Barnby Dun

Here I am Rune

Distance 4.7 miles

Total 1339 Locks 70 Tunnels

Running total mileage 1895.2 miles

A particularly gentle day today of 4.7 miles and one lock, although the wind made it a bit more testing that strictly necessary. In honesty we don’t have any real reason to rush since we have until Tuesday to get to Thorne which is only about 7 miles away (plus 2 locks and 4 swing bridges). Just out of interest to find out where the marina is in Thorne I took a bike ride there from here at Barnby Dun, about 5.5 miles each way. Part of the reason for the ride was for a bit of physical exercise as well. Eventually found the marina but still not entirely sure how. I stopped at a marina above Thorne road bridge to ask for directions and all the guy in there could tell me was that I needed to go over the road bridge but he wasn’t sure where you went from there. Eventually found it but by then all the staff had gone home so my hope of finding out where they wanted me to moor was in vain.

The ride back to Barnby Dun was interesting since, as I passed Thorne Golf Club three little oiks aged between 9 and 11 came riding their bikes out of the car park, whether they’d been screwing the cars or nicking the golf ball is anyone’s guess (oh those stereotypes!), but it would be fair to say that if I had seen them looking over the boat I would have kept a very wary eye on them. Anyway as I caught them up the youngest, who was riding one of these ridiculous ‘stunt’ bikes much loves by some kids called out “Oi Grandad, want a race?”. Now I was always told by a good solicitor friend never to ask any question that I didn’t already know the answer to, a lesson that this particular ‘oik’ has just learned. I replied, “Yeah, OK, if you want” to prove that whilst growing old is compulsory, growing up is only optional. I gently increased my pace to about 12mph in the face of quite a strong headwind and the three of them tried to race. The muppet on the ‘stunt’ bike with one fixed gear hadn’t got chance since his little legs would go into meltdown trying to keep up with anyone on a bike with gears, his second friend was riding a pretty run down mountain bike that he had difficulty in getting it to stay in gear, only one of them was riding a halfway decent mountain bike. It was this third one who could keep up with me. Since it was quite windy I took advantage of this to tuck in behind him so that he sheltered me from the wind however, every time he tried to slow down I moved out to overtake him so he felt obliged to increase speed again. After about 500 metres his two friends were about 200 metres behind us and after about 800 metres they were 400 metres behind us at which point the little oik looked back and said,”F*ck that” and stopped to wait for them to catch up. By the time I reached Stainforth they were out of sight on a straight section of road where it was possible to see for about half a mile. The moral of the story being before challenging anyone on anything it is always best to know their history, before retirement I would quite happily go off on a 100km bike ride and in earlier years have cycled from Lands End to John O’ Groats so a couple of 9 – 11 year olds were, shall we say, easy meat. I’m sure one day I’ll learn to grow up!!

Once again we had the dear old Humber Princess come past us again, now empty and going a bit faster (well enough to rock us).

Humber Princess passing our little Rune!