Thanks everyone for all the messages after I finished; your support, jokes and jibes were appreciated throughout the trip.
Riding out to John O'Groats this morning couldn't have been better; the sun was out, the wind was at my back, the road quiet, straight, and pretty. Where yesterday the moors had seemed brown and drab in the rain, today was all purple heather and yellow dandelions.
JoG itself was as disappointing as everyone paints it, from the twee souvenirs to the cafe not serving bacon rolls after 11. We have 24 hour drinking now, surely the injustice of only selling breakfast at breakfast time has to be next to go? Its the people that made the place - quite a few lejogs were finishing today, all smiles as big as mine. Afterwards I'd looked into a circuit of Orkney; unfortunately the last ferry is way too early to try that, I should have booked a stay in Kirkwall. So I did a tour of the sights, which were great-Duncansby Head, the stacks, Castle of Mey and Dunnet Head; the shame of it is that these are all more worth seeing than John O'Groats (or Lands End) but I'm sure a lot of people skip them.
JoG also lacked a good cake selection to celebrate, but I sorted that out at Castle of Mey.

The next step... People have asked if I'm taking the train, and I've mentioned Cape Wrath-both of those are off. Getting to the cape meant staying in one of two places, and I couldn't get in either. Worse, with a bank holiday coming up, the places behind and beyond were booked for the weekend. Cape Wrath can wait for another day when I've got the camping gear. The train story will be familiar to anyone who's tried a LEJoG: there's four bike places to Inverness, and they are strict about them. The slots get booked in advance by commuters in Dingwall, as well as lejoggers. If you're lucky and there's a space, you have to have booked a month in advance. I'm being flexible-so this is impossible. And then you need another cycle booking from Inverness!
The upshot is, I'm backtracking down to Tain tomorrow, and the day after, following the cycle route south of Loch Ness to Fort Augustus. Here's hoping the weather is like today's...

With a James Brown title the only way this entry could start is by taking it to the Bridge...the Dornoch Bridge. Not far out of Tain, you get a good view ahead, including the statue of the Earl of Sutherland (the landlord during the Clearances) on the hill above Golspie. Unfortunately I could also see a mass of rainclouds spilling round that hill, and by the time I got there the Earl was being micturated on more than the urinal that bears his name in Glasgow's Lios Mor bar.
The rain didn't last, but a cold north wind did, and I spent most of the day in the waterproofs to keep out the chill.
A little before Helmsdale, I'd stopped to ditch some clothes and took the opportunity to step into the gorse for a 'natural break'. But the ground beneath my foot disappeared, and unable to balance, I tumbled down through the bushes into a ditch, 4 feet below. Fortunately I didn't land too hard; the gorse and nettles all around broke my fall. It seems what I thought was ground was a mat of moss growing over some branches above a culvert. Doh!
I scrambled out and headed for lunch in Helmsdale, where I stopped at the Mirage, which apparently got praised on tv by one of the Two Fat Ladies for their fish & chips. How could I not try it?

It's maybe not such a great idea to eat this much when there's a big hill round the corner though...

The hill at Helmsdale is a bit deceptive-you can only see the start of it, as it winds in and out of the hills, and up and up. It's not steep though and the biggest pain here was the wind was in my face on each of the inland sections, particularly at the start. It doesn't bode well for a climb when you're bottomed out on the gears on the downhill before it!
After more ups and downs, I came to the 13% drop and climb of Berriedale Braes. A great whoosh down, and I was getting up it ok, but the temporary lights at the hairpin stayed steadfastly red, and I had to get off the bike until it was shallow enough to restart.
As I approached Latheronwheel, and the final turn up to Thurso, the wind started to blow a smirr in; I could see rainclouds about a mile inland, I guess this must be just fallout from what they were dropping, and that's the way I was headed; time for waterproofs again.
Sure enough, the rain started coming down hard on the rise to the moor. Towards the top, I looked up, and could see patches of blue sky ahead. 'Great,' I said, 'I'll soon be out of this'. And that's when the rain started REALLY hard. I swear, those clouds are listening to me.
About here the GPS took another step towards the light; I flicked to the map screen, and there was just my arrow on a brown screen-no roads, no nothing. I zoomed out and out. Still nothing. But looking around me at the brown expanse of nothingness, I'm not sure the GPS was so wrong. It's incredibly bleak up there.
Once you pass the windfarm though, the landscape breaks up, into small, lush fields and low rolling hills. On a sunny day, this'd be quite pleasant, but it was still cold and on-and-off rain, so I kept pushing to Thurso.

When I left Jeff yesterday morning he said I should be able to find him in the bar of the central hotel-and sure enough, there he was. He'd made it; he'd kept going through last nights rain and had arrived at John o'Groats after 100 hours and 9 minutes. It had taken him a while to be sure though as he was in a daze and they take down the pole at night so he couldn't find the finish! He told me more about the bizarre hallucinations he was getting night riding-pylons becoming giant sticks of celery and the road turning to water, and some gruesome imagined injuries to himself. I asked the obvious question and he agreed he'd probably taken things too far. No more long distance this year, he says.
As for me, I'm off to the finish line, just 20 miles away, after 1100-plus miles of riding. I'd hoped to maybe tack on a loop round Orkney today but the ferry times make it impossible. So just the tourist sights at the edge of the world. I also originally said I'd push on afterwards to Cape Wrath; that's still the plan, but depends on me getting B&B's booked, and after that I'll be on my way south.

Today I spent a bit of time phoning round for B&Bs, since hotels had limited availability ahead-tried to get somewhere in Dornoch, but had to settle for Tain, sticking to the NCN routes. 62 miles, said my GPS.
After picking up supplies I spotted a tourer ride past-with very little baggage-so I caught him up and asked him where he was going. 'John o Groats' he said. 'Started Thursday night.' I did a double take. 'Thursday? From Lands End?' 'Yes, I was trying to beat 90 hours, but that's out the window now.'
Turns out Jeff is a serious Audax rider (he was of course riding a Mercian!) who's doing this ride to beat a time of 99 hours set by a friend of his. I asked about when or if he'd stopped - Worcester, somewhere I didn't catch, and Newtonmore - but he hadn't intended to stop so much. 'It didn't really start hurting till after 600,' he said. 'The hallucinations were incredible.'
Top stuff Jeff! We parted company where the road rejoined the A9; I took the scenic route and left him to Heironymous Bosch's traffic report.

Around the corner was a german tourist trying to photograph himself & bike with the roadsigns. I helped out, and he explained he was a journalist writing a book about the journey and was cycling back to the Black Forest. He needed action shots for the story so got me to cycle back round the corner and then slow pedal into shot-slow pedalling being my speciality. And so my modelling career begins, but I'm unsure if my expression was 'Blue Steel' or 'Magnum'.
Unlike other bits of the NCN, this section was on-decent-road, scenic, AND flat; nothing to complain about. After Tomatin Distllery and Moy it kicked up some minor roads, but then dropped me down to this place-Clava cairns, outside Culloden:

These have a lovely setting-a mossy grove straight out of World of Warcraft-so were worth the stop and look around, but checking the GPS I realised I'd just passed 1000 miles. Oof.
It's not far from here to Inverness. I pulled into the castle grounds, which sits on a hill in the middle of town, and cycled round the back to see the view.
I needn't have bothered. The skyline is dotted with church spires, bridge cantilevers and the like, but around them brutalist architecture has sprouted like weeds. There is no view, unless you're into air conditioners.
The weather had been dry up to this point, but I could see the clouds gathering on the Black Isle ahead, and it wasn't looking any better behind. I pressed on over the windy Kessock Bridge and up to the visitor centre.

I'd hoped to take the road to the short Cromarty ferry today, but the visitor centre tells me it's not started all year, and there's a new ferry supposed to run next year. Oh well, can't wait for that-Dingwall and Alness are next then. Around this point it started spitting rain, so there was nothing to do but get the head down and finish the distance. There wasn't that much to see on this bit of the route, other than the occasional oil rig moored in the misty Moray Firth. At Novar the NCN takes it into it's head to go offroad, gravel track and pine cones crackle underneath as you cross and recross the road in and out of the forest. On a sunny day, or with more time, that would have been brilliant, but I'd by now realised the GPS had got the distance wrong by 10 miles or more with the earlier meandering off the A9, and wanted to get in for dinner. 5 miles from Tain, the skies opened, getting the last word in today's story.
I'm staying at the Roslyn B&B tonight-right on the NCN1, run by a nice old lady who was very understanding of my bedraggled state and has my kit drying out in the utility room.
Tomorrow I could make it to John o Groats, but it'd be silly; I'd get there too late to take decent photos or to head anywhere else for food/bed. Will rejig the plans in the morning depending on the weather.

Decisions, decisions. My original lejog plan had given me an 86 mile slog today to Inverness, but having looked closely at the NCN I doubted the route was far short of 95 with all the detours it added, and chunks of it wouldn't be on-road. With the changeable weather this was looking foolish, and after a short tour round the sights of Pitlochry, I set off...still tempted by the distance.

That changed when I passed the sign for Queens View - just 8 miles there and back, but the extra distance, and putting in a bit of tourism, would get me focussed on Aviemore instead.
I didn't remember quite how hilly the run up to Queens View was, but it fairly stretches the legs in bits with the bags on. The view was as stunning as ever, but a bit shortened by an oncoming shower:

Somewhere down under that, Scott Tares was running another Etape Caledonia training course...
http://www.skinnytyres.com/2010/08/22/skinny-tyres-etape-training-ride-22-8-10/

The B&B told me they've already got bookings for next years etape-with views like this, and closed roads (mostly tack free now!) you can see why it's popular.
It started to drizzle on me here, but you fairly whizz back to the main road, and it was clear through Blair Atholl and Bruar, past some cracking waterfalls - and the sign saying 'no shelter for next 30km' - until I reached the foot of the climb proper to the Drumochter pass. Then the skies opened, and I had to dive under the trees. With the road rising towards the clouds, and it getting colder, I decided to waterproof up for the climb; I could be in this for ages. Luckily, less than an hour later it was down to spitting again, and my goretex was getting wetter inside than it was outside. Hoping the sun would stick this time, I stripped back off and finished the climb into the highlands, with the mountains rising either side:

To be honest this 'feared' climb was easier than the steeper stuff at Queens View in the morning-the only difficulty was the rubbish surface; at times it's like cycling a canal path. The pass reaches 473m, but since you start at 220m, it's about the same as you'd hit on any Sunday ride in Scotland.
From here the valley broadens and road drops interminably slowly down to the distillery at Dalwhinnie. I sat outside for a bite to eat, and was rudely interrupted by the return of the rain. The wind was moving the storm really slowly though, and it was easy enough to jump on the bike and outrun it to Kingussie; the last I saw of it today. The main road to Aviemore is pan flat from this point, but I stuck to the NCN and it managed to find another 200m of ascent through the pine and birch of Inshriach forest, in the foothills of the Cairngorms. 70 miles. Just 27 short of the 1000 now.
Tomorrow, I have no idea. The weather looks like being rough, so a short one might be on the cards.

I had hoped to start this entry by congratulating Jez Hastings and David Harmon-Team Wiggle Tandem-on beating the Side-to-side record. When I woke up, they'd already been on the road for a couple of hours, and were turning themselves inside out to beat the time.
My plan today was to get on to the flat A81 as early as possible, ride that out to Stirling, and then head north via Crieff. After starting a little late - partly from following the Wiggle boys' progress - saying cheerio to Claire, Stef, Cara and Aidan), things went well; a strong tailwind got me to the Crieff turnoff quickly, which is where the road starts to bounce up and down a bit.
The GPS kept complaining I was going the wrong way - there's shorter routes to Pitlochry but Crieff was all about lunch. I got there dreaming of roast chicken sandwiches.

(Crieff's highland games are on Sunday and there was a bit of a fair going on in the town square). It turned out that the one cafe with outside tables had roast chicken sandwiches on the menu, so I gave that a go. Unfortunately it didn't quite live up to the dream; too much mango mayo and salad, not enough chicken - I should have explained I wanted them to pull a chickens head and feet off and stuff it in a whole loaf, and that removing the head and feet was optional. Caught up on the S2S progress; by now they'd made it all the way from Pembroke to Swindon.
Anyhoo. Leaving town I decided that since I'd made good time, I'd take the tourist road to Pitlochry, instead of joining the national cycle network. I know, tourist road means hills, but they didn't look too bad on the map. It climbs out of town through pretty enough green fields and scattered copses of pine, but you turn a corner at the junction for Buchanty and it all changes. Suddenly you are surrounded by purple heather and ferns, and the rolling hills become steep sided mountainous valleys. The ride was mostly long, shallow, inclines though, nothing to worry about.

I stuck to the A822 instead of continuing on the tourist road all the way to Aberfeldy; and expected the usual climb up and down to the A9 that had been running parallel to me. How wrong could I be? The road went down and down and down and down and down and down and down...eventually reaching the Tay at Dunkeld.
Just before the bottom I stopped to check on the Wiggle guys again...and it was all over. Jez had had to throw in the towel, suffering from hot foot (your feet swell up and feel like they're on fire). 210 miles done - I can't contemplate the level of effort they were putting in. Hats off guys, I'm sure you'll manage the record next time.
At Dunkeld I finally joined the national cycle route. It's a strange beast. Singletrack road through a country park changes to some kind of tiled cobbles, then gravel, and finally grass and mud, before joining the A9 and heading in the wrong direction...this is ok though, it's just twisting round to get you onto the small farm road that takes you over the last 11 miles to Pitlochry.
Pitlochry was pretty busy-not much showing up on laterooms, so I'd called round some B&Bs earlier and one of them was kind enough to tell me her neighbour had a space. I'm at the Ellangowan, nice place - the owner tells me she has had several Lejog riders stay this summer. I must be getting close to the end!
On Eric's advice I walked a mile up the hill to the Moulin Inn for dinner:

... It was utterly mobbed! Managed to persuade a group to lend me the end of their table so I could order some food - seared scallops and haggis lasagne, downed with a couple of pints from the brewery next door. It wasn't enough to fill the hole though - Claire, this is where your packed lunch came in, ate it when I got back!
After dinner got chatting to an older guy who 'didn't consider himself a cyclist' but had hopped a train to Glasgow and was cycling to Inverness up the NCNs. Seemed to be having a great time of it; he was looking for something bigger to do for his 60th and after talking to me I think a Lejog is on the cards.
Tomorrows ride takes in the Drumochter pass. Not sure if I'll feel like doing the full distance to Inverness so I'm leaving my options open to stop at Aviemore.

My plan was always to stop in Killearn and visit my sister and the kids-it's Cara's first week of school. From my house, that's only 15 miles, and with the bike going in for repairs, today was going to be a rest day. Good thing too, as the forecast was for rain.
Jim had fixed it for me to get the repair done at west end cycles, where George was working his magic with the bikes and the passers-by as he did repairs outside the shop. It only took moments for him to replace the cable and I was ready to roll. Thanks George!

I had one other thing I needed to do today - getting another stamp on my record sheet, from the youth hostel at Kelvingrove. Took a pic of another rider on the way...

...and then it was back to my bed. Later in the afternoon, I finally got it together to head out the door and remembered I still hadn't replaced the Brooks saddle - it's getting broken in now but is still a bit less than comfy on the long rides. But my other good saddle - a Specialized BG Toupe - wasn't in the saddle drawer of my tool chest and no amount of digging around turned it up. I guess I am fated to break this thing in after all.
The ride out to Killearn passed quickly, the legs felt great after resting up. Looking forward to tomorrow, which kicks off with a flat 20 miles over to Stirling - should be able to really push the pace. And here's the view at the end of my sister's street:

I always said if I took a rest day I'd blog a bit about the kit. Skip this boring bit if you're not thinking about touring yourself!
I'm travelling light, which means only one set of cycling gear - on me - which gets washed every night. I've one set of light clothes for off the bike, plus waterproofs (coat, overtrousers, sealskinz), warm gloves, and running tights to layer up in if the weather turns. On top of that I've got to carry a light bike bag (from SciCon) for hotels that have nowhere safe to stash the bike, which can double as a bothy bag in emergencies. I've a bunch of spares and tools, and a Topeak Road Morph pump-not as good as a track or a frame-fit pump, but it's a compromise on size and weight. And then there's the lock, the first aid kit, and the unspeakable essentials - Chamois Butt'r, Nappy Cream and Scholl Moleskin - for dealing with saddle sores. Altogether, the weight of this and the Ortlieb panniers is only just over a stone - it's more like being a heavier rider than a fully loaded tourer. This means I can get away with 25mm tyres and compact double gearing, just as I'd use without the bags.
I've only got 3 gadgets with me-a Garmin Edge 705 GPS (showing it's age but still great), an iPhone 4 (I only upgraded so I wouldn't be carrying another camera), and a JustMobile Gum Pro battery pack, which I've needed to use a few times when the other two devices ran low on the road. To get the blog done, I'm emailing updates to Posterous, which then tells twitter, facebook, etc. There's a trick to this though. I want to be able to write this when I'm offline because reception is poor; if you use the iPhones mail app it will fail to sync the draft blog entry with your online account, and you can lose everything you wrote. To avoid this, go to the photo album app, choose to share a pic, and compose your mail there. This draft isn't synced upstream, and reopens whenever you launch the photo album, until you're done writing. Now you can wait until you're in range of a mast to send it.
I've also got a handful of apps I'm using all the time on the phone - offmaps, where I've cached a map of most of the UK; RouteBuddy Atlas, which does the same for OpenCyclemaps routes; MyCast EU - weather forecasts with rain radar; and iRooms, so I can book hotels en route.
Tomorrow (or rather, later today), back to the regularly scheduled cycling blather.

Sorry for the slight delay in posting this one, for reasons which will become clear...

I left you at Moniaive, in Dumfries and Galloway. I got up early enough, still in two minds over heading to Glasgow, but pootled about a bit cleaning the chain, adjusting gears and the like - the bike had been making horrible noises for the last 30 miles or so. I should really have stopped and lubed it up earlier, there's no point fighting a sticky chain. While I was at this, a couple of guys raced past down the street with wheelbarrows attached to the backs of their mountain bikes... no idea what that was about??

I chatted away with the hotel owner before I left and he asked the perennial question - what do you think about on the bike all those hours? I was a bit flummoxed, what to say - the cars and the potholes, the rain on the hills, the sunny valleys below, the birds singing, me singing, the aches and pains or just how good it feels to be out riding? I think I mumbled something incoherent about 'lots of things'. Talking to Eric later he says he's reached the point where he's run out of things to think about on the bike. Seems to me there's always something to look at round the next corner.

The scenic road that had got me here continued winding its way up through Galloway, fields of grain and sheep giving way to moorland, and the cold sunny day slowly turning darker. Two hulking battleship-grey clouds hung implausibly above the hill, looking for a target, while I glided underneath hoping the creaking of the pedals wouldn't give me away. It turned out to be a lucky day for me with the rain; all the storms I could see ahead blew past leaving wet roads, while I stayed dry.

The drop down into Ayrshire brought another change in the livestock and now it was cows, cows everywhere. Big cows, little cows, just hunners of them; and of course the mess on the roads that herds of cattle bring...what a stink. Cutting under Kilmarnock you can see the sea to the south and Goat Fell on Arran ahead; that's the route for many LEJoGers, but I was swinging north. At this point I think I'd ridden nearly 40 miles from Moniaive and had only just passed one shop, in Dalmellington; the road is lovely but deserted, and I really should have brought more of a packed lunch. I was just thinking this when I reached Stair, and the Stair Inn (which apart from the church, where my brother got married, is the only thing in Stair; if there's any houses, they're hidden in the trees). A steak and ale pie and a pint of Mortality Ale and I felt fit to ride again.

After the long drag up and down over the Ayrshire border, the roads round here are a bit more steeply up and down, but I was making good enough time and reached Crosshouse, where I'd thought of stopping, in the middle of the afternoon. Only 25 miles from my house. 2 hours riding to my own bed...as Eric Cartman says: "***** you guys, I'm going home". Off through Stewarton and up the moors, going faster than ever, happy to be heading for the big smoke. But as I changed into the big ring near Windy Yett, nothing happened; I tried to change down again and the shifter flapped uselessly...so I hit the brakes to inspect the problem.

A snapped cable on the front derailleur, sheared off right at the lever. Fortunately, this is about the easiest problem to deal with on a bike - I still had all my low gears, and I was heading home to where all my tools were; no need to panic, or even stop. But with heading to Glasgow that night and just a short hop to Killearn the next day, I'd loads of time to sort the problem at a bike shop, so I called Jim ahead to see if he could sort that for me. From Windy Yett down to Glasgow you hardly need to pedal anyway, its miles and miles of downhill-here's the view with 9 miles to go:

Back to the house - 83 miles, an extra 8 from a detour over to visit my brother Paul on the way; it didn't seem anything like as hard as other days though, I was buoyed by this whole strange sensation of being on familiar roads. Which, by the way, I can now safely state are the WORST roads in Britain. The potholes are so big they have their own postcodes, and they are everywhere. I washed up and headed to the pub...and thats why there was no blog last night. Far too much Wildcat was had in Tennents.

It's goodbye to the lakes and hello to SCOTLAND today. The forecast was a little iffy-sounded like it might be nice or maybe 'orrible, so I decided to wait for lunch to see how far to go.
Heading north out of Keswick isn't too bad as long as you avoid the Cockermouth road; it's quiet and you get time for a last look at the hills-and one more lake-as you climb slowly over to the Solway.

It was drizzly and showers all the way, but with short breaks of warm sun, so I was glad I'd finally got the scissors out last night and converted my head-melting Cap Of Stink into a Visor of Slight Whiff. On the descent, the sun came out for keeps, I could see Scotland across the firth, and I started belting out the fitba' songs. Great moment. The A road from here to Carlisle was surprisingly quiet and easy riding, but nothing to look at, so I turned off onto country lanes again through Great Orton before coasting in for lunch.
Decision point: the route today was looking longer than expected - already 5 to 7 miles longer than google's estimate - but... I wanted to stay out of a big town, so no Dumfries, and Moniaive conveniently lay on my route, with just enough distance that hitting Glasgow tomorrow would be possible if I felt good. Moniaive it is.
From Carlisle there's a national cycle route to the border at Gretna; after getting past the badly-signed bits in town, it's really quite a lovely ride past golden fields of corn. At Metal Bridge the wind started to get up from the west, but who cares, I was at the border!

The phone is balanced on the other pannier-the first attempt it fell over just as the camera went off!
From Gretna I head for Annan into what was now a fairly stiff breeze. I wasn't enjoying this but hopefully these westerlies will help out the Wiggle Tandem record attempt this weekend-they're riding the 'S2S' (side to side) from Pembroke to Great Yarmouth. Best of luck guys!
I did make one odd stop here - there was a sign for the Devil's Porridge Museum 100 yards offroad, and who can resist a name like that? It turns out to be a wee exhibition about the production of cordite at Gretna and East Riggs in the first world war; it only happened for 2 years but is the reason those towns exist today.
The turn from the coast to Dumfries was a bit more stressful than I'd have liked-the GPS dumped me onto the main A road, which is home to some suicidally stupid driving and lots of HGVs. The wide hard shoulder evaporated a mile up and I was riding the white line breathing in, making myself as small as possible as the lorries thundered past. I kept going on rather than back as I could see a minor road ahead on the map and it couldn't come soon enough.
Finally safe again I gave the GPS a good talking to. Next time it does that to me I'll take it's wee rain jacket off and it can die for good.
The centre of Dumfries was a bit of a surprise, with folk fly-fishing in the broad river below the weir, while kids played rugby in the park beyond. Probably worth having a look around, but time was getting on and I headed up the valley for food & bed.
It was a beautiful evening, blazing sun across lush green fields and rolling hills; red squirrels running up and down the stone dykes, hawks circling as the swallows darted underneath, and then I saw these and came screeching to a halt:

I've seen milk cows and beef cows, but these ones seemed to be for making wool and liquorice allsorts.
And finally, to Moniaive. 90.5 miles today-where did all that distance come from? It's all whitewashed cottages and pubs here, a picture perfect village. I'm in the Craigdarroch Arms, which turns out to be very nice indeed, for less than I paid for the hotel from hell in Bangor. Its proper bike-friendly too, with a garage at the back for a clubsworth of 'crabon'. Tomorrow, tomorrow...Glasgow or not? Haven't decided. It's 90 miles to the scheduled stop; I could do 50 tomorrow instead and have more time to meet up with friends on Friday, instead of pushing hard and being against the clock all day. Sounds like more fun. I guess that's the plan then?

I woke to a slate-grey morning in Lancaster, drizzle spitting down on and off. I wasn't in a hurry-I was watching the nose-to-tail traffic jam pass the front window over breakfast, although surprisingly the road was in one piece again, after the drills and jackhammers running to midnight the night before.
The road north wasn't anything like as nice as yesterdays; narrow and overcrowded until a little after Carnforth. I spotted a cyclist ahead on this better bit, caught up and was right behind when he turned up the A6 at Levens.
I went straight on, thinking, 'eejit' - he had heavy traffic on a 4 lane blacktop to look forward to, while I headed down quiet, hilly country lanes like this at Brigsteer:

This was lovely stuff though as untamed as you'd expect, steep ramps drawing my breath like a hacksaw. Through Underbarrow and more climbs past golf courses, and the road suddenly drops to Bowness. Here I was reminded of something I'd noticed on forgotten childhood holidays: the thing about the lake district is you don't ever get a decent view of the lakes from the road, you have to take to the hills. I was sitting at the side of one of the longest lakes in Britain, but you can see as much water at Callendar park boating pond.
After stopping briefly at the Coniston ferry, I went on through the town and the teeming mass of humanity that appeared to have sprung from nowhere, each with chips in hand. I didn't fancy fighting through the throng to get lunch so kept going a little further to an ice-cream at a scenic car park. Now yer talkin'.

(Owen, this isn't soup, but you can see what I mean about the beard catching food). The roads from here were pretty awful and busy until after Grasmere; the towns universally mobbed. I didn't even stop for the Wordsworth museum (hat-tip for today's title), as it would have meant a battle with the cars and the crowds. Sure the lakes are nice, but honestly Wales and Scotland are way more spectacular and don't get traffic like this (except perhaps at Loch Lomond). Why is this place so busy? People, yer nuts.
Got a little sun on the way over, but 3 miles out of Keswick the drizzle started again. I did manage one snap of an actual lake before the clouds engulfed us:

Keswick-down a nice 14%-was full of people too, outdoor shops and even had a fixed gear Mtb video trainer challenge, a-la Rollapaluza. Had a go but only managed 1:15 for 700m-the winner was 1:08-as my SPDs kept slipping off the flat pedals and the saddle was set up for kids. That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it. The rain had stopped when I got here, but shortly after started again, and you'd think goretex was water-soluble the speed Market Square emptied. If they were real walkers they'd bivvy up right there in the street!
Tomorrow I'm back in Scotland, and it looks like there's a big raincloud on the border to welcome me home. Not sure how far I'll travel though-if it's miserable I may cut it a bit short, maybe at Dumfries.