Kielder Camping Weekend - Day 3
Day 3, Sunday, we got up, the air was damp with the remnants of the night's rain still clinging to the material as we packed the tents away. (Which reminds me, I need to put that up at some point to dry it out ready for the SLAM SWC300 Scotland trip.) Then headed to Penrith for fuel and donuts for breakfast at Tim Hortons. Predictably, and honestly without any involvement from me, 50 of the local sleeveless leather vest wearing Hardly Daverson riders had just finished up and peeled out of the car park as we arrived, you can take the adventure out of a donut, but you can’t take the donut out of an adventure.
Ice-cream for lunch sat out in the sun at the chocolate factory at Orton, then a surprise ford that even I had forgotten was on the route. Luckily we all managed to skilfully manoeuvre our motorcycles to avoid getting stuck before we headed back home via Kirkby Stephen and onto the Coal Road over Garsdale Pass, the highest road for miles around, bounded by warnings of its steepness and its untreated nature during wintery condition, those wintery conditions were on their way. There was going to be no escaping it, the severe weather warning for rain and flooding was going to catch up with us one way or another at some point today. But so far we had been lucky, and had managed to skirt round or outpace the weather. Heading East rather than South after breakfast had seen us escape the weather so far, but we couldn’t keep going East forever and had to eventually turn back towards the Fylde coast.
At the first sign of rain spots the group stopped to swap to waterproof gloves, to add waterproof covers and to close vented zips. Well, they all did, I just sat there contemplating my life choices.
In the few minutes it took at the side of the road for everyone to configure for wet weather riding, the clouds had blown a little further away and the rain had actually stopped. For miles and miles the roads were wet, but the sky was dry. I was almost feeling sorry for everyone that was out in the hot humid weather while sat inside a plastic bag, with me looking as cool as a cucumber in my mesh gloves and trials jacket.
However the inevitable did happen, we crested a rise and there cutting across the road in front of us was a visible wall of water, there was no escaping it, I held my breath and made myself as small as possible, but I would have been drier stood in the shower at the campsite.
The rain came and went as we turned left and right to wiggle our way back towards Cockerham, we grabbed coffee and played an impromptu shuffleboard knockout competition at Farmyard Ales. This added the necessary time delay for the rain to ease off. it had fully cleared by the time we reached our final destination, we sat outside with a final drink at the Eagle at Weeton and as we reflected on the weekends activities, it concluded another fabulous camping adventure for SLAM.
Home to rinse the bike off, which despite the earlier rain was still covered in dust from the gravel road.
