85.6 Miles - 6h 14m + Scafell Pike - 5h 20m
The second day started at 0615 with my alarm, the sun shining through the toilet window and the alarmed face of the Irish bloke who just wanted a shower stumbling over my feet...
The Irishman, whose name I have completely forgotten, turned out to be a thoroughly nice chap who was off to a series of festivals around Liverpool and had some friends touring up in the Lake District he said we should keep an eye out for. Morning ritual done and camp broken down in a drizzling rain and we were almost ready to head off. After stuffing a few flapjack bars into our faces we hopped in the saddle, aiming for a decent 30 mile stint before we stopped again.
Today would be our first taste of the proper rain that was to be our constant companion for this trip. At time this morning the rain got so hard it genuinely hurt our faces and by the time we decided to call time for some food we were a tiny bit grumpy with the whole thing. With the entire country having spent the last two weeks being baked by an unusually hot summer we had picked seemingly the only bloody week that it was going to rain!
Our first stop was at a nondescript garage as we couldn't see anything else particularly close and we were getting seriously hungry by this point. Thankfully there was a decent M&S at the petrol station so at least there was a decent selection of food to choose from. I went a little bit over the top and bought about £20 worth of food which, it immediately became apparent, was far too much for one sitting. So I stuffed my jersey pockets to bursting.
Today was also my first experience (Jake lives in Oban so knows this already) with the impressive friendliness of people who don't live in London and hate everyone. We got chatting to another long distance cyclist who told a few tales of his first big ride where he turned up with a knackered old 20Kg bike and his friends proceeded to push him to exhaustion. He seemed pretty sanguine about the the whole thing and from the way he spoke it was clear he had also caught the bug.
With words of encouragement in our ears we ventured back out into the shitty weather to knock off another 30 miles before we allowed ourselves to stop for lunch. By the time we rolled up to the Wheatsheaf in Beetham we looked like we had recently decided to go swimming in full kit. The staff in there were absolute heroes letting us into their very nice pub to warm up and dry off and also allowing us to stick the bikes inside as well to keep the rest of our stuff out of the rain. The food was also pretty exceptional as well, I heartily recommend their gammon and crispy poached egg!
Following our warming and feeding we set off to push on to Great Langdale, our stop for the evening where I had booked us into the bunkhouse as we were planning a pretty late night. The weather brightened occasionally on the ride and by the time we were rolling into the lakes it was bordering on an almost nice day.
We pulled into Great Langdale around 16:00 and after a swift chat confirmed our decision to head up Scafell that evening to give ourselves and easy day the next day. This necessitated the purchase of a map and a few chats with local knowledgeable bar staff; one of whom (I won't say who in case he gets in trouble!) said he would keep the pub open until we returned which was music to our ears.
Setting off around 17:20 with between 5 and 6 hours of tough hiking ahead of us we were feeling a certain amount of trepidation but fairly confident that we could do it and were equipped with enough torches to rival Blackpool Illuminations and jacket luminous enough to make search and rescues job nice and easy. We cycled to the trail head, locked up the bikes and started up.
Heading up the first incline we saw a good number of people heading down, people who were obviously more sensible than us and had started at a normal time. One group of three stopped to talk to us for a bit and were slightly surprised by our timing, until we explained the whole plan and they kind of understood/thought we were a bit weird.
We hit the summit at 20:30 (bang on sunset) after the weather took an inevitable turn for the worse and took a quick selfie that looked much like our last summit selfie. I also screenshotted the fact we were at the summit on my phone as the view was so similar. By this point we were pretty tired, having been on the go for 14 hours and with a 2 1/2 hour climb back down in the gathering dark ahead of us.
On the route down the weather was suspiciously kind to us and we made it a decent way until having to rely on our torches from about 22:00 onwards. It was one of the more atmospheric walks I've ever done, there is something about moving through the wilderness at night that feels a little different and special. We spotted a glowing tent by the side of one of the tarns on the way back that looked incredibly cosy.
After finally making it to the bikes we hopped on and nipped the final mile back to Great Langdale and the waiting comfort of the bunkhouse. We stuck our heads in the door of the pub, mainly to let the guy know we were still alive, but also to try and grab a beer and though it had technically called last orders as it was 22:45 by this point he let us have a takeaway beer (for Jake) and cider (for me) that went down amazingly well as we sat on our bunks.
Then we passed out.
