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The town of Keswick was our base camp for touring the Lake District
of northwest England. Once again Bruce got one of his mates to lead
a run through the Lake District. Lake District - HAH! There
are some lakes, but the mountains are something you don't expect.
Picture high mountains, narrow roads, steep grades and animals wandering
on the road (usually sheep) and you get an idea that this is great country
if you want to ride like a maniac. You can download both the map
and a short one-page text describing the route if you click
here. The next two photos show the town of Keswick and the hotel
I stayed at. Ed & I were on the second floor overlooking the
parking lot. I was amused to see that in the bar there were two imported
US beers. Budweiser and (get ready) Rolling Rock!!! A really funky-tasting
Pennsylvania beer! The second row in the table shows secondary roads
south of Keswick.
The top row of the next table shows part of the run through the district.
Two lanes quickly slimmed down to one-and-a-half as we approached Honister
Pass, which we had to share with other vehicles and, once past the cattle
guard, livestock. Would have gotten a nice photo if there weren't so many
damn bikers on the road! (The Herd beat me to the spot!)
I didn't do the full Lake District run - I cut off and swung through
the artistically-named town of Cockermouth, then went northeast through
Carlisle, eventually crossing into Scotland. The last photo shows
the chemical treatment sites scattered heavily throughout northern England.
The country has had a bad outbreak of hoof-and-mouth disease among its
livestock. To retard the spread of the disease, vehicles had to drive
through these areas; a large fiber map covers the road and is soaked with
chemicals, to put on your wheels or, as the Brits say, "tyres". Some
mats were loose enough so that as my bike went over it, the mat shifted
slightly, causing the rear of the bike to shimmy. I quickly learned
to approach and cross these slowly. It's a bit like riding over a
bridge with steel grates.
