have ticked off Weston Super Mare and the beach enduro racing,
Windsor and its exorbitantly and disgracefully expensive (but still impressive) castle,
Oxford,
Cambridge,
Henley,
and Bexhill on Sea.
We've also been to the Lee miller Archive at Farley Farm near Eastbourne,
and the Topfoto Gallery at Edenbridge. And over the past ten days, the poor old Hornet has been put through its paces and done a biggish loop up north and back, along with Gordon on his Transalp and Nadine on her BMW.
First up was the Horizons Unlimited bike meet in Castle Donington near Derby.
We arrived on Thursday afternoon, Nadine and I did a talk about our scooter ride to Mongolia last summer, then we spent three and a half days listening to other people talking about what they had done, catching up with people we hadn't seen for ages, making paracord bracelets, and jawing.
Gordon also did a bit of litter picking to help keep the place tidy. And it didn't rain once. Lovely.
Oh and Nadine won the women's slow bike race.
Then as we were already half way up the country, we carried on north, riding through the Peak District to Buxton and Glossop, then over Snake Pass past LadyBower reservoir, and on to Sheffield.
There we turned north and crossed the Humber Bridge to Beverley, where we stopped for the night.
We'd camped at the horizons meeting, but we stayed in a youth hostel in Beverley - a 13th century friary and during a fairly recent renovation had been discovered to be harbouring some medieval wall paintings.
These are now exposed, albeit covered by glass, and they're pretty cool.
The Minster is just up the road too, and it dominates the town. How impressive these buildings must have been when they were first built; true wonders of imagination and craftsmanship which have lasted centuries, and certainly more successfully than my dad's garage which crumbled after 20 years.
After Beverley, we headed north again, up the east coast, stopping off at Flamborough Head, Ravenscar and Whitby. The lighthouse was having its windows cleaned at Flamborough.
Ravenscar was the place laid out in the early twentieth century as a resort but they only got as far as building the drainage system, dividing the land into building plots and scoping the roads before the whole project was shelved. It was part due to WW1 starting, and part due to the fact that its on top of a cliff with a steep path down to a minuscule rocky beach.
So now, all that is visible years later, obscured amongst tufts of grass, are drain covers, laid out at regular intervals along stoney tracks that would have been proper roads, had things gone to plan for the would be developer.
Further up the coast still, Whitby is the complete opposite; an established and well known Yorkshire seaside town, complete with a harbour, many buildings, and a ruined abbey. Unfortunately, the Abbey is a very lucrative cash cow for English Heritage, charging £6.40 per adult to stroll around what is little more than a few walls and tufts of long grass. A shame really and they wouldn't even consider a reduced rate for people rocking up at 5pm as we did. A bloke and his daughter had discovered the same thing and were also a bit put out as all he wanted to do was show her the pirate graves over the far side. But at `£6.40p for him, and another £6.40 for his daughter, it was a steep fork out for a half hour's poking about. So we all peered over the wall and left it at that.
This part of the country is not somewhere I would normally go as its too distant for the daily stuff that I do, and most of my wanderings are in the other direction anyway. However, we had a reason to be in the area this time, and the empty roads plus spectacular scenery was well worth the effort. A windy road over the moors dropped us down into Middlesbrough and the Transporter Bridge, where Gordon's bike promptly played up as we waited for the cradle to cross back over to our side of the drink.
The blue bridge is an odd site, poking up standing so tall on the flat, bleak floodplain of the Tees. One side is very industrial masking the bridge approach with factories and warehouses, but as soon as you cross, the change to open farmland is immediate.
We spent two nights in Chester le Street, bunking at Iain and Debz', some biking mates. They both had to work, but kindly allowed us to use their place as a base for more exploring. Dumping our camping gear before riding over the moors, we took the old Roman Military Road westwards and parallel to Hadrian's Wall. What a fantastic road; almost dead straight, but with dips and summits, flanked by wide open spaces and big skies. lovely.
But like Whitby Abbey, the Wall has become a bit of a money printing opportunity in some places, with one spot charging £4.00 for the car park, followed by a fat entrance fee to walk up to the Wall. So like the Abbey, we forewent the pleasure and looked at it from the road. But by coincidence, we had already found a free observation post a few kilometres down the road, complete with a ruined fort and stunning views over the escarpment that lays beyond the rocky stuff.
Moving back eastwards, we took the twisty road up to Keilder water, a man made reservoir in the middle of nowhere. Its the largest lake in the UK by capacity, and the surrounding forest, also man made is the largest man made woodland in Europe. The place is a major Hydro electric power source too, but to make it, they did have to flood and dam the valley.
The route between Keilder and Alnick are beautifully empty and twisty ' must ride' roads. Alnick ( pronounced "Annik") is the home of the castle that was used as Hogworts in the Harry Potter films. It is screened from the road by trees, but all we wanted were some pictures rather than a look round. After a bit of riding about, we were able to get up fairly close on foot and snap a few before heading off to Lindisfarne, also known as Holy Island.
Lindisfarne is a very small sandy island just off the coast, reached by a causeway which is only open at certain tide times. The island was colonised by St Aiden in 635AD, when he set up a monastery. Its now a picturesque island village, supporting a small population which explodes daily as visitors swarm across the causeway. Some disregard the tide times however, and invariably come a cropper, loosing their vehicles to the North Sea, and amusing those got it right. It is a nice little place and worth the effort to get there.
On the way back to Chester -le- Street, we nipped down the Northumberland Coastal Route, riding through Bamburgh and Seahouses in the process. Seahouses still has a working fishing fleet and is an embarkation point for the Farne Islands, which lay a few miles out to sea. The Farne Islands are associated with Grace Darling, the girl who rowed out to sea in a storm and saved nine people from the stranded Forfarshire, thus beginning lifeboat lore. Her father was the lighthouse keeper at Longshore. one of the islands.
Bamburgh Castle is astonishingly impressive, built right on the shore between the road and the sea. It is a huge edifice, rising straight up, and clearly built over a long period of time. It was the seat of the former kings of Northumbria, and Grace darling is also buried at Bamburgh.
After Chester le Street, Scotland was on the cards. Unfortunately, with only a limited time, we had to pick our routes and places of interest accordingly in order to fit in as much as possible. So we scooted through Gateshead and saw the Angel of the North, followed by Newcastle city centre, then back we rode along the Roman military highway to Brampton, then northwards, heading for Dumfries, stopping for photos on the border at Gretna.
Gretna was of course the famous place to get married for eloping couples from England as Scottish law allowed the age of consent as 16, while English law held it at 18. The blacksmith used to perform the service, and his forge still stands, although it no longer operates as either a forge or a place to get married.
Five miles west of Gretna on the A75, and in the middle of nowhere, Nadine's chain came off, shearing ten sprocket teeth on the process and confining us all to a hedge for the next few hours.
But it was ok, and the welcome orange truck of the RAC eventually loomed, loaded her bike onto the back and conveyed her to some friends, Andy and Maya, at Dunscore, near Dumfries, while Gordon and I followed. Luckily, Andy is a bike wizard, and he fixed it all for her the following day. Their place at Dunscore is beautifully remote, right out in the countryside, surrounded by farmland. It was good to have a day off the bike too.
Because of time issues, Dumfries was the furthest north we ventured, so after leaving Andy and Maya, we headed back south, passing through Carlisle and onto the Lake District. Remarkably, the fine weather we'd been enjoying since leaving London a week before continued, allowing us to wander about on small roads and up in the hills in warm sunshine. What a beautiful place.....and what a difference that made to us riding!
That night we stayed at Hawes in the Yorkshire Dales, passing by the Ribbleshead railway viaduct,
before heading over to Chester and its tiered streets then down to Leamington Spa to stay with another friend, Nikki, her sister Deb, and Agatha Hound, a bitzer that looked like a tall Jack Russell.
That broke the journey nicely, leaving us only a short 130 mile hop back home the following day. So ten days, 1513 miles and more of the UK ticked off. Excellent.
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