A Long Day (Thursday 12th March)

We set out at 6.15 on what seemed like a lovely morning, but as we headed West the wind started to pick up which proved a big hinderance to our speed and to our energy levels. It took us until 11 to reach Westgate where we stopped for a sandwich before turning South and climbing up to the Pennines' last remaining snow at 2100ft. The views were fantastic and the descent at up to 40mph with a scary cross wind was invigorating to say the least.

Once down the other side, we turned west again and climbed for about half an hour to get to High Force, a huge single drop waterfall on the River Tees.

After this we were heading east and for a while enjoyed the benefit of a following wind to race along the undulating roads at around 25-30mph (hit 42.5 at one point!) over to Barnard Castle. For a town that has the castle in it's name, it wasn't too easy to find the actual castle and it wasn't that impressive when we did.

We still had about 40 miles to go at that point and it was already late afternoon so we didn't stop at the more impressive looking Raby Castle and instead continue making our way back towards Durham. The dark country roads proved a good test of our lights and our bravery as descents became quite scary. Aside from a puncture somewhere around Witton-le-wear though, it was largely uneventful but I think we were both relieved to see a sign saying Durham 1 mile, and the 7 miles on the A690 back to Houghton seemed very easy all of a sudden. We finally got back at 9.30pm and were asleep very shortly afterwards.