 miles per day, plus a little extra on some, usually when our camping plans went pear shaped. In north Somerset, we were trying to find a campsite near Burnham-on-sea. The campsites around those parts, though, look more like refugee camps, with shiny new caravans crammed in, almost to the point of touching. Many did not even accept tents. So after riding around, almost as far as Weston-super-mere, we finally found a site that accepted tents. It was, however, more like a canvas council estate. While we were brushing our teeth to go to bed, everyone else was walking around with tinny R&B music blaring out of the mobile phones, and preparing to go to the local disco. Other nights, though, we did find proper campsites - a field owned by a farmer, with little more than a tap and a toilet (and an honestly box to pay the £3.50 fee in one case). Brilliant.

With a massive 88 miles covered yesterday (our longest day by far), having ridden from the far side of Shropshire to the edge of the Peak District, we had but a steady mornings' ride across North Derbyshire, stopping off for a full English in Bakewell, arriving in Sheffield just after 1 o'clock.

We're both looking forward to a comfortable nights' rest in proper beds, and a steady day of rest tomorrow, before we crack on towards Scotland on Friday.

I'll try to keep this slightly more up-to-date over the next couple of weeks, but I recon internet cafe's are few and far between in Scotland!

To be continued…