Kielder Forest, Gremlins and Midge attacks
The daylight was fading in the grey wet skies as we set off from Grisdale. Our next destination was Kielder Forest on the border with Scotland, after a long rainy night, and being soaking wet after the trails, the advice from the Satnav that it was nearly 3 hours drive wasn’t particularly welcome.
The journey out of the Lake District was slow and very wet. There were waterwalls cascading out of the cliffs everywhere, roads with rivers running across them, it is amazing how much water 2 inches of rain on mountains can produce. It occurred to me that I would probably never have another holiday in the Lake District so I might as well try to enjoy these views, the floods will be my permanent memory of the Lake District.
Road to Scotland
The route to Kielder Forest campsite took us over the border into Scotland and a 3 hour drive through the Kielder National park. I managed to lose my mate in the Jeep, who was a bit quicker than my old van and our route was rather meandering and my GPS seemed to be sending me in a different direction, so we decided to make our way separately to the camp site. We later realised I was using Waze, which had a different view of the borders than the Apple route.
Gremlins strike
Gremlin Strike – I should have guessed, the Gremlin was in the satnav. It took me off the main road on to narrow single track roads but when it turned into a mountain pass with just gravel I decided it was trying to kill me, so I gingerly turned the van around on the edge of a cliff and headed back to civilisation and the long way round.
Eventually I arrived at the campsite where my mate was getting organised. What we hadn’t expected was the storm of midges that awaited us, clearly the Gremlin had recruited its mates to help out with it’s attack on me and the van.
Midge Attack
We couldn’t eat outside thanks to the midges, the pub had stopped serving food, so we had a “date night” in the van, very cosy with tinned ravioli and tinned hot dogs. We then headed for the pub where we found a Newcastle United fan in his club shirt, and he seemed to know amazingly little about his team, either that or he couldn’t understand out southern accents.
Next morning, the weather was a bit better, and we set off on our bike ride. These rides were much better than the day before, but it is a vast area, but we had some exciting rides. There was heavy damp clouds and regular downfalls to keep us focused, but we clocked up over 30 kms.
Kielder Trails
There was a great new area with a couple of new red runs to get the adrenalin running. As with all good things, there was a downside, the climbs back up but the e-bikes make life a lot easier as we get older. This is the new track called the EE Mile.
This was followed by another red run called “Run into the Valley”, the camera missed the first section which was fantastic and the second extension was infested with low tree branches and gave our faces a good slapping on the way through but all good fun, here it is and watch out for the branches that hit me in the face.
The day ended with a long climb to the top of the mountain and a big red run, that went on for ages and dropped us down through the mists into the car park.
The top bit was still thick in cloud and we found the rest of the trail despite the signs sending us the wrong way again.
As the altitude dropped the visibility got better. The Trail splits on the way down but we worked out which way to go (not helped by the map) and then we picked up the big trail back into the car park, not overly complicated but plenty of speed on the way down.
Heading to Hamsterley Forest
Back to the car park the midges were waiting for us, and took full advantage our tiredness and attacked in full throttle. As we departed the rain started to fall again, so time to head south through the North Pennines and heading for Hamsterley Forest and our next ride and maybe some decent weather.
The 3 hour drive down from Keilder towards Consett took us along some amazing old Roman roads, they were incredible. We all learned in school about how the Romans built their roads straight, well you could really see it in that area, they just went straight over the tops of hills and down the other side – absolutely ideal for cars to overtake my camper van so I didn’t feel like a mobile traffic jam.
Having seen the countryside around the borders it is absolutely no surprise that the Romans decided to build Hadrian’s Wall to stop the Scots raiding. It is a desolate and remote place full of natural beauty, I guess the surprise is that they bothered staying that far north at all, Scots, Midges and Gremlins, and they thought a wall would save them – obviously having a laugh,
We ended up at our third campsite in the foothills of the North Pennines, more lovely people and still freezing cold in the middle of summer but at least it was dry. So, we courageously had a BBQ in the biting winds that whipped cross the hills and dried out some of our cloths.
Then we took our beer into the camp kitchen and recreation room, where it was at least warm. Armed with a couple of cold cans of beer we turned on the TV, up popped the Blues Brothers film, a chance to watch a Hollywood classic, in the eyes of some people anyway. After 30 minutes I gave up trying to watch it for the umpteenth time, and it turns out, it was the same for my mate.
Next morning we woke to bright sunshine and finally, some warm weather. I was up early, made my mate a cup of tea in bed and we had a proper camp breakfast of bacon, sausage, eggs and bacon – we were ready for a big day.
Hamsterley Forest here we come, I’d even found my missing trainer hidden under the dashboard, but still no sigh of the book.
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