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The map is what I meant to do, not what I did. I was checking a route, to see if it was good for horses. I'd started on this last year, but I'd found equine obstacles. Anyway we arrived back in the area, and at quarter to four I went off like a bullet on my bike. I'd till quarter to seven to seven when we were booked into the pub for tea. I got less than half a mile before my rear brake started rubbing the rim. The rim was bulged out. I stopped, put on my glasses and a lens fell out. I wedged it in, but it was pretty loose. Squinting, I let down the tyre, bent the rim back in with pliers, reflated and set off again.
I'd worried about a bridleway I'd to use. It was ok, but had a sign "Bull in Field". The gate gave no view of the field, so I entered tentatively. They were lying, just a bunch of sheep.
The green track up Swarth was superb, canter country for horses.
Mostly pushing, though, for a heavy hybrid bike.
I got to the summit of Green Bell with an hour in hand for the pub, and thought I'd forget Randygill Top.
Things conspired against me. There was a very obvious track which last year I'd identified as the route out. With the lens falling out of my glasses I didn't take them or the map out to check if I was right. In fact, the track took me over Grere Fell then disappeared. I worked out I'd two options. A kilometre of tussocky bog to rejoin my route or go over Adamthwaite Bank and grab the minor road. I did the latter.
It could have been fun on a mountain bike, it was a bit hellish on a hybrid with a defective wheel. I made the pub on time and, with a shaky hand, inhaled my first pint.
Two days later, I tried again, on foot and up the down route. It was track at first then a faint but pretty consistent path. All of it was ideal for careful endurance horses, with boggy bits all thin and easily negotiable. I might not fancy it after a wet spell, and in mist navigation might be tricky.
I always try to get my hill names right, but the riders, three of whom were called Gill, found mispronouncing Randygill Top worth a snigger.
- Yarlside from Randygill - select a good descent route!
The track between it and Green Bell again would call for a canter.
I didn't reverse my upward cycle. I cut down Dale Gill to Ravenstonedale. That's a watershed as Dale Gill goes on down to the Lune and Lancaster. The burn I was sitting beside at the pub a few hundred metres later, feeds the Eden and ends up at Carlisle.
I stopped at the pub for a pint and coincidentally the riders appeared and demanded I buy them coffee and beer.
