Kielder Camping Weekend - Day 2
Saturday, just as we were about to set off, a few ominous spots of rain splashed across our visors. My lightweight and very much non-waterproof gear that I had been smugly sporting all day yesterday suddenly felt like I was wearing a sponge. I had never felt so underprepared to embark on 8 hours of riding so far from home. I flapped-about protesting that the weather forecast, we had just checked the night before while in the pub, had said; heatwave. At the same time as this was happening I was discovering that the meticulously planned route that was programmed into the sat-nav was not working at all. I lied and told everyone it would be alright. I had planned to use some particularly interesting and obscure roads, but if could just get us to the exact start of the exact road that I had no idea how to find, everything would be ok. I poked around and manually set a course for somewhere that was at least in the right county, taking just long enough doing that for Ashley to rock up at the campsite. Lingering just long enough for his paniers to be ditched in a tent also saw it suddenly stop raining. That was a relief. The now 5 of us departed on the days adventures. If nobody else know the route… then I can get away with anything right? But they all know, you definitely called it the Kielder Forest Drive camping weekend, so we need to do that bit for sure, but the rest is surely an unknown quantity, I could just ride us round in circles for a few hours and nobody will notice right?
First thing, as always, first; breakfast, stopping only for fuel in Alston on the way. Between the site and Alston was apparently the Hartside Pass, however the ascent was shrouded in mist, probably that same mist that rained on my when getting on the bike. We enjoyed a hearty breakfast at The Nook cafe by the Epiacum Roman Fort. Someone stole someone else’s toast, but I was too busy using the flaky wifi to set up a mobile hotspot to connect the sat-nav to the cloud to extract the location of the potential 24 mile round trip down a no-through-road. We followed Hadrian’s wall over to Otterburn, then on a military concrete road through an MOD training area. This area can be used for live firing exercises and there was a possibility that at some point along the 12 mile road there would be red flags waving and we would be forced to make U-turn and come right back to the start.
We made it, the single track, concrete section road through the MOD exercise area past lemming sheep and inquisitive cows had finally come to an end and we hit the main road just a few hundred yards from the start of the Kielder Forest Drive, a 12 miles long £3 toll gravel road. I have never been so relieved that the route worked out.
Chip butty for lunch at Kielder Castle then past Carlisle airport to avoid using any motorway to get back to the campsite.
Shower, changed and back out to the same pub to repeat the evening ritual again.
In tonight’s interesting topic of discussion, earplugs were suggested as a good fix for the animal noises, the ones with the string between them were identified as the best ones to use and you would be able to use the string to extract them after you have used them to choke the snoring person to death.
The ride on the Forest Drive was breath taking. The road twisted and turned, just enough to keep the exact layout a secret until you completed each corner or crested each rise. We stopped and regrouped in a tarmac clearing most of the way through the trail. Those that chose to bring road bikes with stiff, short travel suspension were probably questioning their own sanity for attending the trip at this point.
Myself and Paul couldn’t get enough, Pauls Ducati entered enduro mode as the others left to continue to the end to secure some seating in the open area in front of the castle by the catering van, and the pair of us doubled back to get another couple of lengths of gravel track under our belts by turning back around before re-crossing the start of the toll road, we wanted to get our money’s worth out of that toll fee!
The road itself, being made of gravel was a challenge in its own right. If you went too slow the bike would be all unstable, adding a little speed helped with stability. The faster you went the more stable the bike got, which gave more confidence, which bred more speed, which brought more stability, leading to more confidence, it was a self-fulfilling prophesy of stability and confidence then suddenly that tiny kink in the track that was a few hundred yards off the last time you looked, was suddenly 20feet from the front wheel and you are now travelling faster than you care to admit. After a while, and this track went on for 12 miles, things started to come more naturally and despite the floor being made out of dust and small stones, we were able to relax and become less conscious of the lack of grip and start to take in the picturesque landscape that the track was situated within. Between the sections of tall forest, commissioned art installations and areas of felled tree stumps there was a patchwork quilt of green fields and blue skies. We have all seen these views before, but to ride through it, this time standing up on the foot pegs and riding on a gravel road made it a different kind of thrill.
After the food the ride home from Kielder back to the campsite was a fairly predictable one, we stopped for a while delayed for a herd of cows that were being manoeuvred from one field to another, I was speculating how good they would taste as a crispy shredded chilli beef dish, though after being so close to so many of them and watching their personalities and they made their own individual way as part of the collective herd, I ordered the chicken curry instead.
Once back at the campsite, those that wanted to go swimming in the river went and did that, while those that valued warmth and comfort got changed and compared times taken to boil water using a variety of different civilised cooking appliances. We also discovered the button on the shower unit that actually heated the water above 60 degrees rather than to just 26 like last night, it must have felt like lava to those that just got out the river.
On the walk to the village we debated the merits of trying the second pub, but again we were hungry and the closer pub, was closer. We knew it did the best crispy beef in the country, and possibly even the world. Somehow they managed to squeeze us in again and everybody played musical chairs with the food choices and ordered something that they has seen someone else have the night before. The reality was that all the food at the Dukes Head Inn in Armathwaite was all really nice, even if half the food and drink that arrived was the result of misheard order and not strictly what we wanted.
The walk between the pub and the campsite was just the same length as the last three times we had walked it, it didn’t get any shorter no matter how many times we complained about it.
Having eaten all the marshmallows the night before we were welcome that Ashley had brought a foot long tube of crisps for use to share.
As I sat by the campfire that night, under a blanket of shining stars, I couldn’t help but to giggle to myself about the characteristically adventure bike cliché that was in store for us for breakfast the following morning.
