This was designed to be an easier day after the 91 mile slog the day before, and proved to be so (thankfully!).

We got up at our usual time to give ourselves all day to get there at a lesser pace than on our first 6 days. We decided to get breakfast on the road to save money and a bit of time so set off through towards the Lake District.

Once we got off the main road we had also finished on the night before and headed up towards Windermere the roads got smaller, rolled up and down on a small scale and weaved their way up into the Lakes. This proved to be anoher very good looking section of the trip, and a welcome break from the hurteling cars and trucks flying past us the day before on the A roads.

When we arrived in Bowness-on-Windermere we were taken back by the the area, based on a Lake with steamboats operating on it, a lovely little village and buzzing with tourists on a nice Friday afternoon. We passed plenty of motorbikes out enjoying the roads and the weather as well as the odd very cool car to keep us interested.

We ditched the bikes and got washed/changed at the hostel (a couple of miles out) and got the bus back down into Bowness to have a wander, dinner (a couple of pints!) and just generall enjoy the fact that we had finished this shorter day by around 5ish - in comparison to the 7, 8pm finishes of earlier days.

Again have only kind words to say about the YHA- had a great view, had been recently revamped at a cost of £500 000, and despite being in room that slep 10, it was just the two of us.

On a slightly down side, and to get you right up to date with our injuries!, the knee problems that Kyle had been suffering with (and was wearing a knee support because of) had managed to work its way onto my knee, causing exactly the same pain. It is a fairly stabbing pain it must be said - like someone putting a screwdriver down behind your kneecap and trying to pop it off - pretty nasty. So as his was improving mine got worse….to add to this Kyle had his sunburn to worry about (we obviously needed a mother figure around to make sure we put our sunscreen on!!) and slightly worse than that I had picked up an eye infection….quite a bad one. This combined with wearing contacts that are to stay in for a week solid including sleep, and them being my last pair was proving to be a bit of an issue, particularly in the mornings and evenings. But this being a short day we managed through, hoping that the next day would not pose too much of a threat.

Photos for this day can partially be seen below, with mor eto follow above of the great Lake District scenery etc. Tomorrow will (being day 10) will bring a write-up of days 8 and 9 as well as a midway report to boot…….fingers crossed for signal in Oban!

Cheers all,

Hammy