RogueRunners 26 Day 9 - Heading South

 

Time to leave EkkyFekky, so we said our goodbyes to the Ecclefechan Hotel & also to Steve who was heading home northwards & then we set off. We kept it simple by just using the A74 / M6 for a few miles, it’s a long route & we needed to get some distance done. 

We crossed the border at the River Sark & on the outskirts of Carlisle we took the A689 east & an early cake stop at “The Nook” where it was warm enough to sit outside. Linda parked alone in the middle of the car park & was almost completely surrounded by motorcycles by the time we left.

Then we went up onto the moors & some spectacular scenic & traffic free driving, we were passed by the same two bikers that held us up on a very rainy day on the Lead Hills road, they wanted to go slow because the hail was hitting them, but I wanted to go faster so it went over the top, I'm pretty sure it was the same two, how many EXTREMELY loud Harleys with whitewall tyres are there?

Then we dropped down for a visit to Brough Ice Cream Parlour, where I took the time to wander around the castle ruins which are good, it has some proper history & I've paid £10 to walk around less impressive, less complete castles.

Back on the road, we went south on the A685 & then turned onto another moorland road. When I planned the route, I liked the idea of cutting the corner along “Popping Lane”, but streetview showed the middle to have a luxuriant crop of grass, so I decided against it. So instead we went the long way round, heading for the Tan Hill Inn past the hamlets of Whaw & Booze. At one stage there was a puppy running enthusiastically down the middle of the road which we managed to avoid. Again, spectacular unimpeded driving, but we eventually came up behind a group of two cars a LandRover & a van travelling quite slowly "ah" I thought "game over", but no sooner had we caught them up than we arrived at the Tan Hill Inn, the cars went right & the other two stopped at the pub. Result!

Next stop was the Brymor Ice Cream farm, it’s only 40 miles from Brough, so I wondered if we might not want to stop, then realised I was being ridiculous.

There was  more moorland to cross after that, this time with sheep liking the tarmac oblivious to any traffic that needed to get past.

After that the roads got slowly busier & we took to the motorway, eventually we ended up on the A1 until we turned off & spent the night in the Fox & Hounds near Gainsborough.

Part one video

Part two Video