I was in my best padded shorts and go-faster helmet. My luggage was in panniers either side of the rear wheel, as recommended by Sustrans, and I had enough water on board to rehydrate a small desert. Now if only it would stop raining...
The C2C, or Sea to Sea if we're going to be formal, is a 140-mile trek across England by bike. It starts at Workington or Whitehaven and finishes by the North Sea at Tynemouth or Sunderland. The route is part of Sustrans' National Cycle Network and takes you via some of the prettiest, most remote and most challenging terrain this country can offer a bike-head: the Lake District, the North Pennines and Durham Dales, old coach roads and railway cuttings, stony paths, extremely wuthering heights.
Fuelled every morning by a full English breakfast (this is one of the few times in life when black pudding and fried eggs can be eaten without guilt) you pass through places with names like those of 1930s actors - Newton Reigny, Greystoke Gill, Redburn Edge. You can do as much or as little in a day as you like: most of the people I met on my journey were making a comfortably bracing five-day break of it. I was in a hurry: it was Sunday when I set out from Whitehaven, and I needed to be back in London by the middle of the week.
The rain began falling as we got off the train, so I draped fluorescent waterproofing over the luggage panniers and headed for the other side of England. It was mid-afternoon, and by my reckoning Braithwaite, some 28 miles beyond, was as far as my ancient cardiovascular system could get me that night. Serenaded by the bleatings of sheep and the drumming of rain on my helmet, I pedalled through Lake District lanes, past the near-invisible Loweswater, alongside what I assumed by the sound of rushing water was the River Cocker.
Under normal circumstances it would have been idyllic. That first evening, for a lot less effort and expense I could have achieved the same effect by standing in a car wash for four hours. I tried to read the map but raindrops obscured the lenses of my reading glasses. In my wet, cold panic I could no longer tell left from right, and was soon heading uphill away from Braithwaite. It was only when I heard distant yo-ho-ho noises and saw the glow of pub lighting in the valley below that I realised I had overshot. And so back downhill again and in the direction of the Middle Ruddings Hotel, where I hung £20 notes on the radiator to dry and dined in a pair of sopping trackpants that left an incontinence patch on the Dralon banquette when I arose. But at least I had a bed for the night.
By the second day, things were looking up. I had 50 miles to cover, but the sun was shining and the nice housekeeper at the hotel had put everything in the tumbledryer bar the bike. Keswick was my first port of call. I had never visited it before and felt a slight pang at finding myself in one of the comeliest towns in Cumbria when I had a pressing need to make Penrith in time for lunch. I compromised by routing myself via the Castlerigg stone circle, reached by a near perpendicular climb up the Old Coach Road over becks, brows and fells. As stone circles go, this one was pretty good. But Penrith was beckoning.
The route along this stretch was near-perfect, a series of forgotten lanes bisecting rolling green dales and picturesque farms. There were some considerable hills, but all had long, fabulous descents that provided the momentum to take the bike halfway up the next climb. The sun kept shining. In Penrith, I lunched on two bottles of water from the main street Woolworths; it was too hot to eat. Off I pedalled towards Langwathby and then Renwick. This was where the hills started getting serious. The first challenge was Hartside Hill, the steepest of all the climbs on the route and the watershed between the Irish and North Seas. I was lucky - I caught up with a cheerful group of cyclists. They were younger than me but fatter, so our frequent breaks by the road were more or less synchronised.
The day's work was nearly over. All that remained was an exhilarating pedal across Alston Moor and then the little lane that sweeps down to Garrigill, a proper old-fashioned village of stone-walled houses and a triangle of green sheltered by fine spreading trees. In the window of the Post Office was the sign I had been looking for: Bed & Breakfast. In my clean, quiet room I changed out of my sweaty clothes and savoured the pleasure of having reached the point demanded by my itinerary. I thought happily of the freedom and camaraderie of the road and awarded myself the title of Queen of The Mountains for the night. Then I hopped next door to the George and Dragon for the best Yorkshire pudding in the world, the size of the Isle of Wight and resplendent in a Solent of onion gravy.
If I'd thought that day was gruelling, the most testing was yet to come. Stanhope is a lovely little town, but getting in there and out again involved several species of hell. The climbs started less than half a mile outside Garrigill and included Black Hill, the highest point on the C2C. The scenery was beautiful but I was too sweaty and out of breath to savour it. The problem was Iris Murdoch. When packing for my trip, I decided that this was a good opportunity for some improving bedtime reading and had stashed one of the late dame's heavier novels into the bike panniers along with the minimal amount of personal effects and the wherewithal for basic hygiene. Pedalling on the flat it hadn't been a problem, but heading up the first of that day's climbs I felt as if I was pulling a gun carriage.
Finally, just outside Stanhope and towering malevolently above what I now realised were mere hillocks, was the cruellest climb of all - an Alp manqué called Crawleyside Bank. Modest little houses and a scuffed pavement gave way to bleak moorland and a selection of dead hedgehogs. Mining construction lorries clattered past as if driven by Michael Schumacher. I sat down by the road, close to tears. There was nothing for it. Iris Murdoch had to go. She sleeps with the sheep.
Unburdened, I pushed the bike a further half mile till I reached what looked like a dead end and a building site. Closer inspection revealed a portable cabin with tables and chairs outside, and bikes rested against windblown trees. After hell, I had reached paradise, the 100-mile point on the C2C. I had 40 miles still to go but it was mostly downhill from here. Inside the cabin, a nice young woman called Terri prepared a pot of tea. Her mum and dad are having a B&B and cafe built on the site and it will be open all year. Fortified, the bike and I went rattling down Waskerley Way, between moors blanketed with purple heather and along an old railway cutting walled with wild foxgloves and sorrel. Cabbage whites fluttered around my head as if stacked for landing, and a hare bolted across the path. I hurtled through Consett, and Washington passed in a blur. The Wear appeared on my right, still and beautiful as glass. I emerged on to the road leading to the Wearmouth Bridge. My ride was nearly over. I got lost on the way to Roker Pier, turned back, then pedalled slowly along the promenade where men and boys were fishing the twilight away.
It had started to rain again. Unsure of my ability to reach Sunderland from Garrigill in a day, I hadn't pre-booked a room and the next hour was spent pedalling around in the rain looking for a billet. Sunderland appeared to be without a single city-centre hotel. I had high hopes of a distant building with red neon lights on the wall but this turned out to be a Kwik-Save. Eventually, a cab driver told me to head for Roker and Seaburn, where the hotel belt lay. And so to bed by the North Sea.
The next morning I biked along the coast road in chilly sunlight, past empty amusement arcades and the Souter lighthouse to South Shields. I rode for a pound on the ferry across the mouth of the Tyne to North Shields, headed for Newcastle, full of traffic, noise, people. My lovely interlude was over.
Travelling back to London on the train, I considered the journey I had just made. I had cycled 140 miles, lost half a stone in weight, been headbutted by bees, swallowed countless flying insects, and for a few blessed days had been part of an England I thought had gone forever, a land of wildflowers and silence, rugged places and green corridors. Would I do it again? You bet. But next time, Iris Murdoch stays at home.
Where to stay:
At The Post Office at Garrigill (01434 381257) single occupancy of a double room with breakfast costs £17.50. Julie Welch booked a room at the Middle Ruddings Hotel (from £25pp per night B&B) through smoothhound.co.uk, which lists a number of cheap hotels and B&Bs on the C2C as well as other routes in the region. See also cycle-n-sleep.co.uk.
For information regarding Sustrans, to order route maps and guides and to check on organised rides and path closures, contact the National Cycle Network Information Service (0117 929 0888, nationalcyclenetwork.org.uk).
