My wife and I did the Whitehaven to Sunderland route over 5 days but carried on up the coast and did the Tynemouth finish aswell, Stayed in the Grand Hotel, a little pricey but very nice. Our car was there waiting for us. It was looked after by Haven Cycles in Whitehaven and delivered to Tynemouth on the friday we finished and the keys were at reception. Excellent service. First stop was Keswick a hard day but a tailwind and fine weather made it very enjoyable.Stayed at the Beckside B&B in Wordsworth street, the place is spotless and great attention to detail is everywhere. Next stop Langworthby, again fair weather and a tailwind makes life so much easier, we met up with a couple who were doing the same trip and a guy on a fold up bike, he was doing very well on it. We bumped into each other every now and again over the next few days. Next stop the Allenheads inn, it was very quiet in september, rooms were ok food was average, beer was good. Day 4 we stopped at the South Causey inn near Beamish. Very good place to stop.
http://www.southcausey.co.uk/ Massive menu and they have their own vegtable garden and fish lake so the food is excellent. Beamish museum is 5 mins down the road, well worth a visit but you need a minimum of half a day there.The ride from there to Sunderland again with a tailwind was a doddle compaired with the first three and a half days, But as others have said When you go under bridges and see grafiti there WILL be broken glass, we managed the whole trip with no puntures! Coming into the Sunderland marina we felt a great sense of achievement mixed with a feeling of whats next.
The journey is well worth it with so many fantastic views and places to see I could not get it all down on paper, the hills are all the things you have heard before, Hartside is a doddle compared to some of the others. The blue NCR signs are brilliant you can almost do it without a map, made 1 mistake coming into Sunderland where you cross a road, we forked right down the obvious path,a lady walking her dog said "are you doing the C2C? if you are you want to be on that path over there" OOPS. All the people we met were nice and friendly.If anyone has any questions I will try to answer based on what we saw and did. I think Hybrid bikes are probably the best compramise unless you are doing the looney offroad bits,and consider sending your luggage on ahead.The weight of all your kit will take its toll. By the way we are both getting on a bit and are only liesure cyclists thats why we took 5 days, but I think the longer you take the better it is.
Steve & Caroline
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