It's mainly been a day of heading homeward and covering ground. By lunchtime I'd made it as far as Kielder where, though hot, it was still apparently about ten degrees C cooler than at home. This was thanks to a good bit of cloud cover and the altitude. I decided it was pointless rushing back to a roasting hot house so parked up, broke out the gravel bike and hit the trails of the Kielder Forest complex.
Things to remember:
- More siskins feeding in the birch tree directly above the camper this morning.
- Today's the first time on the entire trip that I've ridden the bike with a single layer on. Throughout the trip, it's been three to five.
- Spotted an odd caper in the Kielder Forest Drive car park: a smart-enough-looking modern saloon car with all manner of seemingly random twigs, leaves, fern fronds and bits of conifer etc strewn 'artfully' all over the dashboard. It was all a bit redolent of an autumnal woodland walk. It's clearly how - for whatever reason - the car's owner rolls. People are weird.
- Post ride, I had a good poke around the Otterburn Camp complex. We've toyed with it before from the eastern approach but have never been able to get into the western side because of raised red flags indicating prohibition because of military training operations. It's an odd place and I saw all manner of war-gaming infrastructure in the bits I was legally allowed to pass through on the (sometimes restricted access) public roads.
- I'm overnighting just outside the complex off a ribbon of broken tarmac that may or may not still be an unclassified road. I'm in open moorland where my new best friends are meadow pipits, skylarks and wheatear. Hoping there'll be no friendly fire before the morning.
Speaking of the morning, that'll be me done. I'm simply drudging back. I still have unfinished business with basking sharks, plus I missed out on the Crinan parkrun / the Slate Islands...