First a recap on last night. We headed back from Hexham to Ryton to meet Brian and Sheila and Alan and Delma at The Silver Giraffe restaurant in Ryton. Brian and Sheila were already there when we arrived and Alan and Delma arrived soon after. It was great to see them again after 40 or so years. Conversation flew thick and fast as shared memories were revisited.
One of the things that came out during our conversation mis that Brian has been researching (mostly) the Lancaster family history and has been able to go back to the 15th century when one of the ancestors was, I think, a border reiver named Fingerless Willie (or perhaps it was the other way round?). The reivers were lawless plunderers who made life hell for families living on both sides of the Scottish Border so perhaps we now belong to Australian convict 'royalty' even if we di arrive a bit late ;-). Anyway, he is going to send me the info which will be very interesting to go through. Apparently the Batey side of the family is harder to do because of a name change from Hislop to Batey at some stage. I'm not sure why but got the impression that it was to avoid some military duty or something at some stage. Perhaps we will find out more later.
After dinner we all decamped to Alan and Delma's place in Ryton where the conversation continued until 11:30 or so. Since Dominic and I had to drive back to Hexham we called a halt to proceedings and took our leave, dropping Brian and Sheila at their home in Lemington on the way. All in all a very successful and enjoyable evening.
Today we left Hexham after breakfast and followed our return route of yesterday back as far as Alston and then on to Penrith in Cumbria. We crossed a highish pass (Hartside) along the way - about 620 meters and the western side of that would make a great training ride (bicycle) as it starts quite low at Melmerby and rises for about 10km at a fairly steady gradient.
We didn't actually enter Penrith but crossed over and proceeded to Ullswater which is very beautiful. At the bottom of Ullswater we went over the Kirkstone Pass? to Windemere. After Windemere which is also very pretty we headed back eastwards to Kendall where we stopped for a coffee and comfort break. Kendall is quite a nice place but their one-way system makes one think it was laid out on a board with a piece of badly-knotted string. From Kendal it was off into the Yorkshire Dales via Sedbergh and along through many very nice valleys with very narrow road crowded out with stone walls and farm houses and farm buildings. We stopped at Hawes (Wallace and Grommit) favorite to lunch at the Wensleydale Cheese Factory. The village was quite crowded with trippers. From here we started to see an increasing number of signs about Le Tour which comes up this way after the Grand Depart. There are two stages in Yorkshire before the tour heads south. Leeds to Harrogate which passes through Hawes and Ripon as well as many other places, and York to Sheffield.
After Hawes we continued our journey along the Ure Valley ending up for our overnight stay in Ripon. After calling in at the Info Centre to arrange accommodation at a B & B we went and did our first lot of laundry at a Laundromat. This turned out to be owned and operated by a Nepali guy and his Indian wife. His original home was in Pokhara, Nepal but he saw much of the world in the army and ended up in the Uk. We had quite a long chat with him about Nepal.
After checking in to our B & B, we went around town looking for a suitable dinner venue and ended up at a Chinese restaurant on the Market Square.
We haven't quite planned our route for tomorrow (Wednesday) except that I want to call in to Sheffield to pick up some replacement knife handles, and then we need to be in Nottingham in early to middle afternoon to meet up with the Foxleys.
Today was the warmest we have had maxing out at 16C, although there was a bit of a shower while we were at the Laundromat.
