Day 5 Thursday 30th July 2009

Started the day with 2 broken bikes but after lots of ringing around last night we managed to locate the 2 replacement bits. The only problem was they were at different bike shops. Terry had broken his campagnola centaur ultra shift ergo lever this could be repaired by Merlin Cycles in Chorley. Kevin's bike had broken his left hand gear shifter mechanism, his new bit was at Dales in Glasgow!! The boys got up at 6am to leave for Chorley, they should have got up at 5:30 but all was very quiet at 6 so Lesley had to ring Kev from one pod to the other to give him his early morning call. We must also say that Kevin didn't get to sleep last night as the neighbours in the next tent were partying until the wee small hours, mind you, us country folk all fell asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillow some even before that! The girls had a lie in, a monster one, first they were getting out at 8.00 but this passed by with no action, they didn't get out of bed until 8:15! Then they got on with the house work and the office work. They made contact with a very nice lady from the Liverpool Echo. The boys had a Costa stop for breakfast (the girls were still working hard at this point!), luckily for the girls Catrine Campsite is next to a coffee shop so they had brunch. Great coffee and a panini. They also met the 2 pigs , Baby and Jonny and the 2 resident reindeer Comet and Cupid. Back to the tent to finish the house work, they packed up as much of the tent as they could, still no sign of the boys. The campsite and tents quickly became shanty town with lines of washing everywhere. Well not quite lines, chairs, beds and guy ropes were the order of the day in the absence of a washing line! Once the chores had been don it was time for pudding, the girls returned to the coffee shop. There was far too much to choose from but after lots of deliberation they finally decided on a 'Big daddy': Chocolate ice-cream, caramel fudge ice-cream, vanilla ice-cream, whipped cream, warm chocolate brownie, chocolate sauce and chopped nuts - wait until you see the picture! Enormous is not the word! Delicious, however, is! Our intrepid travellers returned at 5.30pm. Apparently they had had a terrible day! Yeah, do you believe them? They had been sight-seeing to Chorley and Glasgow, had two Costa coffee stops (which included breakfast and lunch), went shopping for totally unnecessary accessories and put 400 plus miles on the clock! Call that terrible?!!! It was a quick pasta supper and then the boys were finally off at 5.50. It was a quick packing away of camp then the girls were off at 6.20pm. Time to play catch up! That bit was easy, 7.59 miles down the road and there they were, another puncture. This time it was Kevin's turn. Pretty serious though, as the support crew had to provide a new tyre as well as a nail file for the wheel rim!!! (They didn't pack one of them in there saddle bag!) Arrived at the camp site just before 8.00 and were greated by June and Roger in the absence of our landlord Hamish. Quick guided tour and then it was tent construction yet again. We na noo why this camp site was called Glen Midge - there were millions of them and the girls were under attack within minutes of arriving. The tent went up more quickly but several tent pegs were bent because of the stoney ground. Boys arrived at 9.35. The site was lovely, there was a large barn with a table and chairs, fridge, washing machine and sink. Very civilised. We had a snack, did our chores and finally went to bed just after midnight.
We would like to thank Amy (Squirrel)for sponsoring us for tonight and also our landlady at Catrine House who let us stay on the camp site for most of the day while the boys had their day out!
Many thanks Kevin Heelan for your donation - good on you mate!!!
Mileage bikes 42.2 today total 377.66 miles
car 42.4 total 466.2 miles
puncture tally Kevin 1-Terry 3