Day 13
June 23rd - From Arnside to St Helens

After the nights spent in self-catering Scottish youth hostels it was really nice to wake up to a fried breakfast today. My knees were definitely better than the morning before so I didn't have to slide down the bannister. Over breakfast I got talking to a group of walkers who were about to do 'the three peaks'. This involves climbing Mount Snowdon, Ben Nevis and Scarfell Pike one after the other. To make it more interesting they planned to do all 3 including travelling between them in 24 hours. And people think I'm mad !
I left the hostel just before 10am, got 100 yards down the road and remembered I had left some of my clothes in their drying room. It was a good job I remembered just before the steep downhill as I would not have been happy having to go back up that. The weather was dry, cloudy and a lot cooler than it had been the day before which was no bad thing.
On the way to Arnside the previous evening I saw the signposts for a cycle route to Lancaster and decided to go along that route today. Being a designated cycle route I expected it to be fairly flat - how wrong I was and to make it worse it wasn't even straight. It did take me through some quaint little villages including one with the wonderful name of Slackhead and I got the only good photos of the day. The first 10 miles felt more like 20 and as soon as I got the chance to get back on the A6 I took it. I was looking out for the signposts for the canal route but I didn't see them and I was now making good progress on the A6 so I decided to stick with it.
I arrived at Lancaster at lunchtime, had a bowl of sausage soup which was a lot nicer than it sounds and then continued to head south with no target in mind. I just made sure that north on the compass on the gps was pointing towards me and kept going. Eventually I came into the outskirts of Preston, the A6 was really flat and wide and had an excellent cycle lane which was about 6 feet wide. This was really handy for the motorists in Preston as it gave them somewhere to park their cars when they weren't driving them.
I got into Preston town centre and then got out of it again as soon as possible. A few miles on I realised I was heading for Manchester which is never a good idea so I turned off towards Wigan at the next junction. I was just thinking how well it was all going when puncture number two presented itself. Once again it was the back wheel so I ended up with black hands from messing about with the chain. While fixing it I noticed that the tyre rubber had completely worn away in places so I knew I would have to get a new tyre as soon as possible, otherwise I would be fighting punctures all the way.
As soon as I got it fixed and set off again it started drizzling - the first bit of wet stuff of the day. At this point I thought someone was trying to tell me something so I started the search for a b&b. There were no b&b signs anywhere but I did manage to find a pub near St Helens with rooms to let. The bad news is that they've got karaoke on tonight but I'm two floors up and thankfully the soundproofing seems good.
I did 67 miles today making it 774 in 13 days. No wonder my back tyre is bald !

The Routemap

The Speed (in blue) and the Elevation (in green).