Remote, Peaceful, Tranquil - I Don't Think So

Jane and I moved to Northumberland 15 months ago. For a lot of that time we have been saying we would revisit Kielder. The village claims to be the most remote village in England. It stands at the end of Kielder Water, the largest artificial lake by capacity in the UK (200 billion litres) with a surface area of 10.86 sq km. It is all surrounded by Kielder Forest, largest man made forest in Europe.

On 455 out of the 457 days that we have lived here we could have gone to the area and shared it's beauty with a few like minded tourists. The other 2 days? That would be last years and this years Kielder Marathon. The car parks and visitor centres were closed. There were runners, spectators and men in high viz jackets everywhere you looked and more buses than your average city centre in rush hour.

One of these buses played a major part in last years event. The man crowned as the winner and hailed in the local press as a sporting hero was later found to have taken a ride on the bus for part of the route! I don't know what gave him away, it could have been his finishing time of 45 minutes for the 26 miles or that he was still clutching his bus ticket when he collected his medal. I suppose if you're going to cheat then cheat big. What a dick!

As for this years event they had a lovely day for it and the scenery on route would be stunning it's just a shame it wasn't next week.