1549
hours - Text Message from Mike Darkin
Now at top of Scafell Pike. View is great...can just about see
Lynne from here! Their legs ache but spirits are high. Glenn
is at the bottom guarding the bikes and busking!
BLOG
In true ‘Band of Brothers’ style it was decided
that a change of Director would occur for a new episode……….
Prologue.- 1200 Outside the Wasdale
Head Inn. Glenn sees a sign depicting the unlikely statement- “The
World’s biggest liar lives here!” mmm..gauntlet..mm..thrown
down..mmm…
*Warning for parental guidance.The
following journal contains 4 bums, 1 arse, 3 wee wee stops
and a tit-weasel! However, as these only occur in this
opening paragraph you are now safely beyond them and may
continue to read without fear of any further expletive! (Possibly)
Awaking from fitful sleep, Lynne and
Geordie came to with a dull, monotonous throbbing. No,
not pain dear reader (nor what you were thinking Louise)
but rather the unrelenting din of the ship’s ventilation
system, reminding us all that we were still enjoying hospitality chez Admiral
Rory. Languishing in abject luxury with nothing too much
trouble Geordie nevertheless fished his own singular hiking
sock from its night long journey round and around the vast
tumble dryer on the poop deck. This done we all 4 trooped
up to the Officers’ Galley to find A. Rory whipping
up breakfast. (or rather some unfortunate seagoing minion
preparing breakfast with A. Rory soundly whipping him with
a well used ‘cat’! (No not a cat ‘o’ nine
tails, -actually a well used cat!!
“You know with all the trouble Rory has gone to Mike
and Glenn should really buy him a gift today, maybe a real
Captains hat” remarked Geordie.
“Buy a Captains hat on a Sunday in September” shouted
Mike, knowing this would mean dragging his sorry butt from
its well cushioned, warm, dry vehicle interior, “a
Captains hat, indeed, during the third week of the Lake District,
Captain’s hat manufacturer’s strike and two days
before the start of the Windermere Naval fetishist’s
regatta!”
“I guess that’ll be a ‘No’ then” said
Lynne in her usual, why use one word when 14 will do, style.
Shortly after, having been suitably
piped off the vessel, Lynne and Geordie were off in the
car, back up to Ulpha, the dropping off point, hopefully
to meet Rory later on at Wasdale Head. Waving a fond farewell
to Barrow-in-Furness (which if it was not for the historic
Furness naming of this windswept toilet would be just plain ‘Barrow’ and
good riddance) we quickly passed the Town’s leisure
centre- that is a sheep tied to a lamppost- and continued
on following Tom Tom directions which Mike in a rare moment
of whimsy had switched to terrett’s instructions viz
a vie ‘Turn right ahead you gormless twat!’ etc.
By 0910 having been thrown out amongst cloud draped mountains
Lynne and Geordie enjoyed an extended game of ‘dodge
the roadkill’ with one near additional round of ‘add
to the roadkill’ when, navigating a sharp bend at 31mph,
Lynne badly frightened an idle, languid sheep warming itself
on the weed raddled tarmac of what passes for a road in these
parts, and following on some 30 feet behind, Geordie then
rode through the consequences of sudden mutton shock syndrome
which splashed up his legs!
Some 2 and a half hours (and several
fairly indifferent hills when you’re sat in a comfortable, turbo charged
Galaxy, far removed from red faces, burning lungs and pathetic
cries of “stop the damn car and make us a coffee you
miserable b------s”) later, we arrived at Wasdale
Head where we assured Lynne and Geordie that really the coffee
was not that brilliant and certainly not worth making all
that puerile fuss about.
30 minutes later, just when we were about to give up on him
A. Rory appeared on the track, carried aloft in a nautical
style sedan chair, borne by 30 sweating, bronzed and tattooed
stevedores, accompanied by the Officer of the Watch, 7 peacocks
and a lama called Eric……………well
this is what happens when you leave me in the car up the
back end of nowhere guarding the bikes with un fettered access
to someone else’s laptop with no internet connection,
entirely surrounded by cloud and with the mind numbing tedium
broken only by the occasional visit of 3 legged daschund
whose only contribution to the proceedings was to take a
whiz up the rear offside wheel arch. Anyway I refer you to
the Prologue if you wish to challenge the bone fides of this
account!
Moving on…. So someone had to stay behind to guard
the gear whilst the other support driver could enjoy the
pleasures of Scafell Pike on a day of such inhospitable weather
that even Heathcliff, that well known treader of dramatic
moorland, would have remarked “stuff Cathy, she’ll
keep ‘til the rain eases up a tad’. This
developed into a contest of who liked Geordie the most –
Mike “You like him”.
Glenn “No, you do!”
Before setting out past the hairy
group of Gortex clad Scafell Mountain Rescue Team as they
switched off their mobiles and headed for the Pub, we took
a brief interlude to enable Geordie to cram yet another
slice of lightly sautéed bovine
creature into his colon in the form of the beef baguette
that Lynne didn’t finish yesterday. Then they were
off, quickly enveloped in cloying, grey fog, the only sign
of them being A. Rory’s deep baritone exclaiming “In
the Navy, you can love your fellow man, in the Navy…..!”
Meanwhile Glenn retreated back down
the pot holed, grass riven access way, squashing more assorted
animal droppings than you would expect to find on Ray Mears’ gaitors,
mashing the gears and thinking, “I’m glad this
isn’t my car.”
1 mile and 45 minutes later a check
of the night’s
Bunk House ensued, directions to it having been confirmed
on the way by a heavily muscled, grey bearded, country type
who turned out to be the Farmers wife. Spacious and accommodating
might describe it in the same manner as the Mayor of Beijing
might have described Britain’s Olympic acceptance package
as “Truly awe inspiring!” In other words it was
as small as a very small thing… in a cellophane shrink
wrap! The Farmer then cheerfully waved me away with the caution “Don’t
spread out too far in there in case 5 more need to get in
later”. That’ll teach us to let Geordie
book that accommodation unseen, the very same guy using the
same reassurance “It’ll be fine” to the
original concept of cycling the 3 peaks in the first place!
the guy whose idea of ‘couth’ is to wee inside
his trousers to save time in the certain knowledge that 5
hours later they would be snug inside Graeme’s washing
machine. (Sorry Gwa, did you not know that?)
Addendum…The Mountain
bit
As today’s blogist could not drag himself from the
relative comfort of the Ford Galaxy seats I guess the responsibility
to add in the mountain bit falls back to me!
So anyway the trip up started
at about 1pm after a fulsome lunch and a few trips round
the back of the pub to lighten our metaphorical packs. Yes
the pub had a couple of privies hidden out the back through
a dark forest littered with breadcrumbs…but that’s
another story. Shortly
after we began our trek towards what I can only describe
as a scene from Stephen King's “the Fog” Geordie
proudly proclaimed that he would buy us all a drink when
we got back! Well what he actually did was make yet
another wager with Mike that there would be a 360 degree
uninterrupted view from the top. Not being one to
turn down a little risk I dutifully accepted the bet as I
looked northward towards the nearing cloud of seemingly impenetrable
cloud! Never mind the post card this time I thought
it’s a vivid imagination or nothing! The trip
up was not too eventful. A pleasant pace was set due
to some rather tired legs and to walk much faster than 2
mile an hour would put us at risk of veering off course!
About half way up Geordie met up with
Dougies (see day 1) cousin twice removed, Freddy. Blessed with a little
more cognitive ability conversation with Freddy was
a little easier to achieve and as he was on his way back
down. Geordie, clinging to every hope that somewhere
between where we were and the summit was some form of alien
transportation system that would whisk us away to a similar
mountain in a cloudless environment, grabbed his opportunity
to ask…”is there a good view from the top”? Freddy
replied, “no” and then kindly clarified his
response with “but if it was clear there would be a
great view”. Now normally this would have earned
a spot on the quote of the day slot…but it gets better.
We said our good byes to Freddy and
continued up…and
up…and up is there no end to this path? We
had been going up for so long that I was expecting to pop
through the clouds to come face to face with a transatlantic
flight. Lynnee was doing well but pushing through a
few pain barriers and just when we thought we were through
the worst the wind came. And this was no ordinary gust! It
felt like we had walked head on into a wind tunnel on full
power that someone was dropping crushed ice into at a gallon
a minute. Then finally…3 hours after we had
begun we got to the top. Well to be honest we could
have been absolutely anywhere but the sign said “you
are here” and that was good enough for us!
Time for the Port! And the sour cola strings. And
the Port!
Now through the wind and the
fog we heard the distant moan of voices. By now I was
convinced I had been transported into a Stephen King movie
and I was half expecting a group of decaying pirates from
Barrow to emerge and exact their revenge for Glenn's earlier
comments! Imagine my delight
when Jason, Amy and Heidi popped out of the mist…a
group of friendly Australians, living in London on a weekend
away in the Lake District (hang on…perhaps the village
folk would have been better. We invited them into the
warmth of our 4 square metres of rock space. As we
prepared for the photo shoot Geordie was torn between our
new world friends and the Port. It was round about
then that Amy proudly declared in the broadest of Brisbane
accents “bun me”! Now let me remind you
of the wind…the hail…the fatigue and the port. Imagine
what that does to a persons hearing! Geordie was first
off the mark and began to strip off in an effort to become
the alpha male (see today’s photos). That was
it…Jason and the ladies were off…with Geordie
and the rest of us in hot pursuit.
The visibility had improved
a little now and we had at least 10 metres in which to prepare
for any zombie onslaught. It
was about now that Mike decided we were veering too far to
the right and with the agreement of the rest of the team
he ran forward to dutifully aid our Australian pals (who
lets face it could not possibly no their way round the
lake district…they live 1000’s of miles away!)
and after a little persuading the team decided to join us
on the “correct path” down the mountain. We
happily trotted our way off down the path making good speed
until we had that vague feeling, that I am sure we can all
relate too, of…you guessed it…”are we
going the right way”. Well that was it a little
indecision and we nearly had an international incident! The
men wanted to carry on, the woman wanted to stop and ask
for directions and Geordie…well he was still feeling
a little disappointed at knowing what Amy had really said! As
we stood deliberating the fog began to lift a little…enough
to double our visibility (still no 360 degree view) we saw
a metal angel waiting for us in the distance…guiding
us to safety! It was nothing less than the Scafell
Pike Mountain Rescue supply hut, dutifully labeled up. Now
wouldn’t it make sense to put a “you are here” sign
on it. Or maybe a phone number, or an arrow saying
this way down. But no…nothing except “Tracey ‘n’ John
waz ere”. Really…who gives a hoot about
Tracey and John…more to the bloody point…where
was “ere”!
In case you have not guessed
it, we were at this point in our journey temporarily geographically
disorientated/misplaced. You
might be sat in the comfort of your warm office chairs giggling
at our misfortune thinking it cannot be hard to get down
off a mountain. But picture this…we had a path
that we were on and knew was going the wrong way, a sheer
drop to the right and a compass which was directing us South
down the sheer drop on the left. It was about now that
the four budding British explorers armed with 3 compasses,
two maps and about 14 previous ascents of Scafel Pike succumbed
to “Crocodile Jason”, who had been sniffing rocks
and tasting sheep droppings for about 5 minutes, proudly
declared that he knew the way down. “What the
hell” we thought…and went with it. Ray
Mears eat your heart out…We were off the mountain
and safely back on track in about 10 minutes!
Then all that was left to do
was follow the path back to the car. Easy hey! Well
for most of us. Perhaps
Lynne will explain why she ended up on her backside in a
fit of giggles. I jumped to the rescue and got Geordie
to the scene as quickly as I could so we could capture the
moment on camera…see the piccies!
Well that’s it really. We got back safely about
7 pm. Glenn was happily waiting for us and we all retired
to the Pub for some local ale and a much needed meal and
a debrief with Crocodile and his friends. During this
they very kindly gave the charity a donation. We are
now considering whether this was for the charity or perhaps
better maps! All that was now left for us to do was
to return to the ample barn that was our home for the night.
Another successful day and the team
are still ½ a
day ahead…more cycling tomorrow!
Huge thanks to our new friends for
their donation to the cause and for helping us find our
way off the mountain!
Today’s stat’s:
Top cycling speed = 33.1 miles per hour
Average Speed = 2.7 (The hills were HUGE!)
Miles cycled today= 19
Total miles cycled = 194.9
Traffic law infringements = 1
Eddies Spotted = 0 (Really…have you ever been to the
lakes?)
Quote of the day:
From Amy – “Bun Me”
Word of the Day
Temporarily Geographically Disorientated (or in other words…Lost!)”
Bye for now…. |
