Boulmer greeted me with a huge puddle which on going through was a lot deeper than I thought – it came half way up the wheels and over my boots. It was outside the lifeboat shed and they could launch a boat on it. It was raining but it was foggy too so this was now miserable as I chose to take the coastal route rather than the road around RAF Boulmer which I couldn’t see anyway thanks to the lack of visibility. This was strategically a blunder with a capital B.

The coastal route consists of puddles connected together with mud. On the sandy sections I had to walk meeting walkers coming the other way with their encouraging greetings of ‘You must be mad cycling today’. I fell off a couple of times but landed on my foot that didn’t have the badly sprained ankle, my chain came off and I landed on my back once – I was tired and soaking wet already and I had only done 5 miles.

The stone age reconstructed hut at Howick was most impressive and nicely warm out of the wind and rain. Although it did look as if it was going to fall down and it had a hole in the roof. I set off sliding along the puddle path when I hit a particularly large one and optimistically powered through too wet to care by now. That was when the back wheel slid to the right and the front wheel hit something and slipped over throwing me into the puddle (right up to my middle as someone on the Gloucester route reported) and hurting my right leg. It was at that point I knew it was pointless continuing and limped out of the puddle and called home – come and get me. We agreed that Kim could drive to Seahouses and I would let her know where to pick me up from there as I would endeavour to uni cycle with my one good leg to somewhere in between.

The puddle muddy path returned to road shortly after and it was downhill – although disconcertingly my bike wouldn’t go downhill unless I was pedalling! The rain had stopped too, although I was still wetter than if I had been nude sea kayaking rolling in the surf. Wet undies, shorts, testicles and a thin bicycle seat really do not companions make.

I reach Embleton – a small town with 4 pubs with one having ‘Real Ale and Daily Men’ advertised outside. From there the road and weather improved and I took the B road up to Beadnell and entered Seahouses (formerly North Sunderland) to see a cat being beeped at by a car as it crossed the road and it turned and stared at the driver with malice. I barked as it crossed my path and it ran into its garden. I met Kim on the main roundabout and we met up in the car park of the Old Ship Hotel, to see a van disgorging men from the back door like some Guinness Book of Records event, them rolling out onto the road and into the pub. Splendid pub where we enjoyed their Spicy Lamb Stew and a pint of Real Ale, but no Daily Men.

I was going to cycle the couple of miles to Bamburgh after lunch to finish the section of the map – but it was pouring down again so we drove with the bike in the back to the Grace Darling Museum – an surprisingly interesting visit and well designed museum.

Opposite the museum is the St Aidans church, where St Aidan died, with a stained glass window of Grace Darling holding a paddle together with Hope holding an anchor. Her grave is within the graveyard opposite the place she was born and a stones throw from where she died a few years later after the rescue of the paddle steamer Forfarshire’s crew and one passenger from the Farne Island rocks in a hurricane force wind. Grace’s role may have been overstated in romantic paintings and poems (she caught the imagination of the Victorian public – there are even Cadbury’s Grace Darling Chocolates) but she did spot the wreck as she was on watch, and went with her father to rescue folk in horrendous conditions, although it was the father who rowed back and forth and went out whilst she comforted the rescued. Ice cream in the Bamburgh rain and homeward bound, bathing sore bits and snoring.

My advice on the route is go on a dry day where you can see the wonderful views, book accommodation in advance (I didn’t as I didn’t know how far I would make it), take a friend to rescue you from dogs and drunks and bollards and to pick you up when you fall over and to help with the navigation. There was an awful lot of getting off bikes for road crossings, to open and close gates and to work out where the hell the route was.
Overall it was a lot of fun and it is simply a wonderful part of the world.

Photos here