Day 6

The Church Farm B&B topped off a super evening meal with an equally delicious breakfast. Highly recommended! But as with every day we could not put off the need to do our daily miles.
Even though Andy and I had cycled most of yesterday alone it was still strange starting the day without Alex.
We set ourselves a target of getting 40 miles underr our belt in time to stop for a pub lunch. Fortunately the countryside was gently rolling with no serious hills to slow us down. The wind during the morning was North Westerley and we were heading generally North. So as we zigzagged along country lames sometimes it was a hinderance and sometimes not a problem. It might seem I am going on a lot about wind speed and direction, all I can say is "believe me, it does make a big difference".
We hit our target of 40 miles by 1.00 and had a baked potato pub lunch.
The afternoon was similarly straightforward cycling athough the wind moved around a bit. At one stage for around 10 miles after Knutsford it was behind us and we flew along - it was the Somerset Levels all over again. At other times it became a Northerly and really slowed us down.
We made it to our B&B in Lostock by 5.15 which was our fastest day yet. 76 miles in about 7 hours cycling. It was a day of serious mile eating.
Steve our support driver met us for the last time tonight which means that Andy will be carrying a ruck sack from now on which will even up the loads a bit.
And Andy from work joined us this evening and will be sharing the first half of tomorrows ride with us. We had a hearty Italian meal together this evening and that coupled with the company tomorrow is a real morale booster.
I need to revise my earlier assessment of the Satmap. It is not the battery life which is poor but the battery indicator. There is no indication while charging of how full the battery is and as a result I was taking it off charge too early. Since then I have been charging it all night and it does last a complete day. The second problem with the battery charge indicator is that it is inaccurate when the device is in use. With 4 bars of battery life most people would expect them to equate roughly to 100%, 75%, 50% and 25% of remaining battery life, but no. It stays on 4 bars for hours, then on 3 bars for hours, then almost immediately dies.
Final gripe about Satmap is the button to the right of the joystick has not worked for 3 day. Fortunately I can still get to map screens but not to the compass screen. I cannot even trun it off. But it is proving useful all the same, so I will stop griping.
Looking forward to tomrorrow. We will be heading off into bleaker wilder country which will make a change. And the end of tomorrow is our half way point, a major achievement.