Reeth to Edmundbryers - 40.5 miles, 5:20 hours in the saddle, 8.5 hour journey time
A torturous day, both mentally and physically, but a stunning evening here at the oldest Youth Hostel in the country (Edmundbryers dates from 1600.) I am in Country Durham and 17 miles short of where I should be, due to 3 reasons: I slept in this morning due to exhaustion and so didn't leave until 10:00am, the hills were truly terrible (I will have to edit the adjectives I used for day 2 as these were just gruelling and never ending, one of them started at 17% and then leveled out to 11% and it took me 2 hours to climb (towing a 45kg trailer - in case you had forgotten!) Lastly, my trailer lost a key bolt that keeps it attached to my bike, it just fell off as I was going uphill and it (the trailer) rolled downhill. Fortunately, and I mean this seriously, this trip could have been seriously stalled but I was lucky, trailer detachment is one of the worst things that can happen on a tour as it usually means 5 or 6 broken spokes (which means new wheel) and a car or lorry usually runs over your luggage, I had none of this and managed to rig a temporary fix (with gaffa tape, wire, some nettles and rotten rabbits foot) until I reached Barnard Castle.
Whilst there I found some bolts in a hardware store that nearly fitted but had to take them to a local engineer, Frank, who managed to re-tap and thread them and cut them to size so they would fit - I bought 10 of them just in case!
I had lunch while he worked and then set off again, but my legs seemed to have lost their zip and the next 10 miles were not nice, also the wind changed this morning from the friendly Southwesterly to cold and unfriendly Northerly (I am heading North all the time!)
On the final climb up to the YHA I had my first 'horn toot' of encouragement, a welcome sound.
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