Keilder Day 3

The rain came through the night as forecast, it was heavy as predicted, so glad we have a good tent.

As listed on the local information the rain stopped at 8 .01. that’s amazingly accurate. We have breakfast and decide to pack away all the stuff inside the tent and place it in the car as that’s all dry. Speaking of the car I go and try the battery, still flat, no signal on our mobiles, well that’s one disadvantage of being out in the countryside, we walk over to the toilets and the public phone box, try the RAC number on our membership cards not recognized? try 4 times still not recognized, Karen walks over to the wardens office see if he has a booster pack. He says not but has jump leads, all we need is a car he says, I will soon sort that. He locks the site office grabs the leads and walks to our tent. On the way we pass our recently camped neighbors a group of all women who had arrived last night with bikes and tents.

We just need someone to bring their car over here for a jump start he says, the lady with the oldest vehicle in the group instantly volunteers. We apply the leads and I try the car, not enough power to turn the engine over, Oh it’s your starter motor that’s packed up he says, up till now I have not said I am quite knowledgeable with cars as don’t want to appear ungrateful or a clever clogs, however now I need to speak up before we lose the help. I tell the lady with the car to put on a few revs to boost the charge, then I suggest we wait a couple of minutes to get a little charge into the Astra battery, luckily they all agree to my requests, I give it a try and hey presto the Astra bursts into life. I remove the jump leads thank everyone for their help and place a stick between the lower dash and the accelerator pedal to give a fast rev to charge the battery. The sun has come over the trees and is starting to dry the tent. We get chatting to the Ladies next door, they are looking to do the Lake side route today, I look at the them and their bikes, A couple of them have good bikes and seem to be experienced cyclists , however two or three of them have old cheap bikes and don’t seem to have done much cycling, We tell them about the route and they are doing it clockwise the opposite way to the way we did it, we advise them there are no facilities until Tower Knowe and wish them all the best and hope they have a good ride. We take the tent down which is now dry, so that’s a bonus and pack everything into the car, . I find a spider warming itself on the tent, look at the colours on this beauty I place it back in the trees away from us, don’t want it in thecar,

Have never seen a spider like this dont want to bring this home.

Then we have a peddle up to the visitor centre for a coffee and a look round, while we are inside the rain returns, and it is heavy bouncing off the roof and filling the drainage channels, we decide to take a little longer looking round the visitor center, which has an interesting history of the building and the surrounding wildlife. Karen remembers she has left her helmet hanging on her handle bars, I go and retrieve it and we dry it off under the hand dryers in the toilets. Then we cycle down to the Salmon visitor center this only needs a quick visit unless you are really interested in fish, however it was interesting to see all the young salmon in the tanks swimming against the current. We come out and notice Karen’s bike has a flat front tyre. I decide to try and pump it up just for the 1.5mile back to the car. that’s when I find I have lost my pump from its bracket on the drink bottle, luckily I carry a spare in my back pack as this has happened to me before. I inflate the tyre and we cycle back to the car, Load the bikes on and just finish as the rain returns again, it certainly rains heavy up here.

All loaded up we set off for home as we drive down the side of the lake and see the cycle route markers we wonder how the group of lady cyclists are getting on, the rain will not be welcome for them, hope you made it all right and it doesn’t put you off cycling.

We had a great weekend and will definitely do Keilder reservoir and all that goes with it again, highly recommended by us, and now we have another multiday men convert, welcome aboard Karen after years of supporting us you have made the step up to multi day cyclist.