Day 12

Today's story was the Big Push into Scotland. We ventured north from just outside Carlisle and 61 miles later arrived in Abington, a hamlet in the heart of the Southern Uplands. It is perhaps best described by the response of the Head Waiter in the Abington Hotel when asked what was meant by the item on his dinner menu designated 'Brussels Pate'. 'Pate that comes from Brussels' was his deadpan reply.

But another anecdote brought pleasure to our day. Morale was raised when Peter and I stopped briefly at a shop near Carlisle and asked the lady in charge whether she met many "End to Enders". "Yes indeed" she replied "I had one in only two days ago - he said the whole experience was dreadful, his knees were killing him, he wished he'd never begun and had only agreed to do it because his friend (who was outside) had persuaded him to do so." "Well" I said "and how old was he?" "Oh" she replied "he must have been all of 40".

Martin had received an encouraging text from his friend Melanie Drake after we had humbled Shap. Melanie is an experienced cyclist and End to Ender, and has been a source of invaluable advice to the team. And her message was that “it’s all downhill from here”! While this might be true psychologically, it did not quite seem so on the ground today...... We covered 60 miles, mostly uphill and into an unforgiving wind, cycling on a B road parallel with the A74, which runs between Carlisle and Glasgow.

The team now splits into two. It’s not easy to stick together when cycling as a foursome. As two pairs, we take it in turns every few miles to be in the lead, the other rider tucking in behind, to take advantage of the slipstream. This worked pretty well today. But we were very happy indeed to see the sign for Abington, our day’s destination.

Tomorrow we head for Stirling, the ancient capital of Scotland, and the resting place of her kings.