C2C - The Fantastic Journey!

Not enough time to write it up fully now, but my colleague and friend Tim and I completed the C2C bike ride last weekend (Sept 22-25 2011).

133 miles from the west coast to the east coast, through Cumbria and the Durham Dales, and out past Newcastle to Tynemouth - albeit after two punctures (one on each tyre for me) and the complete overhaul of my brakes (twice - at one point the back wheel's brake pads were jarring against the frame, essentially applying brakes constantly for about 25 miles). My bike, a faithful servant on the streets of Durham for two years, has surely had its swansong, and it went down screaming!

We had perfect weather - not much sun (several plus points), and not much rain (94,000 plus points). Overcast but not too foggy = optimal, and that's what we got.

Here are some of the pictures, and videos, from each of the completely magnificent days - a spectacular new entry in the Top 20 list of Most Fun I've Had With My Clothes On:

Day 1: Whitehaven to Langwathby (just outside Penrith): about 55 miles
















Day 2: Langwathby to Stanhope (County Durham) via Hartside: about 42 miles




















Day 3: Stanhope to Tynemouth via Newcastle/ Gateshead: about 30 miles











I'm now completely addicted, and cannot wait for next Spring to have a go at The Way Of The Roses, and the real beastie - Glasgow to Inverness!

C2c 2011, etc etc - Willington (via Oakenshaw), Newton Hall, Easington...

With the commentary to Andrey Arshavin's fantastic winner against Barcelona at the Emirates ringing in my ears - I'd already memorised it - I set off for Brancepeth, and its agreeable castle. But I got there reasonably straightforwardedly, and so like my jaunt to Chester-le-Street, I decided to just carry on and see what came next.

Tow Law was the answer, on the next signpost, which appealed because of Tow Law Town, of course: I admit I don't keep track of how they're doing, but always seem to hear their name on the Classifieds. Except I got lost en route, and more to the point, thirsty. So when I cycled past a remote village called Oakenshaw I figured it must have a shop.

It doesn't, or not one immediately apparent from its high street. This meant carrying on into the unknown down a gigantic hill to the next village nestled in the bosom of the valley below. Fortunately, this was Willington, a village I knew, 8.5 miles away from home - 10miles with the needless detour.

There I sampled The Mermaid Fish Shop's lunchtime special, with pot of team and mushy peas, all for a reasonable £5,
and salivated over the football reports - shame it didn't work out in the away leg (had van Persie been on the end of Wilshere's pass at the end, though...)

The next jaunt was nearer to home, in the Newton Hall estate, because last summer Liam and I had found a brilliant alleyway with a daunting and exhilarating hill down into town that I couldn't resist trying again. It took a while to find it, over the railway bridge, but it has a Cresta Run feel to it, and ends up with a lovely arc round into a farm:



The following week I headed in another direction, toward Sherburn, and beyond to Easington, apparently the most ethnically homogenous postcode in the country, and a tough place to reach by bike - 13 miles away, loads of hills, especially into Sherburn Hill (clue in the title, I suppose)!
But there were some giant windmills en route, in the beautiful hills...

Easington's high street is a looooooooooooong and formidable bank, but when I got there, I saw a sign that said the coast was at the bottom, three miles away. Well, I couldn't resist that, and you do get a thrill from seeing the sea, don't you? I got there, but there was a steep cliff, and I didn't have enough time to find the path down to the 'beach', so I had to settle for this, before the 13 miles back:

C2C 2011/ Stamina-building Tour of County Durham 2 - Chester Moor and Beyond...

This week I headed off in the other direction, to Chester Moor, about 6 miles away from our house, and where, again, I thought there were at least two pubs by way of a final destination. I knew I'd pass by Plawsorth, with its farm where you can pick soft fruit, advertised on the main road with a gigantic plastic strawberry. Ideal photo opportunity.

As is now threatening to become typical of this tour of County Durham, it's not there anymore.

So I carried on, and as I'd over-estimated the distance to Chester Moor and the gradient of the hill (modest), when I got there after about 20 minutes I thought that wasn't much of a trip, so I carried on toward Chester-le-Street. And that's when the day got (marginally) more interesting...

I spotted out of the corner of my eye down a dirt path a sign that looked very much like one for an amateur football club. Naturally curious, I pedalled down to find out more... ... and it was indeed an ad for Chester-le-Street Town, but with some disconcerting features: 1) The forthcoming fixture was for last August and, 2) The next match would require an early-morning kick-off - what, on police advice?! I know it's Birtley (suburb of Gateshead/Newcastle), but still...

So I cycled further down the path, in search of a football stadium that, possibly, had been last used in the previous summer. And I encountered a decrepit, seemingly derelict 'ghost ground', as if it had been abandoned and left for Nature to reclaim.

Well, that's what I thought, but a cursory Google search reveals - come on, admit it, you're curious - that they won 2-0 at home last week (by the looks of it, the boy Davison is in a rich vein of form), in front of a crowd of 48.

At first I thought they might play elsewhere - could they have grown out of this stadium? Not with crowds like that! - and so I was intrigued when the link about their ground was being "updated", but the "getting there" link does place them squarely in this field behind a pub off a main road.

So, what's with the spectacularly out-of-date noticeboard? Weird, but slightly disappointing, to be honest - I preferred the 'ghost ground' story. Ah well, up the Cestrians.

I continued down the main road to Chester-le-Street, to Riverside Park which, as the sign makes clear, is more than a park, it's the "Gateway to the Great North Forest", an apparently astounding wilderness that had hitherto escaped my attention for five entire years, and wasn't obviously in the immediate vicinity. The park does have an excellent play area for kids, though.

Meandering around the park's perimeter I came upon a subway with the intriguing title... ... and when I cycled in, I found an excellent set of murals obviously painted by some local kids (possibly from St Leonards Catholic school), under the guidance of the region's NHS Trust, the County Council and a mental health charity for kids.

Impressive artwork, and of course wholly admirable and sensible sentiments (the "Get some sleep" one made me laugh out loud, too), but descending into the tunnel surrounded by all this intense anxiety was somewhat alarming.

Eee, it were simpler in our day (we had The Smiths for starters).

And this is life in the frenzied heaving metropolis of Chester-le-Street. Who knows what would be on Council-sponsored murals in south London?

Onward into the town itself, and to a pub - any pub. I settled o The Butchers Arms, down a side-road off the main high street, where I was only the 2nd customer in, and I had a bog-standard pub lunch ('seasonal vegetables' turned out to mean boiled carrots and cabbage!), and a creditable pint. Then back home...

So - ghostly football grounds and teenage nightmares in Chester-le-Street. Next week - Langley Park.