Day 7: The Streets I Used To Roam

Whitley Bay to Thirsk (70 Miles)

It’s a little known fact, but nevertheless true, I was born a Yorkshire man and today I would be returning to the streets that I used to call home. I lived a whole year in Yorkshire, although it was my first year on Earth and I have barely been back since, thus my memory of the place is quite hazy and I was looking forward to going back.

The place I stayed last night was right on the route, so for only the second time on the trip (the first time was my home in Aberdour) I managed not to get lost exiting a town after a stopover. Leaving Whitley Bay, I was amazed, perplexed and slightly intrigued to see a man jogging with a fridge on his back. I’m not a morning person, my mind tends to wake up long after my eyes have opened, giving the illusion that my brain is operating, but alas it tends to be a façade until lunch time. As a result, in the early hours of a day, I have been known to misinterpret or even create events, but this was definitely real. I managed to spot the man far enough away as to give myself time to get my phone out and take a picture, unfortunately my poor camera and bike riding skills ensured it wasn’t a very good one, but a picture of this masochist nonetheless. I don’t know this man’s story, but I assumed he was either training for some sort of grueling tough mudder esq race or was simply a mad man. I had no intention of finding out and continued to pedal out of Whitley Bay.

I did manage to navigate my way out of Whitley Bay, but was less successful with the next village. The unintentional detour did take me past a Subway, so I decided to pop in for some breakfast to make the short extension to the day worthwhile. My next target was the ferry terminal in North Shields, where I took a short ferry ride across the River Tyne to South Shields. For those who consider this cheating, I can put your fears to rest by confirming that I did press-ups the whole way across.

Once across, I then had to navigate Sunderland, which similarly to Edinburgh, was made relatively easy, the route kept me away from the city centre and using cycle lanes whenever this wasn’t possibly. I could see on my map that the 8 miles or so immediately after Sunderland was a bike path. The bike paths so far have been hit and miss, some have been great, some have been little more than dirt tracks, this one was the latter.

I persevered for a few miles, but going was so slow and I was concerned that the condition of the ‘road’ would be damaging the bike, so I decided to abandon the bike path and return to the main road. Throughout this period, it had been raining quite heavily and my mood was now lower than Jeremy Hunts popularity.

Lunch, as it almost always does perked me back up and I was on my way again. I was also cheered up by the next stretch of bike path, it ran very pleasantly next to the main road for several miles. It also gave me the chance to dry off a little bit after the morning rain. After the bike path, I was back onto country lanes and began going through some very quaint villages. I passed through a town called Yarm, which had all the characteristics of a typical Yorkshire town. I can’t quite describe it, but it had a very similar feel to York which I had visited a few years ago. I would’ve like to stop in Yarm and explore a bit, but this is not a sightseeing tour, so I carried on. I continued through a few more villages that had a very Yorkshire flavour, I knew I must be getting close to the county. It turned out that Yarm was actually in Yorkshire and again, I had missed an important border sign.

The final stretch wasn’t too pleasant, the rain had started again and the roads were quite busy. Soon however, I arrived in the lovely market town of Thirsk. I checked into a B&B and set about drying out my clothes.

Long-time family friends, Anne and Brian, very kindly offered to take me out to dinner and would end up driving over two hours to do so. I had a couple of hours to fill before they arrived, so despite this not being a sightseeing tour, I decided to explore Thirsk. The main square was just around the corner and had a very pleasant feel to it. There was also a church nearby that gleamed in the evening light, a very pretty little town. We went for a very nice dinner at a pub on the magnificently named Finkle Street.

It’s great to be back in Yorkshire and even better to see some friendly faces at the end of another long day on the bike. At some stage today I went over the halfway point for this section, woop woop. Forecast for tomorrow: Thunder storms.