Alston to Penrith

July 27, 2025 to July 28, 2025

We spent yesterday in Alston and our feelings towards it have greatly improved. We had an intense morning trying to catch up on the journal so we could go play in the afternoon. The internet in the room is unreliable (the usual thing about being at the top of the stairs and end of the hall) so we decamped to the lounge - Jill with a fresh pot of tea - and worked from 9:30 to 12:30 non-stop.

The carpeting on the staircase is a bit shabby and in places threadbare.

Our reward was an excursion at 1 pm on the South Tyndale railway suggested by our nice host, obviously trying to promote the neighborhood. This is a narrow gauge rail line that closed in 1976 after over 100 years of service. In 1983 a preservation society was formed to save and reopen a portion of it. The line now runs from Alston to the charmingly named Slaggyford (5 miles away) and there are two tiny intermediate stops at Lintley Halt and Kirkhaugh along the way. It is purely a tourist thing - no one uses it for transport - and it runs mostly on weekends and a few other extra days in the summer. It functions on volunteers. It had a good crowd on this Sunday afternoon and a lot of families. The South Tyndale train station is cute, as is the train and everything else associated with the venture.

One thing about bike touring is that you wind up in many rural areas and so get a sense of the economic challenges facing these communities. This area seems depressed and the formation of the North Pennines Landscape area and the South Tyndale railway venture appeared to be an effort to market and promote tourism. We were glad we were here and did the ride (16 pounds each). The volunteers working on the train were so nice and hospitable; we were the only non-local tourists, so, as usual, we stuck out like a sore thumb. (Or maybe it’s the yellow jackets).

After the half hour train ride to Slaggyford (which we had ridden through via bike the day before) we had a 20 minute break to buy a cup of tea and crisps in the “buffet car” and then took the ride back. We had asked to be let off in Kirkhaugh so that we could walk the rest of the way and get some exercise. The conductor made sure we got off safely and told us how to cross the tracks and it’s a good thing he did so because the rail crossing was non-intuitive. We would have meandered around aimlessly without his clear directions.

Jill fighting the crowds at the bustling Kirkhaugh train station.

The conductor bidding us adieu (and good luck) as the train pulls away.

The conductor saved us a lot of time by clearly directing us towards this overpass which allow us to cross the tracks without attempting to scale the fencing.

The two and half mile walk back on a perfectly preserved footpath to Alston was great; a pleasant, easy gravel trail with a tailwind.

We think this marks the border between Cumberland and Northumberland.

Oh. Isn't that Hadrian's Wall? Uh, no, it's just a wall.

There was a nearby unexcavated Roman Fort that we could have walked to, but it was just enough out of the way so we passed it by, having felt that we have done enough Roman Forts for awhile. (A bit like our feelings about castles, or cathedrals, or Full English breakfasts…)

As we walked through the train station in Alston the same conductor saw us and stopped to make sure everything had worked out. Our little venture proved to be a very positive experience and one that helped turn around our view of this small town and its environs. Why we tour. (As an aside: I continue to believe cycle touring is a perfect way to help rejuvenate rural areas. It spreads out the tourist numbers, and cycle tourers always have a reason to stay in off the beaten track places because of the pace of riding. A Swedish coastal community was saved by the development of the Kattlegattleden bike trail. And we have enjoyed the riding in Britain more! As opposed to the Swedish coast there is just a bit more variation, less wind, and a few more accommodation options here, although the cycling infrastructure was better in Sweden. Maybe I should have a second career working as a tourism advocate in some local random town?)

That evening we rode our bikes down to the town for dinner at the Alston House. Our innkeeper gave us the key to the bike shed and we laughed hilariously when we went to pull our bikes out. Here is a pic of shed door, but what you can’t see is that the hanging, unlocked padlock.

We rested assured our bikes were safely secured.

As you can see, there is not a huge concern about security here. We have never felt so safe as we have on this tour. In fact, one innkeeper I talked to in Scotland said she doesn’t even lock the front door. We have left our bikes and panniers unattended many times in public places on his trip - more than we have ever done on any other tour. It is a nice compliment on the safety of rural Britain. I will let you know how we feel about that after visits to Liverpool, Cardiff and London! Check back with us in September.

The Alston Hotel - which had not looked like much yesterday - served a delicious and varied Sunday dinner during which we enjoyed an excellent bottle of St. Emilion topped off with an affogato for dessert which included a shot of ameretto. We realized after ordering our meal, it being Sunday, they had offered a Sunday carvery meal. We must do that sometime: it’s definitely “a thing” here and we noticed many others in the restaurant eating a big slab of roast with Yorkshire pudding and a boat of gravy. (Gee - I can hardly wait! Maybe next Sunday?)

The wine lists look very similar in every nice, rural restaurant we have been to since arriving in Britain. The wines are so similar everywhere that we speculate that the wine distributor must sell a standard package of wine - 15 to 20 wines - to every hotel. It’s making us laugh. Wine is nothing here. Now that we are in England Dave can still get his wee dram after dinner (but they don't call it that now that we are no longer in Scotland) but there isn't the variety nor the fun conversation surrounding it). They do care about their gin here, however, so we may need to try some of the local stuff to get educated.

This morning we are headed out to Penrith. As we got ready I had a nice visit with Janice. She and her husband own and run the inn. She likes it, and still likes people, but she said there is just an endless amount of work (having been constructed in 1778, I get it). She said next weekend they have rented out the entire house, so they will have a two day break.

Today had always been a day for chores, as I had identified a laundromat down the street from our hotel in Penrith.

We had another task to accomplish due to a recent serious mishap from Dave. He wears prescription cycling glasses and regular prescription eyewear, and he is an always changing back and forth between the two pairs. While riding he keeps his regular glasses in a pocket of his yellow jacket and they are ALWAYS falling out since he forgets to zip up the pocket. Eric and Melinda were glass savers a few times on their ride by picking up his glasses as they fell out. It was sort of funny - but sort of not.

So, while riding into Alston he realized his glasses had fallen out of his pocket, and he had no idea where. Last year he almost lost them in Spain and only by the miraculous recovery of them by our tour guide Mikki did he get them back. After that, he promised me he would a carry a back up pair. So this year he DID pack a back up pair.

Unfortunately, when he pulled the back up pair out of his miscellaneous bag he realized he had packed an old pair of reading glasses, not a regular pair of progressive focus prescription specs. It was one of those times I really wanted to tell him “ I told you so,” but the situation was going to stink a lot more for him than for me - so I refrained (I think).

Accordingly we have spent the last few days trying to figure out a strategy to deal with this. The good news: (1) he still has prescription cycling glasses so he can ride; (2) he has reading glasses so he can read; (3) his far vision is only mildly impaired so he can still mostly see ; and (4) he has a current prescription posted on his medical my.chart.

We started to research eyewear stores along our route. Specsavers was a big chain with a bunch of stores throughout the UK. We were going to be in Liverpool for three nights in two weeks and there was a Specsavers branch there. Dave called, worked through the ever charming phone tree, and talked to a live person who was sympathetic but said he could not get a new pair of glasses in a couple of days - that it would take at least a week. We were not surprised by this but it meant we had to put our thinking caps back on. My research showed there was a Specsavers in Penrith, a small city we were going to be visiting on Monday. Dave called them, explained the situation, and we asked if we could order glasses in Penrith and have them shipped to the Liverpool store for pick up in two weeks? They agreed that was a workable solution, although not guaranteed.

So, besides laundry in Penrith, we now had a planned visit to the Specsavers store. This was definitely on Dave’s mind as we did the ride, which had just enough excitement to be fun. The ride started with climbing right out of of Alston but we had to make the decision abour riding on a road that was marked closed for repairs. A woman on a horse came up to us while we pondering whether or not to forgo the lightly traveled side road or continue on the busier main road. She wasn’t sure if the road was completely blocked or not but she planned to risk it. A dog walker who also came along at this time thought the repairs were for laying a new fiber optic cable and that although cars couldn't pass, bikes probably could. We did the usual cyclist thing and trusted we could get through and we did and we saw zero evidence of any repairs as we climbed. After 5km we returned to the main road and spent the next 5 km completing the climb on this busier thoroughfare. Things then got much more complicated as it started to rain pretty hard, even though there had been only a 2 percent chance of rain predicted. And the wind was pretty bad in our faces, which is particularly bad when you are on a busy road because you can’t hear cars coming up behind you. Because there had been no prediction of rain we had not put on our booties so at some point we swerved over and sat down and did so- in the rain.

Hey, Jill. Are we having a "why-we-tour" moment?! 😉

I am sure the view is gorgeous at the top of Haltwhistle Pass but I have no photo evidence of that since it was totally socked in.

Check out that amazing view of the valley below. I'm sure it's there somewhere.

We were dreading the descent (expecting rain, wind, fast traffic, and bad visibility) but lo and behold, as we dropped over the top it cleared rather miraculously, the rain stopped, and the sun peaked through. The traffic did not miraculously disappear but three out of four isn’t too bad! Pretty quickly we were able to turn off onto a small side road and then almost the whole rest the ride was descending.

Descending has its drawbacks, one of which is Dave is always way ahead; this means when he misses a turn he doesn’t hear me. Today he was a on a (negative) roll missing three turns. On one of them he was just cruising way ahead of me. I screamed madly for him to stop but he carried on heedless and I just stopped, not wanting to ride down a big hill I knew I would have to ride back up again. It took him a long time to figure out he had missed the turn, and that I was not behind him. It was long enough that I took out my phone and started to WhatsApp him. He rode a km before realizing he was off the route. I read earlier on this tour that there is a new system for cyclists to fit a hearing system into their helmets so two riders can talk to each other. I think motorbikes have had this system for a while. There are times this would be very handy - like today. The problem with that idea is that it is another doohickey to deal with, and honestly, I already feel overwhelmed with doohickies to deal with. Has anyone tried this?

We were still on the 68 cycle route which intersects some with the C2C route, also a route developed by Sustrans (the British non profit that puts together the bike trails). I think C2C riders must use mountain bikes as the intersecting trails looked like mostly gnarly gravel.

We arrived in Penrith at 1 pm, and it was quite a hopping little city (16,000 population). We made our way to the Specsavers on the city mall and it was a swimmingly positive experience. They couldn’t have been nicer, understood our problem, promised to expedite the order and then mail it to the Liverpool Specsavers branch. We chose the first pair of specs Dave tried on (you can tell how much into fashion we are) and since Specsavers does a two for one deal we got two pairs of the best progressives we could get for 380 pounds, about a quarter of what we pay in Bend. There is a little iffiness about their arriving in Liverpool in time, but we felt like they would do their best.

Tell me truthfully. Do these make me look (even more) like a dork? They're my very old prescription cycling glasses minus the dark glass inserts, just the prescription lenses, and the unobtrusive black frames 🙄

While we were here, I purchased a pair of non prescription cycling glasses - as I just can’t seem to ride comfortably with my prescription pair. I have been riding for awhile with no eyewear, which is stupid as bugs fly into my eyes all the time- and there are quite a few bugs here. Those presumably will arrive with Dave’s pairs in Liverpool. We shall see.

We were feeling so happy about the success of the spectacle adventure we celebrated by splitting a (very small) pizza for lunch nearby. As we left the pizza place we ran into a fellow on an e-bike. He asked us something about our set up and we wound up chatting for almost half an hour with Pete. He lives in Penrith and rides what he described as an entry level e-bike; he is contemplating an upgrade to one with a Bosch motor, and we of course, couldn't say enough good things about Bosch. He is a retired school teacher who now writes music and seemed to be pretty happy with what he is up to and where he is doing it. It was a fun visit and we had to pull ourselves away to go check out the laundromat. Having done so, we learned if we could get our clothes to the laundromat by 3 pm (in 20 minutes) the ladies would do it for us, so we hoofed back to our hotel, checked in as quickly as we could and we rode back to the laundry asap.

Our hotel “room” at the Lounge Hotel was hilarious - for some reason we got upgraded to the “suite” which was a three bedroom flat. The downside being that it is up a flight of stairs and all the way down a very long hall. So, as usual, the internet stunk. The flat had no exterior windows but very high ceilings (we were in the attic, also as usual) and every room had these skylights that you could open with a remote control. Dave went through and opened all the skylights which cooled the flat down considerably. We left them open all night and learned the downside to doing that: the seagulls start at it around 4 am, and their squawking went right into our rooms! Notwithstanding that, it was a comfortable set up and we liked it in a weird sort of way.

We both rode over to the laundromat because while shopping at Specsavers we had seen an outdoor store across the street. It is on our list to each buy a swimsuit because we are going on this cruise. We don’t actually carry swimsuits with us. Dave uses his mountain bike cycling shorts if he has to, and I had a pair of swimsuit bottoms that I pair with a tank top in a pinch. I had however ditched the tank top in Glasgow while trying to clear out my panniers, and at that point the weather was dismal enough that getting to wear a tank top seemed a long forgotten dream. Now, I like to swimsuit shop about as much as I need a hole in my head but we felt like a whole week on a cruise boat necessitates real swimwear. This was kind of a budget outdoor place and they had a very modest assortment of suits. For Dave and for the princely sum of 13 pounds, his choice was a bright yellow or a floral blue print and he opted for the yellow. For Jill for the more extravagant cost of 19 pounds, the choice was a black tank or a blue tank and I chose black. The good news: that mildly unpleasant task is now out of the way.

That evening Dave wound up in the doghouse (again). Jill had researched the optimal dinner place (on a Monday) as a Mexican place. We hadn’t eaten Mexican for 3 months so it sounded great. The restaurant didn't take online reservations so when Dave went to pick up the laundry he was tasked with stopping by the place and checking it out. He duly did so, came back to the hotel, and said it looked great. But… he didn’t go in to book a table, as there was only one other couple in the restaurant. When we walked over there at 7:15 it was busy and they reported being fully booked. The manager suggested another nearby place but when we walked over there they were closed on Mondays.

So, I was steamed over this little episode, and worked up a pretty good attitude of martyrdom for 15 minutes. It was the usual martyred wife feelings; (1) I do ALL THIS WORK making a nice holiday for us (2) you do ABSOLUTELY nothing; and (3)when I ask you to do ONE LITTLE THING you mess it up.

Bear in mind, I don’t actually think that is true - just - I was having some feelings trending in that direction. Luckily for our evening (and for Dave) he stumbled upon Indian Plaza, this huge, deserted Indian restaurant in the back of a movie theatre. I admit that description doesn't make it sound that appealing, but we proceeded to have a really excellent Indian meal and the glass and a half of rosé helped take the edge of my perhaps justifiable, but not entirely helpful, irritation. We walked back to our hotel feeling much more simpatico and watched something on Netflix. Now that the TdF is over we are a bit bereft.

Today's ride: 37 km (23 miles)
Total: 3,064 km (1,903 miles)

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Karen Poret“Why we tour” fits very aptly into the description of your restaurant excursion! It’s all about the adventure, and you both have this nailed :)
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