Stuck

Ian will blog separately about his Hadrian’s Wall trail hike. To start it off, we drove to the tiny village of Bowness-on-Solway, on the southern edge of the Solway Firth. The landscape here was quite different – extensive grasslands and mudflats. Signs warned of flooding the road, but there was no water lapping at the narrow strip of bitumen that is National Cycleway 72. We did have to wait for a few sheep to move out of the way.

Once parked on the edge of Bowness, we walked into the village and found the information shelter that marks the official Start, or End, of the trail. I took photos and uttered encouraging words as Ian contemplated the 145 km that lay ahead.

After he left, my mission was to drive south to Penrith, to collect an order of Sportident equipment. We’d pre-arranged this with the SI UK store, once we realised they were located only half an hour away.

Due to road diversions near Penrith, Google took me on a magical mystery tour of every teeny tiny rural road in northern Cumbria – at least that’s how it felt. What was wrong with the M6 motorway? (I discovered the answer to this later – a kilometres-long traffic jam on the southbound side). To cut a very long story short, I finally arrived at my destination, took possession of our order, and hoofed it back to Carlisle on said M6 (no traffic jam northbound).

Later that evening when Ian returned (and I won’t bore you with the parking-in-the-garage saga that has occupied way too much of our time and energy), we realised one of the rear tyres was flat. We knew it had a slow leak, but it had reached the point of being unsafe to drive on. Several phone calls later, it seemed we might have to wait 3 days for a repair – meaning we were Stuck. No driving, and no walking for Ian.

This morning, Ian walked to the local office of the car rental company and explained the situation. We were given a temporary inflation device, and told to come back in 2 hours, for a replacement car. This was good news! It was raining anyway so we didn’t feel we’d missed any walking time by hanging around all morning.

So now we have a white version of our black car, this time with satnav. We decided rather than drive it today, we’d walk into Carlisle’s historic centre. We shopped in a bookstore that could be mapped for a Maze-O – a labyrinth of shelves packed with new and old titles.

I spent a pleasant hour wandering around the inside and outside of Carlisle Cathedral. There was a Dutch choir singing Evensong, and I enjoyed the soaring acoustics, accompanied with gusto by the magnificent pipe organ. The striking blue ceiling with its shimmering stars, and the wonderful stained glass windows, were lovely to behold while the choir sang.

Later I wandered down towards the Castle and the Tullie House gardens, while Ian followed a short section of the Hadrian’s Wall Trail along the river, adding a couple of kilometres to yesterday’s efforts.