Bike Route: Eskdale to Keswick 36mi 3300ft of climb
Accommodation: Latrigg View (Apt 1) - Hedgehog Hill (Airbnb); host Christine. Shower, kitchen, wifi, no washer (laundromat nearby).
Dinner: Asaya Thai Restaurant. Green curry with king prawns, stir-fried asparagus and baby corn with seafood, jasmine rice. Very good.
So, I'm not complaining, but almost every single day, when we finish biking, our ride recorder shows 20-25 percent more climbing than our route planner estimated. In this blog, I list the mileage and feet of climb from the planner, not our actual readings--because our planned routes are the ones posted through the Routes link, and our actual recordings reflect things unique to our day, like detouring for lunch or road maintenance or whatever.
Anyway, this day, our navigation devices said we actually climbed 3700-3800 feet, not 3300 feet. For a couple of hours in the morning, I was tired and maybe a little crabby. But then we biked past this little shop out in the middle of nowhere, with local ice cream and cheese and cold drinks and a garden in back with a pretty little toilet and a water spigot, and it was crowded with bikers, and you know, it just wasn't that bad.
But I was really happy to find our apartment easily, lock the bikes in the hallway, and drop our packs in our new bedroom in our new home for the next three nights.
What an absolutely beautiful town. Meghan and I were in Keswick 19 years ago, in late June or early July, hiking for a few days. We stayed in a hostel on the edge of town. My memories were of mostly rain and clouds, green slate buildings, streets full of hikers and climbers and other outdoorsy types.
Today, there are still green slate buildings and lush green trees and hills, but there is way more traffic, more shoppers and shopping, more bustle and hustle. And I still love the town and the area.
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| Loweswater, the first lake we saw in the Lake District. |
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| Halfway through the day, we were still seeing the ocean as we climbed inland around the hills that mark the Lake District. |
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| Traffic jam. |
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| Green slate is the typical building material for this area. When Meghan and I visited Keswick in 2004, we loaded our backpacks with coasters made of the stuff to bring home. That was before we learned not to carry heavy things on long journeys. Or maybe it was when we learned. |
