Day 29: The man who went up a hill and came down a moun... no a hill

Appleby, Cumbria to Lancaster, Lancashire
58.26 miles (1591 miles cumulatively)

I guess I've just given it away, the topic for this blog. Hills. I think I have touched on the topic before, but it came back to me big time today. So in order to set this up for you, I am going to give you a bit of a Geography lesson first. There are a group of hills in the North West of England called the Pennines. These are actually rather big.

Now I don't want to paint a picture that didn't actually happen, I didn't climb all the way over them, no no! I thought I was going round them and to all intents and purposes that's just what I did. However, what I didn't realise was that even the outer ring of the pennines are bloody massive! And I feel here that I need to mention that as I said in yesterday's blog, that I am more tired than I gave myself credit for, this was re-iterated to me in no uncertain terms today through the medium of my legs. For the first time today, my legs told me regularly that they had done 1550 miles in the past few weeks and they'd just about had it with this pedalling up ruddy great hills.

Progress was slow. Slow, slow, slow. Slower even than a cat being persuaded to go out into the rain. But somehow, despite this slow, agonising progress, I managed to make it to Lancaster and as I was cycling along the canal towards the city centre I started to ponder on the day. Had I hated it, had I wished that it'd never happened? No, not in the slightest. In fact, it had been one of the most breathtaking days of my life. The scenery, the openness, the utter vastness of the place left me in bewilderment. It was simply stunning. Cumbria, I salute you!

Cycle England heads south...ish