Australian Trippers do it again

My wife and I are in our 50’s and live in Tasmania, Australia which is about as far away from the Trans Pennine Trail as you can get! However we have cycled the trail twice. The first time was in August 2004 when we bought two bikes in London, caught a train to Hull and rode from Hull to Southport. Then took our bikes on the train to Windermere and cycled back to Lancaster. Then we took our bikes to Ireland via Isle of Man and sold them in Dublin. Our one side trip was into Liverpool.

The whole experience was so enjoyable that Heather wanted to do it again so we did and we tried to get a certificate at the information centre in Hornsea, but they told us to apply to you.

This time we decided to ride west to east and extend our ride further so we bought two bikes in Blackpool and rode across England, returning from Hornsea to catch the ferry to Zeebrugger and riding on to Amsterdam. Having done the TPT before we pedalled merrily along relying on the signs to find the way. This worked well except for one place about 4 miles east of Stockport where three consecutive lots of signs were completely vandalised. We lost half an hour scouting around to find the trail again. For accommodation we relied on chance which worked well except we had to either stop early or ride late on occasions.

This was our schedule:

Sunday 27th May, 2007 – Blackpool to Southport (we arrived at 9 pm.)

Monday 28th May – Southport to Widnes (stayed at Merseyside Hotel).

Tuesday 29th May – Widnes to Sale (we set off in pouring rain and rode into beautiful sunshine).

Wednesday 30th May – Sale to Mottram.

Thursday 31st May – a real marathon ride from Mottram to Barnsley.

Friday 1st June – Barnsley to Doncaster (my rear tyre blew out about four miles out of Doncaster just after the high railway bridge so I walked the rest of the way into town and bought a new tyre).

Saturday 2nd June Doncaster to York – (a great bike ride to York our average went up from 5 to 7 miles an hour. 3rd and 4th in York.

Tuesday 5th June York to Hull (another marathon with a nasty head wind but we couldn’t see anywhere to stay until we got to the Ibis Motel in the middle of Hull. We got there about 10 pm and checked in for two nights so we could ride to Hornsea and back sans luggage.

So we had a very pleasant 6th June going to Hornsea and back. We continued on cycling to Amsterdam arriving there on the 14th June. So please send us the appropriate certificates. We haven’t done all the side trips but we’ve done into Liverpool and up to York. We look forward to hearing from you.

Post note – we’ve now gladly sent along the completion certificates to both Heather and Lloyd!