Day Thirteen – Windermere to Hesket Newmarket

I am Routes and Mick is Maintenance. This has been agreed from the start.  But Mick said he had a proposal for a route and so, unwilling to be too dictatorial, I agreed he could plot the route today. Big Mistake.  Windermere to Ambleside was fine if rather wet, a downhill coast most of the way.  By the time we got to Ambleside it was tipping down and we dived into a cafe for an hour. 

Kirkstone Pass, if you have never been there, is very steep. 


The pub at the top was smashing however and it proved to be a bit of an End-To-Enders convention.  Two other cyclists were also doing the journey although on a different, faster route (no towpaths!).  They were on day eight. We also discovered that they also came from Bristol!  In the pub, the landlord said he had also cycled End-to-End, but he had gone north to south. Like everyone else we spoke to who went this way he had a headwind all the way.




Mercifully the sun came out and we had a lovely couple of hours ride along the banks of Lake Ullswater and then up the hill past Aira Force.  We found a track at Troutbeck which bypassed the A66, finally crossing it to follow the lanes through to Mungrisdale and Hesket Newmarket. At Hesket we firstly called at The Old Crown.  This is a great pub. We set up camp at Mr and Mrs Todhunter’s farm next door which has the best appointed toilet of any campsite I have used, before repairing to the pub for a fine meal and a couple more pints of beer from the Hesket Newmarket Brewery. 

Stats 35 miles
Pints of beer: 4
Hills pushed: 1 The Road from Hell.

Route here