last hurrah

Last day of the summer holidays dawned bright and sunny. Carpe diem! A nice manageable cycle with clear, clear views across the valleys and fields carpeted in sunny yellow wild flowers. Which I think were yellow hawkweed after a quick peek on the interweb. It made the whole trip feel positively spring-like.
It's weird to think that we are so comfortable in our saddles when at the beginning of the year we were firmly of the opinion that cycling round these parts would be hideously difficult. Four months on we are converts. Love that fact that we get places at relative speed, walking now feels a tad frustratingly slow; love that we get to spot lots of wildlife such as the hares that we hadn't seen when approaching on foot, and love that a long bike ride is punctuated by stops at Yorkshire's very fine pubs! So, we have a lot to thank that Tour for.