Reivers Route Day 4 saw us leaving Newcastleton on another warm sunny day. It was not a great start to me as I had woken up feeling rough- I had gone to bed the night before feeling rough, it seemed to stem from something I had eaten the night before. The day started by retracing our way back up the hill out of Newcastleton.

We reached NCN route 10 where we had left it yesterday and then had two 15% hills to climb and boy was it hot work! When we got to the top there was a bit of a breeze and I tried to cool down again.

The first half of the day was going to involve quite a bit of climbing.

We went past what was marked on the map as a ford but it appeared to have recently been upgraded to a bridge but there was still a footbridge there.

There was a really steep climb up from the new bridge. The route continued to undulate.

We got to a particular junction and the road was closed as they were re- tarmacing the road. We had to find an alternative which used quiet lanes and some ford’s  (which had footbridges next to them).

We hadn’t got too far down the diversion when I started having problems with my bike – turns out that I had a broken spoke which meant that the wheel was buckled and was rubbing on both the brakes and mudguard. Thankfully  Andy S was able to adjust the  surrounding spokes to make the wheel a little straighter.

Spot the bread bag tape holding the broken spoke to the one next to it!

There were a couple more fords along the road. The two Andy’s decided to cycle through one of them but I struggled through the really narrow footbridge along side it.

Finally we joined up with the planned route, which showed us how far it was to Rome  (handy for a local Roman soldier).

We had to shoo a few cows out of the way – they weren’t too keen to move out of our way!

We stopped for a break at a road junction and found some shade at the end of someone’s drive. We all needed something to eat and drink. The Garmin was showing that it was 30 degrees again.

We set off again hoping to find a cafe for some lunch.

We stopped at Kirklinton Hall to get some lunch at the cafe there.

Unfortunately they only really did tea and cake but none were gluten free so I had a bag of crisps, a tub of ice cream and then a Mars bar. The boys has scones with jam.

Feeling better we set off again. Along the way we passed through a village where they were obviously celebrating the Queen’s 90th birthday.

Finally we arrived in Carlisle and made our way to the hotel we were staying at.

Nearby the hotel, we found a bike shop and I waved goodbye to my bike – they said they could repair it for me. She had done really well to get me to Carlisle with a broken spoke!
For tea we went to a wonderful Greek restaurant where we had a fabulous meal.

We cycled about 44 miles. You can view our Reivers Route Day 4 route below:

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