Blogging at 21:00 on Friday 4th June from N 55.24518°, W 02.56096° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:55.24518%2C-02.56096
Last night's camp was another cracker with only sounds of the natural world to be heard throughout the night.
This morning was taken up by another gravel ride through the tough terrain of Kielder Forest. It's either up, or down; and mostly very up (pic), and very down. It's a beautiful place, though, and is genuinely one of the few places left in England that still gives a real sense of wilderness. After a full hour of cycling we stopped for a snack and were mindful that in all that time we'd neither seen, nor heard, anyone. Nor did we in the hour that then followed. Top way to spend a morning.
After lunch we took on some super-skinny roads back over the tops to Otterburn in the truck and then did the formal Kielder Forest forest drive. It's a fairly typical forestry commission affair with the vast majority of it on unsealed but pretty smooth tracks. They advise 4x4s only but the truth is a Reliant Robin with dodgy tyres would be up to the job.
Vehicle choice aside, the drive itself offers superb landscapes and a splendid sense of well being.
We're at the coordinates shown now, which I've stayed at a couple of times before. It's right next to Kielder Burn and as well as being very pretty and an excellent place to just laze about, it's been entertaining to watch trout jumping.
More indicators of the lateness of spring are to be seen here, there are some willows and birches only just starting to leaf and primroses and violets in full bloom. Bugle is abundant, too. Welcome to late April!