Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Day 12 - The hitman
Milnthorpe to Carlisle - 50 miles
We awoke to the sound of drilling.
'What the hell is that noise?' asked Ben.
I undid the zip and poked my head out of the tent. Four workmen were drilling into the
tarmac of the car park less than three metres from the tent. The guy with the drill acknow-
ledged me with a raise of the eyebrows but carried on with his work.
'Some workmen are drilling just outside the tent,' I said to Ben.
'It feels like my head is going to explode.' It was all quite surreal. We went to sleep in a
tent, in a pub car park and woke up in the middle of a building site.
'How did you sleep?' I asked.
'Brilliant. Didn't wake up once. How about you?'
'Not great. I had to fold the duvet in half so that I wasn't sleeping on the tent floor but
then my feet poked out the bottom.'
'Oh well, you should've swapped for the sleeping bag. If you were given a four-poster
bed and a feather duvet, you'd still whinge about how badly you slept.'
We took the tent down in record time and squashed it back into the bag, just as it began
to rain
. 'There's nothing worse than a wet tent,'
or so my dad claims.
Benreturnedthetenttotheladydowntheroad,whilstIreturnedtheduvettomyadmirer
in the neighbouring pub. Thankfully, he was still asleep upstairs when I called, so I left it
with a lady who was cleaning the bar.
We then went to retrieve our bikes and say thanks to Ian.
'Why don't you both come in and have some breakfast in the hotel?' he asked as he un-
locked the cupboard that housed our bikes. 'Just go and get a table whenever you're ready.
Order whatever you want off the menu and tell whoever serves you that it's been cleared
with me.'
We felt more than a little bit out of place in the hotel restaurant. The tables were full of
well-dressed elderly couples preparing fora day's tour ofthe Lake District. We were sat at a
table in the corner, unwashed and unshaven, wearing the same clothes we had been wearing
for 11 days.
'What can I get you?' asked the waitress.
'I'll have the Full English, please,' said Ben.
'I think I'll go for the kipper and poached egg please,' I said.
'Kipper and poached egg? What the fuck?' questioned Ben when she had left.
'I just thought I would go for something a bit different. We've eaten so much crap this
trip I don't think I could handle another fry-up.'
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