Why this ride
285 km from Greenhead to Greenhead, about 4 h 14 of riding. The stops in between: Campfield, The English Lake District and back through Campfield. It strings together lakeside roads.
CURVESCOUT / MOTORCYCLE RIDE
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp and The English Lake District
Plan this ride
- Recorded distance
- 285 km
- Riding-time estimate
- 4 h 14
- Journey
- Recorded itinerary
Distance and timing basis
Ordered leg totals agree within rounding. Stop distances are approximate sums of rounded legs. Stops, delays, approach and any separate return travel add time. Basis: producer-declared routed record.
Reading history stays on this device. My road watch requires a separate selection; opening it does not subscribe this ride.
Distance and riding time are measured on the routed road. Check local closures and conditions before you ride.
Scenic road chapters
Campfield → The English Lake District
Slow enough to look. The surface follows the shoreline, so the corners arrive where the water decided, not where an engineer did. Water arrives beside the road and stays for 71 km. The line follows the shore because there is nowhere else for it to go.
Chapter facts
- Length
- 85 km
Waypoint introductions and full write-ups
1. Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp
West of Haltwhistle, the land rises gently to the watershed between the Tyne and the Irthing, a broad, windy saddle of rough pasture known as the Tyne Gap, where rivers flow east to the North Sea and west to the Irish Sea. Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is one of several marching camps here, where Roman soldiers on the move dug a rectangular ditch and rampart for a night or a season, the earthworks now barely visible as low ridges in the grass. It is part of the Frontiers of the Roman Empire World Heritage site.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is where the day begins. Next is Campfield.
2. Campfield
Out on the Solway coast west of Carlisle, the land flattens into salt marsh, peat bog and wide tidal sands, and the sky takes over. Campfield Marsh, near Bowness-on-Solway, is a nature reserve run by the RSPB, a mix of salt marsh, wet grassland and raised bog, and in winter it fills with tens of thousands of geese, barnacle and pink-footed, arriving from the Arctic, along with waders that feed on the mud at low tide. Across the firth, the town of Annan and the Scottish hills are visible on a clear day.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Campfield comes up about 57 km into the recorded legs. Next is The English Lake District.
3. The English Lake District
Wordsworth wandered lonely as a cloud round here, and anybody who has ridden the Lake District on a wet bank holiday will understand the appeal of being lonely. The English Lake District, listed by UNESCO in 2017 as a cultural landscape, is a compact knot of mountains, lakes and valleys in Cumbria, shaped by glaciers and then by centuries of sheep farming, slate quarrying and, from the late eighteenth century, by poets, painters and tourists who came looking for the sublime.
Read the complete The English Lake District write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
about 142 km into the recorded legs you reach The English Lake District. Next is back through Campfield.
4. back through Campfield
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Campfield write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
back through Campfield, late in the day. Next is Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp.
5. Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp
Return visit. Read the place description above.
Read the complete Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp write-up.
Recorded stop-planning note
May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.
Planning note
Back at Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp. That is the ride.
Leg by leg
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp to Campfield
Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp → Campfield is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.
Campfield to The English Lake District
Campfield → The English Lake District is 85 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
The English Lake District to back through Campfield
The English Lake District → back through Campfield is 86 km of getting across. Ride it tidily and keep the enthusiasm for what comes after.
back through Campfield to Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp
back through Campfield → Chapel Rigg Roman temporary camp is 57 km of rhythm rather than effort. Let it flow and let the view breathe.