April 2, 2019
Day Seven
End of the line
It was another freezing night, wearing all my clothes inside the sleeping bag, but at least it was dry inside the hut...first sleet then wet snow rattled the tin roof until just before dawn, and I rose to cold mist and white, dusted moorland. Fortunately, the strong wind was at my back, and I sailed SE and broadly downhill to Middleton-in-Teesdale along first rough tracks then empty roads. A pastry breakfast set me up for the Tees Railway Path back towards the Dales...
If today's ride had a theme, it was railways. The Tees Valley Line was a short branch line, built in the late 1860s to carry lead out of the North Pennines to the main rail network. By the time it was finished, however, the lead industry throughout the Dales and Pennines had gone into terminal decline in the face of cheaper foreign imports. The Tees line paid its way, though, carrying out quarried stone and passengers instead, until it was axed in the mid 1960s following the infamous Beeching Report (more on that later). It now exists as a pleasant enough path that, while not specifically aimed at cyclists, is an easy, traffic free route south. Further north, back in Cumbria, the Alston to Haltwhistle Tyneside Railway clung on into the 1970s, and is now part of Sustrans NCN Route 68. Plans to link both lines to each other over the Durham/Cumbrian border were never realised.
Turning off the railway at Cotherstone, I took country lanes through to Bowes.
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A pint in the Ancient Unicorn, then it was time to winch myself up the old gravel road to the Tan Hill Inn, the highest pub in the country.
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I've always felt the Tan Hill Inn is a bit of an anti-climax, a victim of its own fame, but on a cold afternoon it was nice to get out of the wind even briefly. Time for the final downhill back, once again, to Kirkby Stephen – and that's when the squalls hit...
First hail, raking me on the initial tarmac descent, then thick wet snow as I veered off the road onto bridleways dropping towards Rookby. I couldn't go the way I wanted, forced off line because the stream in the valley bottom was too high. I ended up lurking furtively through farmland until I picked up a private track dropping towards the public road. This turned out to be a bonus, though, because the sun came out as I rounded a corner – and saw this!
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And if you're wondering what the fuss is about, here's what is used to look like:
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I first read about the Belah Viaduct in this excellent blog post, but wasn't sure exactly where it was. The blog post is pretty scathing about the Beeching Report: what, elected politicians passing bills despite a clear conflict of interests, lining their own pockets then transferring the resulting assets to family members so they can't get prosecuted? Good job that couldn't happen now...!
This find made my day, but it was tinged with regret. There are thousands of miles of railway track, disused since the 1960s, that define and delineate so much of the English countryside. Sustrans have done great work incorporating many old lines into a traffic-free walking and cycling network, but it's a pity that a lot of the infrastructure was ripped out before they got started. Imagine cycling over the Belah Viaduct on a cold winter's morning...!
Carrying on, I was soon in Kirkby Stephen again, pitching up on the little campsite there to catch the morning train the next day. Trip over, but there was a final sting in the tail...
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NOTE: the Youtube link from the Bleath Hill blog post above appears to have died but, at the time of writing, you can see the video here.
Height gain: 778m/2552ft
Today's ride: 72 km (45 miles)
Total: 393 km (244 miles)
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