Miles - 93.4 (half way there!) Calories burned - 4225 Cake calories consumed - at least 5000. Metres climbed - 945 (puny!)
The picture really doesn't do it justice. This Farm Shop cafe north of Preston sold the biggest and most amazing cakes I have ever seen. We couldn't have found it at a better time. Spirits were seriously flagging after a long ride north from Ash House farm (more on that later) through the industrialisation of Wigan and Warrington, past Manchester and Liverpool. Fast cycling with a good tail wind, but still tiring, and a shortage of places to eat. Matt was just consulting his map for possible destinations, when a local biker stopped and asked if he could help. He directed us to the cafe with the assurance that it was unquestionably the best cafe for miles, and with the warning - the cakes are dangerous. He wasn't joking. Mine had six layers.
It was a long way from Ash House Farm, a nice old farmhouse run by Sue - a woman with the woes of the world on her shoulders. Her husband had had a stroke, her son was married to a good for nothing who drank all day, she had to look after her granddaughter 4 days a week, her daughter was getting married in a fortnight and she had to organise everything.... We were clearly a major hindrance, and breakfast was perfunctory to say the least. Nothing we could do would persuade her to crack a smile.
Albert and Rosemary did us proud, producing an array of snacks for our day, and we headed off through the pretty Cheshire countryside. Matt did an amazing job of making us feel we weren't in one of the most built up parts of the country - but even so, more cars passed us today than the rest of the week put together.
This was the moment when we crossed the Manchester Ship canal. We're properly up north now!
By the time we got to Longlands Hotel south of the Lake District, we were all over-sunned and weary. Looming ahead - the hills of the Lake District, and the prospect of the first rain all week. Serious amounts of rain. Lovely!
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