Category: Rhyming Coast to Coasts

It rained all night, and it was a miserable cold squelchy start from the lochside campsite. Even the mad hen was taking shelter. But with a hefty tailwind, the long downhill into Moffat was a delight (picture). As was Moffat itself, a handsome town with a good line in cherry trees and Scotch pies. Outside…

So, this morning I left Dunbar (picture). A friendly small town that acts as the administrative centre for the agricultural area and a dormitory town for Edinburgh, it’s the home of John Muir, who established the conservation movement; Belhaven Brewery; a nuclear power station; a fishing harbour; and a cement factory. A mixed economy, I’d…

Most of today’s short concluding run was on NCN14, the well-surfaced railtrail (picture) that takes grateful C2Cers downhill from Consett into Newcastle. It has two sorts of ‘Cyclists: Slow’ signs. One is because there are narrow barriers coming up at a road crossing, in which case you should slow down; the other also says ‘Give…

Alongside Ullswater (picture) to start with, and a visit to see Aira Force, the waterfall area which claims to be the inspiration of Wordsworth’s ‘I wandered lonely as a cloud’. Clearly he, like me, beat the tourist rush by coming here at 7.30am. Outside Penrith I joined the C2C (Coast to Coast) Sustrans route. In…

So, this is Barrow to Jarrow, another rhyming coast to coast, starting this morning at Barrow-in-Furness at the southwest extremity of the Lakes. I dipped my wheels in the tetchy surf on a windy pebbly beach on Walney Island (picture). Barrow is, of anywhere in the UK, the place most people want to get away…

Cycling over the previous few days has felt like the Argentinian economy: either soaring up or plummeting down, and with perpetual U-turns. But today Normal Cycle Touring Service was resumed: unremarkable but agreeable back-lanes cycling through undulating countryside. It was south Devon, but could have been anywhere in England. At Broadhembury, a pleasant thatchy village…

A glorious mixture of cycling today, starting with the punishing climb from Lynmouth to Lynton (above). The historic funicular (a Latin-derived adjective meaning ‘very expensive’) railway whisks you and bike up the cliff in two minutes for £5.30, which makes it slightly cheaper per second than Cross Country trains. Several hours of lovely moors cycling…

We (me and Nigel) have arrived in Lynmouth, on the north Devon coast, to start the Lynmouth to Teignmouth rhyming Coast to Coast tomorrow. We got here by cycling from Plymouth to Ilfracombe along the Sustrans Devon Coast to Coast route. And then by pushing from Ilfracombe to Lynmouth, thanks to north Devon’s boom-and-bust ups…

A final leg that was further than planned. And somewhat damper – with rain all day I sometimes wasn’t sure if I was going through the Broads or underneath them. I had a quick look round Narch in the morning. The riverside path (above) and the cathedral (below) are well explored by bike, and the…

A day of glorious sunshine, big skies, richly chilled saturated colours, and a tailwind that scooted me over 75 miles of flat East Anglia backroads with ease. Elevenses was at Kings Lynn (above). It’s good to have your preconceptions about a place challenged; I’d always thought KL was a weird terminus town, full of staring…