Day 4, God's own country to Jockland

Hotel let us down this morning. Book a time for breakfast,  then wait 30 minutes for it to arrive, along with others for people who had come later! Made us late leaving.

Suspecting the worst, we put on our waterproof bottoms. They are a bugger to put on at the side of the road.

Our first stop was at the Rampside Lighthouse, just south of Barrow in Furness.  Built in 1875, it is the only surviving example of 13 such beacons built around Barrow during the late 19th century. It stands 20 metres (66 ft) tall and is constructed from red and yellow bricks. A quirky little thing.

We had an interesting day and in the main, a dry one, the rain only coming about 4pm, soon after we left Keswick.

At one point we found our way blocked, by water no less. Tomtom doesn't give you the option to avoid roads subject to tidal waters, so as we came to the River Esk estuary and the road was under water, we were forced to turn around. Had we been on GS Beemers, maybe we'd have given it a go.

Shortly after, we were making our way over the Lake District hills to Keswick. A detour from our coastal route but Grizzly's first chance to pay his respects to our Wild Hog pal Dudley. The gravestone was a little overgrown, so I cleared it of the long grass. Least we can do for our buddy.

From Keswick we made our way back to the coast, at Workington and then continued up. The next place of interest was Bowness-on-Solway, the western end of Hadrian's Wall, not that there's anything to see though. 

A few miles more and we arrived in Gretna. Our room is in a 'cabin', one of about 7 across the car park from the restaurant. As I type, it is hammering down and my brolly is in the topbox! Oh well. 

Tomorrow we shall be making our way to the southernmost tip of mainland Scotland. Hoping the weather holds. It's not looking too bad for the next few days, if the forecast can be believed. We'll see.

Day 3, Ingerland

Forgot to mention yesterday,  Ginny clocked up 17,000 miles, shortly after leaving Llanfair PG. Might be a prize for anyone who can guess the nearest place to her making it 18k.

Was raining when we woke, so waterproofs went on. Almost immediately,  the sun came out. By the time we reached the Wirral,  we we both feeling a tad warm, so stopped to remove them. Within a couple of minutes it had clouded over and was starting to spit with rain. We took the tunnel under the River Mersey into Liverpool and on exiting, it started to rain heavily. We had a lunch date with 'Sheila' but those last 2 miles were most unpleasant. It continued to rain then, for the next 4 hours  until we reached our hotel in Silverdale,  overlooking Morecambe Bay.

The going from Liverpool was hard going and just because of the weather. There seemed to be a  plethora of vehicles intent on travelling 10 mph under the limit.

We made one stop on the way, in Morecambe itself, to get a photo of the late, great Eric Morecambe. I had identified a car park  right by his statue, only to find it closed off with cones. Seeing nothing else, we rode through the cones and set about getting our photos. A chap approached us to say the car park was closed. I told him I knew but I'd ridden a long way to get my photo. He accepted that and we were on our way soon after, arriving at our Hotel in Silverdale shortly before 6pm.

Tomorrow we will end the day in Gretna, Scotland but first we'll be making a stop to visit our Wild Hog pal Dudley, in his final resting place in Keswick.