This post recounts the eighth day of my 14 day LEJOG19 adventure, in August 2019. For tips based on my experience, please go to my blogpost How to ride Land’s End to John O’Groats. Read Day 7, Northwich to Conder Green

This was a lovely day. It rained a lot, as low pressure continued to dump lots of rain on Great Britain, but it wasn’t as heavy as yesterday, and the roads were drier.

We had many opportunities to see the effects of three days’ rain, especially as the flood plain of the Lune was living up to its name!

The first part of today’s ride took us along an old railway path from Conder Green to Lancaster. I normally have a good sense of direction and geography, but today I was disoriented . Weren’t we going away from Lancaster not towards it? I had a similar feeling later near Tebay, not realising that it was south, not north, of our destination Penrith.

There was an animal theme today. A herd of cows took interest in us at the morning brew stop. Later, we found the lane blocked by a gate as a lovely female farm worker let a lorry-load of lambs into a field. She apologised for keeping us waiting; we said it was no problem on a Sunday morning when we were enjoying the lovely Lancashire hill country. We smiled at the registration number on the van, which ended BAA!

Later, I was intrigued to see a this sign for Arkholme with the reference to its being a thankful village. Thankful villages were those that lost no one in the Great War; 59 men from Arkholme went off to war and came back. Nearby Nether Kellet was ‘doubly thankful’ as it lost no one in either of the world wars.

My favourite part of today’s ride was the stretch in the fells with the West Coast Main Line railway, M6 and river Lune to my left. We saw an electric express train heading south, which led me to imagine steam hauled trains traversing these lonely hills, as they did until my early childhood.

Lunch was a more meagre affair than normal in a pub that had sixties music (a theme we found in northern pubs) competing with Songs of Praise on TV. We joked that we hadn’t prayed enough for good weather!

We had a big climb our of Tebay straight after lunch, which I was pleased to complete without too much difficulty. The afternoon session was relatively easy, and we were soon in Penrith, our final night south of the border.

At first glance my guesthouse in Penrith was lovely – a solid Victorian house with lovely features. We were told there was a drying room, which was a godsend as I needed to wash some cycling clothes, But this drying room proved to be a false god: it was a cupboard with no heat. Needless to say, nothing dried! It proved surprisingly difficult to dry clothes during this summer trip, as the few heated towel rails were typically unheated. Happily our first guesthouse in Scotland did a wash for us.

Venturing into Penrith for dinner, I could feel a distinct change in the weather. I wore long trousers for the first time in two weeks, a pattern that would continue off the bike for the rest of the trip. You wouldn’t know that it was August!

The day’s stats

62 miles, 4,085 feet climbing, 5 hrs 2 mins cycling, 12.3 mph average

Read Day 9, Penrith to Moffat