30th September - Aachen

The 3 days actually riding the bikes seemed to go so fast.  After so much bother buying them, transporting them and fixing them it seemed a real shame to sell them but we had no plans to use them further and they cost too much to keep putting on trains.  So todays main goal was to palm them off whatever the cost.

We made a crude sign in English & German

[insert sign here]

Starting at the train station holding up the sign got some interest but no buyers.  Some locals suggested we try selling at the University which was our next plan, so we headed there and set up in front of the main Uni Cafe.

It wasn't going great at the uni for the first hour until some students advised we should post on the Uni's trade/sell facebook page.  I found some wifi, posted on the group, tweeted it and had HEAPS of responses.  Another 45 minutes and we sold both bikes within 5 minutes of each other!

We couldn't believe our luck and were elated to have sold them before 2PM and have the rest of the day to ourselves.

After that we visited the Newspaper Museum with papers dating back to the 1300's all the way through to present day.  It was 5 Euro entry and was more a description of the journalist occupation & how media sways public opinion, however it was still nice to see.

That night Laura picked a cheap noodlebox takeaway joint for dinner.  We had Doner's instead because noodlebox was crowded with Bandido bikies & about 10 cop cars haha..  Chomped on Doners while drinking spanish wine in the town square.

27th-29th September - The Vennbahn Trail

So we knew the bikes were pretty average, but over the course of this bike ride we FULLY appreciated just how shit they were!

We caught the train from Lux City to Troisvierges (pronounced 'Twaa-vee-air'), that was easy because it was a sunday morning, also only cost us 2 Euro each for a ticket.  Troisvierges is where the trail begins (If you go the direction we wanted!).  It's a 132km rail-trail with a lot of history behind it due to the proximity of so many countries borders.  We had planned to ride approx 35-45km a day.  Should be a breeze.  no.

The moment we reached the start of the trail we hit a 10% gradient.  On decent bikes you'd piss up that without breaking a sweat, however we quickly learnt that Julie's bike (a fixie) was only mildly possible to ride on gradients up to 4%.

We lucked out though by riding the direction on the trail that was more downhill than uphill.

We pushed through on day one and after 35km arrived at our destination, St. Vith.  We stayed at the Jugendherberge (Youth Hostel) in which we were the only occupants.  This place was massive and built in a square formation with a grassy area in the middle, so it felt very creepy walking around at night.

Ate some Italian for dinner & treated myself to a Belgian beer when I realised we were in fact in Belgium!  Side Note:  It will be interesting to see how many times we eat cuisine that are not authentic to the country we are visiting.

Day two was a planned 42km trip to destination Monschau, it didn't look to harmful gradient-wise but still appeared to be the hardest day on our bikes made of bricks.  After about 12km, I realised that my front tyre was giving up on me.  The tread had ripped down the middle and the tube was bubbling out of the rip.  Consensus was to keep riding until the next town (Waimes) and find a bike shop.  No bike shops in Waimes, fuck.  Tyre blew up on the ride out of the town...  The only option left was to ride the remaining 28km to Monschau on a flat tyre, so that's what I did.

The banging of the flat tyre destroyed my wrists and loosened up all other bolts on the bike.  This forced me to do some bush mechanics, but in the end we made it to Monschau.

Upon arriving at our Monschau-Hargard Hostel, the owners immediately attacked the task of fixing my bike!  They ended up driving us to a bike shop, helped translate, buy the new tread & tyre, provide tools AND help replace everything!  It was just the best thing anyone has done for us all trip.  I would not have been able to fix it without their help.

The hostel was occupied by a school full of children but it was fine and I was too happy to let niggly things like that annoy me!  A note to anyone else wanting to stay there on the ride:  It's about 3KM off the Vennbahn trail, 1.5km downhill, then 1.5km uphill.  Hostel is also situated about 1km uphill from the town.

I forgot to mention the old bloke we met and asked directions off before we got to Monschau.  He did not speak a lick of English but proceeded slowly describing instructions to get to our accom.  He knew his shit.  I'm now led to believe everybody in this town is awesome.

Went down to the small but beautiful old shanty town for dinner & got a 3-course meal for 12 Euro!

We were ready for Day 3 (29th) of the ride, despite our really sore bumholes.  We knew today was the longest ride at 47km, and we knew we had a hard start uphill, but we also got about 25km downhill which was just awesome after the last painful 2 days.

We still arrived at Aachen pretty wrecked but we had made it!  This city was another good looker, it had Germany's first UNESCO world heritage listed Cathedral, a large university and a lot of cool streets, shops & buildings.  Had some Lebanese food at AKL.  Huge portions, cheap price.  Julie ate so much she felt ill the rest of the night.

26th September - Luxembourg

Trying my best to catch up to present day diary news but it's not easy, here goes again!

We had high expectations of Luxembourg City and in the first few hours of our arrival it was looking to meet them.  Caught a decent train from Trier to Lux where we could secure our bikes easily with a seatbelt AND get a seat.  Arrived in Lux City, walked for an hour through the hilly city to our hostel.  Was a little early to check-in so locked up bags and spent a good hour taking in the views across the city while walking around some of the historical sights.  Even stopped at a free art museum which had a few nice pieces and some art by Turner & Victor Hugo.

That's when life got real painful...  Checked into the hostel fine, decided we would wash our clothes using the hostel washer.  It was a five-hour ordeal...  The only washing machine they owned was also used by the hostels cleaning staff.  Someone must have washed with some serious chemicals because it smelt like methylated spirits & paint brushes inside the machine.  Not wanting to risk all our clothes in that, we searched online for a Laundromat, closest was 20km away...  Went to get a refund from the hostel counter, he offered to wash & dry our clothes in the staff facilities.  Naturally we thought this was awesome.  2.5 hours later we thought the clothes would be dry.  Super wet.  Didn't want to hassle the guy anymore so went and hung all our clothes in our room.

As we were hanging them, I thought they smelt like BO and was concerned enough to mention it to a French guy staying in our room.  Turns out it wasn't our clothes at all but the French guy who stank!

During this whole ordeal we were also surfing the net looking for a cheap place to eat but could find nothing, so felt like the city was just trying to destroy us...

Luckily Julie decided to turn down a dodgy strip-joint street on our hunt and we found some cheap Chinese food & a kebab shop for the next night.

Our second day in the city was much more successful.  We went to a market to buy some fresh dips & olives for lunch which we chowed down upon on the steps of city hall.  Perfectly timed a free organ show at a large church.  Went on a walking tour of the city.  It's worth noting that the only walking tour we could find was the official tour run by the city's tourist office.

Finished up with some pre-planned kebabs for dinner in strip-town & prepped for our epic bicycle journey from Luxembourg, through Belgium to Germany!

25th September - Trier

After all that binge-drinking in Munich, it took us 3 days of going sober & eating healthy to feel good again.  I couldn't believe just how quickly I got fat from 3 days sitting down & drinking.  A lesson hopefully remembered for a long time to come.

The train ride to Trier with our bicycles was pretty exhausting.  We had to catch 4 trains over the course of 7 hours.  1st was a Munich metro train full of locals angry about the space we took up.  2nd we had a nice spot for the bikes however we had two severly disabled & annoying women sit in our 4-seat section even though the train was mostly empty.  If they weren't calling Munich shit and weren't yelling at each other, they were pulling apart a roast chicken with their fingers and grossing up the joint.  3rd train was fine.  4th was another regional train full of locals on their way home from work.  We stood for an hour on that train with our bikes and all our gear.

Eventually we made it to Trier and made it to our AirBnB accommodation which had it's own kitchen.  Laura eagle-eyed a vietnamese restaurant on our way to the accom, so we ate Pho for some tastes from home & hit the hay.

After our train woes in Munich the first thing we did was check our tickets to Luxembourg were in order.  Turns out for that train you don't even need a seperate bike ticket.  While there at the station, saw a lot of what we believe to be migrants trying to sort out train tickets with minimal English skills but with huge wads of cash in hand.

Today was spent going to all the toursit sites.  Trier has over 2000 years of histoy beginning with the Romans, so there was plenty to keep us busy.  One of the main attractions was one of the original city gates built by the Romans in 200AD!  This thing must have towered above all else back in the day, incredibly tall for such an old piece of architecture.  It is named Porta Nigra or "Black Gate" due to the discolouration of the stones caused by bacteria.

I was interested in seeing Triers Amphitheatre, an arena used for fighting & performances, so we headed there but Julie's blood sugar levels dropped dramatically so we turned back to get her some coffee and sandwiches first!

They have this tourist card called an 'Antikencard' for 10E so we bought some of these which allowed us access to the main town museum & two other historical sites 'of our choice'.  Starting at the museum they had HEAPS of artifacts, more than I think they knew what to do with!  spear-heads, pottery, jewelry, coins, gravestones, mosaics, etc!  Laura's favourite section was of the intricate jewelry designed for the horses of well-off Roman families to exude their wealth.  I think my favourite was the area of floor-sized mosaics pulled from expensive Roman houses from the around the area.  Apparently the residents of Trier keep digging for construction jobs and just keep finding more stuff.  One example being over 2000 gold coins from 4th centry AD in an old chest of a collapsed basement!

Visited the amphitheatre, full of icky spiders but very cool.  Then realised our tourist card did not allow access to the place we wanted to go so ended up climbing up the Porta Nigra before retiring to our kitchen to make Herring Stirfry Curry & ice-cream for our future trip planning session.

23rd September - Munich Oktoberfest

MUNICH (19th - 23rd)

Our first night was very timid.  Spent a little time searching for fealmarkets & bike shops so we could ride on the Vennbahn Trail from Luxembourg to Germany.  Google lied to us about where one was located and the second shot was closed until the day before we left Munich.  After the search we settled on a doner for afternoon tea and a farmers plate of olives, cheese, dip, breat & crackers for dinner in our hotel room.

Ibis Hotel was great!  Cheaper than Joe & Aime's hostel and they supplied breakfast too!

Day 2:  Involved meeting up with everyone at 9.30am.  Joe, Amie, Brendan & Andy all looked a bit seedy but they soldiered on & led the way to the massive Hofbrauhaus tent in Oktoberfest.  By 10.30am the tent was already full and roudy with person after person standing up on the benches & skulling entire steins!  There was a loud american bloke on our table that got kicked out by 11am coz he was (a fuckwit) too drunk.  A chick on the table next to us who decided it would be a good idea to skull two steins before 11.30am.  She followed that up by promptly spewing back up into the glass and spending the next 4 hours with her head in her hands.

We started putting bets on when she would recover with the longest bet being 4pm.  We all lost.

Brendan managed to pick up twice.  By the end of the night while they were engaged they toppled off the chairs onto the floor, an action shot which I missed on the camera by about 0.25 seconds.

Any stuck with pretzels all dayto save cash on food until he realised that he'd spent 15E on pretzels & could have purchased half a chicken for that price!  We ended up being in the tent for 12 hours and left in darkness back to our hotel :S

Day 3: Met everyone at the more respectable time of 11.30am at the Oktoberfest gate.  Today was Tom's first day so we all had to back up yesterdays effort!  Went to the Paulaner tent this time & sat on a table with this old swiss bloke in a fluro shirt named Roberto.  He started off being a bit of a drain on the table but managed to join us dancing on the benches by the end of the night.  I kept managing to order crappy sausages off the menus somehow.  At about 6pm I left the tent to go pick up this crappy bike I found on a trade website.  The tent was prett ycalm when I left so it was a suprise to return at 7.30pm to see the whole tent up on chairs raucously cheersing & dancing to the band!  Left tent at night and bought a massive pizza which we devoured on the bed back at our hotel.

Day 4:  Each day our meeting times became later & later!  Today we met at 12.30pm and graced the Lowenbrau tent with our presence.  Best beer at the festival was here in my opinion.  Light, fruity & went down easy after two full days of drinking.

Laura & I had a prett ysuccessful morning though, buying a bike for her at a shop for 75E.  The bike ended up being a piece of rubbish, but more on that later.  We had a stein in the tent and left to organise bike tickets for our train ride to Trier.  It ended up costing us another 70E to get the bikes to Trier because we had to buy tickets to a different train that initially purchased.  Lesson here is always buy your bike tickets at the same time as your train tickets.  And if you are travelling near Oktoberfest, book them in advance!!

We returned to the tent and partied on with some older German women before Brendan got grumpy because a group of women jumped on our table & they weren't drinking!  They weren't enough fun for him so we moved & then hugged everyone goodbye.

19th September Manchester & Stuttgart

I've decided to stop the daily script I was so scrupulous at maintaining over the walk.  Not as fun to write as bunching a few interesting points across a few days.  So here we are, currently on a train headed for Munich to meet Joe & Aimee for Oktoberfest.

MANCHESTER (15th-17th)

We ended up having to catch buses all the way to Manchester from R.H.B.  Train tickets were going to cost us 95 pound as we didn't pre-book, so we went with the 44 pound bus tickets through York & Leeds.

Even though we only passed through on the bus, I've decided that York deserves a few days of investigation if we ever return and decided I could happily never visit Leeds again.  York just had this clean & grand architecture that was really appealing while Leeds just felt unclean, oppressive and stagnant.

I am happy to report that first impressions of Manchester were quite good.  We were aching for a good indian curry and read that there is an area called The Curry Mile in town.  It must have received it's name a long time ago thorugh as when we arrived it appeared that the Indians had up and left, while a bunch of Turks & Afghanis had taken up residence.  We aren't fussy as long as it tastes good, so picked up some kebabs and shawarmas that Laura advised were the best she had EVER eaten.  Not bad!

Manchester has a distinctly similar vibe to Melbourne.  There always seemed to be live music, sport and art events to attend, while it also had a good food & cafe scene.  We managed to tick all of the boxes with the exception of sport, however I did attempt to return a soccer ball to a group of youths on the 5th level of a parking lot!  Won't be signing any lucrative deals anytime soon.  Ball landed in basement floor.

Blimey!  I almost forgot to mention the bloomin' Walkabout Hostel!  5 star! ... Out of a possible 20.  Honestly, it was only 11 pound per nich each, so we didn't expect much, and it met our expectations.  Clean bed, quiet room & good location.  Had to go to the bar twice to get checked-in then get our key working.  The following day had to go to the bar again to get our key fixed again, only to have it STILL fail and we ended up having to wake the occupants for entry.  If low on cash, a fine stay.  Just be warned.

Getting quite warm on this train at the moment.  We recently changed trains at Ulm, which is the birthplace of Albert Einstien.


STUTTGART (17th - 19th)

Took us the whole day to fly to Stuttgart & catch the train into the city.  Our first meal in Germany was a traditional American burger with a pint of Dinklelacker Export to wash it down.

We only had one full day in Stuttgart, but didn't get out of our hostel until 1pm (A & O Hostel) as we had to organise what we were doing after Munich.

A nice city with uber amounts of construction in the works (Manchester was similar actually).  A shopaholics dream with some pleasant sights included!  We spent the day walking around the city & parks & the afternoon at the Mercedes-Benz museum.  The museum was very cool,m reckon I took more pictures there than I have in the last two weeks combined!  8 stories of building that starts at the top and slowly winds its way down from old to new, incorporating some 19th & 20th century history at the same time.

We haven't made it to Munich yet, early reports from Joe are that it's crazy busy & was apparently impossible to catch a train from Austria to Germany due to German sanctions that were imposed to stop the flow of Syrian migrants into the country after they recently announced they would home 500,000 migrants a year from the IS conflict.

Will be interesting to see how the city copes with such a sudden influx of festival-goers and migrants at the same time.  An exciting time to be visiting the city, although i have not heard anyone mention migrants on the train.  Most sound too excited for the festival!

14th September - Grosmont to Robin Hoods Bay

Our final day walking replayed the terrain from the last 15 days.  We had a little bit of everything: 33% incline hills, tarmac, soggy moors, forests and about 2 hours too much mud.

Felt great to finally make it to the North Sea after 190 miles.  The weather 'just' held out for us however the mud did dirty our moods!  As did this female couple who kept passing us at high speed, only to slow down & look at their map when they had no one to follow.

We arrived 'Suitably Disheveled' to Robin Hoods Bay, had a show at our B&B at the top and finished the last mile in style, walking down to the sea in jeans & smelling fresh!

Picked up a celebration whiskey at The Bay H which Laura spilled after standing to hug Janice who was also there celebrating.

Picked up some amazing fish & chips, drank & ate merrily a bus stop by the sea.  Met the Aussies & Americans one last time for a few pints before getting their twitter tags and closing out the day.

Tony Abbott's last day as prime minister was today, replaced by Malcolm Turnbull 1 year before elections are due.

13th September - Blakey Ridge to Grosmont

Feels wierd that we only have one more day of walking left :S  We saw the North Sea today so reality really hit home.

Today we walked to Grosmont (silent S!) about 13 miles (6 hours) walking with breaks.  My body felt pretty exhausted, I guess it required a lot of energy to keep warm during yesterdays walk and had not quite repaired itself ye.  Saw lots of Pheasants & Grouse.  Tired body made it a long hard walk despite the mostly flat terrain.

Made it to Grosmost House, a huge impressive building that was built in the 1860's.  Was a shame then to find such a shitty bathroom in our room.  No fan, felt like I was showering in a cupboard.  Water took 3 minutes to warm up & then just went scolding hot with no way to turn down the heat without turning the shower off!

Can't forget about julie the lord of the sheep when a paddock full of sheep came running over to us.

Watched some T.V.  now off to the pub for dinner.

12th September - Europe Diary

Woke up, it was dark, raining & windy.  Packed all the wet weather gear for the day.  And we thought yesterdays weather was bad!  Got driven back to Clay Bank & got instantly blasted with cold rain.  Threw on my water-proof pants instantly but was too late, pants were soaked.

Luckily we knew we only had 3-4 hours of walking to the Red Lion Inn so we punched up the speed to high gear and did not stop until we arrived at Blakey Ridge.  Eating our sandwiches while walking.

Didn't matter how fast we went.  Julie's pants & boots were soaked & squelching while my boots stayed dry but my shirt was soaked despite my waterproof jacket.

Had some hot chippies & pints before calling our accom August Guest House to pick up up.  Michael was a funny bloke who never stopped joking & they treated us very well, drying everything & driving us to the pub with a salt-of-the-earth aussie walker named Janie.  She was from Foster in NSW & ran her own small hobby farm just like what we'd like to do.

What did I miss...  Every walker at The Lion Inn was soaked, no matter the combination of gear.  Some poor soals had another 9 miles of walking that day.  Thank god we booked here.

11th September - Europe Diary

I may have a few swear words for today.  It was about a 6 hour walk with a few breaks.  Started off with a slow long climb through some nice forests & a calm moor.  Then before we knew it we were being hammered by wind at the top of the moors.  It was a relentless 3 hours of wind.  Julie described the Yorkshire Moors as 'Just fucking shit', and by the end I was describing today's walk as 'a cunt of a day'...

Once we descended those moors we found Lordstones Cafe.  When I asked Julie if we should stop I received a resounding YES.  Julie picked up some awesome chutney with a kick from the cafe before we headed off to do 3 more climbs to make it to Clay Bank Top.

We got picked up from Clay Bank car park by the owner of Dromonby Bridge BnB, an older bloke with long grey hair tied behind his head using a string.  Very friendly guy who had a very original style!

We had dinner at The Swan Inn at Kirkby with all the crew staying at Dromonby:  the Germans, the Aussies from Kew & some English couple who I can't remember the names of...  Good night & conversation.

Dromonby Bridge was a GREAT B&B!

10th September - Europe Diary

Short 3 hour walk today through paddocks, past loud scary pig sheds, farmers baling hay, crossing the busy London-Edinburgh railway & busy highways before arriving at Ingleby Cross by midday!

We were staying at The Blue Bell Hotel which had a very friendly bartender.  Room was prety plain but it did the job!  When dinner-time arrived we walked in the pub & there was a family of women running dinner.  They didn't say much so we just went to a table until they spoke up asking if we'd booked.  Yep, went to our table then waiting 10-15 minutes for someone to serve us (we were the only ones in the pub mind you!).  Being served involved the teenage daugter coming over with a chalkboard menu with 4 options & she waited for us to choose, all without saying a word!  I've got a feeling they just couldn't understand my accent but maybe that's just looking for a nice reason.  The food was fine and I'm sure they were just starting out, so still worth a visit for the cheery bartender at least!

Saw the Belgians for the last time, they even bought us a pint as a goodbye present!  Not that I believed them at first haha.  I thought they were trying to trick me into asking for my free beer but no, turns out they actually did buy me one!  great blokes.

9th September - Europe Diary

Today was about a 5 hour walk to Danbe Wiske.  First half of the walk consisted of some paddocks followed by a detour that saw us walking along the side of a busy road for half hour.  Then sent us walking back by the river.  After a quick cheese & chutney sandwich for lunch we were directed to walk on a quiet tarmac road for about 2 hours!

About the time we were getting sick of the road (the most scenic thing we saw were R.A.F jets flying above for training) the path led through a paddock of angry steers.  We decided it was best to give them some space.  It also took us through a horse paddock where the horse was blocking the gate so he could get out the second we opened it.  We gave the friendly chap a pat and climbed the fence instead!

We arrived into Danbe Wiske to a bunch of walkers waving us into our pub, The White Swan.  Wasn't a terrible place to stay but it was really fucking cold and they didn't have any fire list!  I ended up going & getting y beanie to survive through dinner.  Thought maybe they had run out of matches!

Laura really wanted Fish & Chips but suprisingly the pub had none, so instead we got some meals that were heavily covered with gravy.  The bar-keeper was a bit of an unwelcoming bozo.

8th September - Europe Diary

Well our accommodation was like nothing we'd experienced over the whole walking trip.  Everywhere you looked were writings from the bible, pictures telling you to go to church & books questioning whether evolution is fact or fiction.

It gets better.  When we went to bed we weren't really sure where we were meant to go for breakfast.  I'd seen a sign on the back of the bookshop door that said 'dining room' but thought nothing of it.  In the morning we walked into the bookshop & they had pushed some stands aside to make a breakfast table for us in the middle of the bookshop!  Very sweet of them.  They had plenty of great cereals for breakfast that were all fairtrade, including coffee & jams from countries in South Africa.

Pretty wet/cold walk today but a nice easy one without too much climbing involved.  When we arrived in Richmond we were a bit overwhelmed by all the cars & noises.  Big town compared to the last few.  Still only like 15,000 people though.

Made it to Easby Cottage & got treated like king & queen.  Coffee, pikelets & crumpets with jam infront of the fire with a very friendly and vocal cat that LOVED pats.

Got Indian (Amontola) for dinner, real f'n good.

7th September - Europe Diary

Absolute scorcher of a day in the sun for our walk to Reeth.  Was a pretty cruisy 6 hours following the low valley route through 3-4 tiny hamlets.  Sweat our faces off on the walk from Gunnerside up to Blades.

Arrived at Reeth & had some ice-cream :)

Our accommodation is at a place called The Temperance Hotel, which is a small B&B above a christian bookstore.  They are very nice people here but I was a little afraid we weren't going to get to go to our room without a half hour chat first.  Our room was decorated straight out of whatever decade loved pink.  Pink walls with pink floral quilt covers and a writing/beauty desk which must be from the 50's or earlier.  Took a picture for proof.  Took two.  Of particular note was the ornate wooden chair that was apparently built by the shop-owners father.  I'd decided that I would not sit on that chair for fear of breaking a family heirloom!

We went to The Kings Arms Hotel for dinner.  Julie had investigated the price of meals at every pub in the whole town, and this won for being the cheapest.  They did not skimp on the food, Julie smashed the biggest Yorkshire Pudding I've ever seen for dinner.

Lots of talk on the news about Syrian refugees entering the EU to escape I.S.

6th September - Europe Diary

7 hour day to Keld.  Got a full veggie breakfast & Laura decided to eat all of hers and some of mine (specifically the veggie sausage).  Well for the first hour or two she regreted it while her stomach was in pain.

This was the first day we put our gaitors on, it was DANG BOGGY!  The author of our book described the bogs as 'reminiscent of the Somme during WW1' and he was not wrong!  Managed to keep relatively dry and had fun dodging knee-deep bogs!  Couldn't imagine having to do it in bad weather...

Julie slipped over once and I managed to rack up some pretty impressive chafing while Laura's toe blisters were not getting much better.

After arriving at Keld we had a pint with a few others walkers at Keld Lodge before having dinner round a small friendly table at our accommodation 'The Butt House'

Despite the name, they couldn't do much for my chafing.

5th September - Europe Diary

Today was only about 3.5 hours walking from Newbiggin-On-Lune to Kirkby Stephen.  Given how short the day was, we took a different path to get a closer look at Smardale Bridge & the Smardale Viaduct.

Probably over 2000 years of history on that one hill.  A disused railway from the 19th century, a packhorse bridge & ruins of a pub (16th & 18th centuries) and the giants graves which Laura tells me are lumps in the ground from neolithic settlements.  All in the middle of no-where.

Arrived at Kirkby Stephen, got a pie and some delish chutney from the bakery.  Checked in at the Black Bull and had a pint or two with a famous local vegetable grower named Stan Davies.  This 80-year-old fella tried to give me his walking stick but I wouldn't tare take it from him!

Most restaurants were booked out, but we managed to pick up some take-away Chinese & eat it in the church grounds!  Saw some Macau's fly by while we were eating.

Apparently I have to send Stan a christmas card now :S  hard enough to send a postcard home!

4th September - Europe Diary

Breakfast was delightful, Margaret once again outdid herself before seeing us out.  We set off out the back of her garded & ended up having to find a footbridge to cross the M6 Highway.

Once that was done we set off walking on what ended up being a very nice flat rolling track.  It took us around 6 hours all up to arrive at our accommodation in Newbiggin-On-Lune.  We met John on the track again, this time with his son Robert who works in Cumbria.  Cris (John's partner) had taken another day off walking to rest the legs & blisters!

We spent the whole day walking with them which was great.  Turns out John is the MD of a ASX listed company.  Also turned out that a lens cap I picked up 4 days ago was his!

We split with them when our town came up and arrived at Brownber Hall which is a huge stone farmhouse on a few acres of land.  Another amazing place to stay!  Upon arrival we were told they'd already booked us in for dinner and offered a beer on the house to let us fully relax!  They'd also booked us in the front room with a great view across the paddock.  I reckon tonight we be a night of reading, dining & sleeping in!

3rd September - Europe Diary

We knew today was going to be a big day of walking, so we set off by 9am.  We were also pretty stoked about it being the last day of steep climbing.

Kept passing & repassing this sheepdog that really didn't like us.  Climbed up the hill beside Patterdale to walk around the pristine Angle Tarn, apparently the place to go fishing around here!

After another hour or two we peaked Kidsty Pike which was a nice view, but it was a smidge cold & windy & we'd seen a lot of views on the previous days, so after a small break we headed down to Hawkeswater.  Jules told an interesting factoid that apparently there is only 1 lake name as a lake in the Lakes District.

After hitting the lake it was a VERY decent slog around the lake, down to Shap Abbey & up to Shap.  We stopped at the Shap Chippy for an early dinner & I was convinced by the waiter to get Smoked Haddock.  Not the best, but only available on Thursdays apparently.  Funnily enough, later in the trip I was told that Smoked Haddock is quite popular & that some other walkers went in later than us and they had ran out.  They then went on to blame me who didn't even really like it all that much!  Popular old joint though, after we arrived it constantly had around 10-15 people at the counter getting take-away!

Oh, todays walk took about 8 hours all up.  We had booked accomodation at a placed called Brookefield House, which was about 1km out of town.  We booked it because it is said to be one of the best stops along the entire walk!  Well despite Julia & I being a little skeptical, especially after a long day, it was most definitely worth the stay.  Margaret the owner treated us to tea & cakes upon entry.  She'd been up since 6.30am cooking the cakes & mentioned that back in 1988 Wainwright himself had actually stayed the night!  We spent the evening reading in the warm sitting room & then went up to drink a bottle of wine we'd purchased earlier!

2nd September - Europe Diary

Loaded up on brekky and then went in search of an ATM.  We were a little worried we would not have enough cash to afford dinners AND pay for B&B's when they didn't have a card option.

Oh also, Julia's wet feet & blisters were mostly resolved by getting some better insoles for her shoes & going down to 1 pair of socks instead of two (despite what the internet advised!).

Another good short day at 5.5 hours.  Views not as great as the last two days but still a good walk.  We took the route called St. Sundays Crag to Patterdale.  Made some Mackerel sandwiches for lunch, crunched on wine gums, reached the top when the mist rolled in and swiftly started descending.

The descent of St. Sundays was shit.  Views were OK but the steepness was unnecessary & caned the knees again.  After calling the mountain a few vicious names, we made it to the bottom to the White Lion Inn where our american group were also staying!

Patterdale is pretty small, think I'll sink a few pints & hit bed early for the big day tomorrow!

1st September - Europe Diary

Today's walk was much shorter than yesterday, took us about 6.5 hours, which we were greatful for!  We chose the valley route (low, easier route) today to rest our legs and it was well worth it.

Slow gradual ascents with some wonderful views.  We walked with Miranda, Richard & Peter who we met the night before at dinner.  They were great, calling us "The Athletes" because we are 40 years (25 prob) younger than them!  Despite this, they looked to recover much quicker than us!

Thodays theme song was Beat It by Michael Jackson.  Guess I was beating the pain out of my legs.

When we were walking into Grasmere a fighter jet hammered through the skies between the mountains.  Was epic.  For a second there I thought maybe we'd encountered some Tomorrow When the War Began scenario, like we'd gone bush for a while only to return to England at war with Russia or something!

Stayed at the Chestnut Villa where we encountered our 5 female american friends who we keep seeing along the trail!