Tuesday June 24, 2014

We followed the A59 to Preston and then the A6 all the way to Lancaster and beyond to Yealand Conyers, another warmshowers hosts.  We are now following a more direct route north and although busier with vehicles we do get to see more as the hedges have now almost disappeared and changed to dry stone walls.

We had stopped in Preston to get our bearings, a fella came up and started chatting to us about where we were going and his travels around the US.  He had also lived in Israel, working on kibbutzims in the early 1980s.  We asked him to confirm the route that Garmin was taking us and he started to give us alternative directions.  He must have seen the glazed look on our faces because he offered to lead us.  I asked him if his route was a short-cut, he confirmed that it was, so we followed him.  It was a great route and cut out the City Centre completely. Thanks Terry.

Today\’s route was quite an urban route, although we did see some country side between Preston and Lancaster.  We are in the Industrial north.  The canals were used for transportation from the mills in the north to Manchester and London.  Now they are used for holidays on converted steel narrow boats.

We arrived in Lancaster around noon – we had lunch and found a phone shop.  It was very obvious that I was interrupting the sales person checking his email and was no help at all.  He told me to go to the TMobile shop.  Off we went to the TMobile shop and got lots of help from an Australian lass who is from Glenelg Adelaide.  She is homesick – but is here due to her fiancée who is studying at Lancaster Uni, to be a teacher.

I was told when I bought my dongle (data stick) that I had 3gb to use over 3 months – If I used more than 1gb per month, the second month would kick in.  Not true, I get 1gb per month, if I use it all before the month is up I may be able to \’add-on\’ data onto my stick, but doubtful.  I went into the library and updated the blog today and I will try to add-on data at the warmshowers tonight as the library is an unsecured site.

Our warmshowers host for tonight lives about 16 kms outside of Lancaster, but was not going to be home until 6:30 pm.  We had asked him if there was a pub in the Village which there was so we ate there. Tim cycled by the pub and joined us for a pint, after we had eaten we made our way to his house.  We had a lovely evening chatting to him, he really wants to do a world trip, but his wife is not a cyclist.

It would appear that we are putting a lot of churches in the blog.  Not because we are hoping for divine intervention, just because the buildings are lovely.

The weather is still remarkably good for England, still no rain, but it is getting a little chillier.