Ok, I lied - there were two big hills still to do. If we had taken the offroad route it would have been one. It was a steep climb out of Rookhope but worth it for the superb downhill. Alexander broke his all time bicycle speed record, with 32.2 mph.
That brought us down to Stanhope. The supported group missed out that bit by taking the main road. The climb out of Stanhope was a beast. A 16% hill followed by a long long drag. This was a struggle. On the plus side Alexander collected another donation for the guide dogs taking the total over 310 pounds.
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| Into Pink Panther Land |
At last we reached the turn off for the Waskerley Way. This is an old railway track. From here it is downhill all the way. The supported group were stopping here for the night at The Parkhead. We took our leave of them and continued on. The surface was good but a little loose such that applying brakes hard at speed would not be a good plan. It was indeed downhill - a gentle gradient all the way. We got to the A68 and turned left to pedal the mile into Castleside to find tonight's b&b. Catherine the owner had phoned us a little while before to find out how we were getting on so she knew our arrival was imminent.
She met us at the door and opened the garage to leave the bikes in.
We learned that the local pub doesn't do food on Mondays, so we took a taxi to the local Whetherspoons pub in Consett.
In chatting with the taxi driver on the way back it turned he did the c2c a couple of years back. He donated the fare to the Guide dogs as well, which was really good of him.
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