After a great breakfast at the Queens Head Hotel (porridge and pancakes), we decided to do a lap around Grasmere and Hawkshead before leaving the Lake District to go south. The lap included the steepest gradient so far, 25%, but the rest day and the granny gear got us up. We crossed the Windemere on the ferry (just like back in 1948, the ferry is still pulling itself from shore to shore using a pair of steel cables attached to each side!).
After another climb and descent, we got into Kendal where we bought some bicycle cleaning tools (yesterday I cleaned the gears using q-tips, tissues, and cardboard – not ideal) from the very nice man in Evan’s Cycles. Further in the town center, we also had a quick lunch (sandwiches, crisps, and some soda) before we went on.
We again planned the route using the Sustrans map, which has yet to fail us. Route 6 brought us south on smaller roads with very little traffic.
Since we did the loop around the District, it would have been a very long day to ride all the way to Longridge where Reece and Anne stayed. So we decided to stop earlier and at the ocean. Bike path opportunism brought us to Morecambe near Lancaster.
The hotel Craigwell is small but nice and our room overlooks the ocean. Again not feeling fried foods, we opted for Indian cuisine at Saffron which was tasty. Garlic Naan! The walk along the boardwalk showed that Morecambe had its glory days in earlier days.
A key reason might be Ryanair. As Tripadvisor forum user WorldBreeze puts it: “Who in their right mind would go to this hole when you can jump on a Ryanair flight to spain for a fiver.”
We can say that it did not feel like a hole at all: The older store fronts have a certain charm and we also enjoyed the walk along the very nicely done seaside promenade (ok, maybe Aldi does not need to have seaside property smack in the middle). And there was new construction and obvious efforts by the community to revive the town. Go Morecambe!
The 1948 Tour 
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