Today's mileage was not at all high so we allowed ourselves a leisurely start at our favourite hostel before heading on down through Dentdale towards Cowgill and Dent village. Along the way we stopped to explore the small river that runs past the hostel and right down the dale beside the road. The riverbed had an interesting limestone bed that just seemed to be begging us to walk across.

At Dent we discovered another excellent cafe (Stone Close) hidden in a seventeenth century building complete with flagstone floor, exposed beams and home baking. It was situated off a delightful cobbled street in a village that had character and charm. Once again we were in no hurry to leave, but when the youngsters' now traditional water fight began to get a little out of hand Michael decided it was time to go.

We returned to Cowgill in brilliant sunshine using the parallel lane on the other side of the river, then Michael Hall and Jeff returned to the hostel to collect their shorts and socks while the rest of us started the climb past Dent station. We were reunited by the time we reached the top at Galloway Gate, and here, at a height of 537m, there was a strong wind. The descent into Garsdale was followed by a small climb, bringing us back to .. Hawes again! The youngsters are getting to know it quite well now.

It was here that Gary's tyre burst. Michael patched it up and fitted a new inner tube, and then we just couldn't resist another visit to that fabulous cafe. This was certainly a leisurely day!

The ascent to Buttertubs Pass was not so leisurely, and when we finally reached the top the youngsters rested by having a mud fight! Unfortunately Steve got in the way and as a result his camera was broken. He wasn't too happy, but hopefully everyone realised that their games were getting a little too rough.

An interesting group of fluted limestone potholes known as Buttertubs lies a little way down the other side. Michael did tell the leading riders about them, but they were so excited by the downhill that they flew straight past them by mistake. The rest of us spent a good ten minutes investigating their dark and dangerous depths and took great pleasure telling the others later what they had missed. According to the locals, the correct way to pronounce the name is "Boowta-Toowbs".

The descent quickly brought us into Swaledale. We turned left towards the head of the dale and soon found the remote Keld youth hostel. It didn't look too brilliant from the outside, being a bit on the tatty side, and it wasn't exactly fabulous inside either. But the wardens were very friendly and prepared good meals for us.

During the meal, which was served in the flat-roof extension at the front of the hostel, we were surprised to find what looked like a large fluffy cat wandering around under the table. Closer investigation revealed to our amazement that it was in fact a very large rabbit! The wardens told us that he was called Henry and was fully house-trained. Naturally we all fell in love with him immediately - especially Brett, who, as we all know, loves cuddly creatures.

Washing up took a little longer than usual when Matthew broke some plates. It wasn't really his fault though - too many cooks break the plates! Eventually we set off for our short evening walk to the Catrake Force waterfall on the river Swale. The path was a bit muddy after all the recent rains but the waterfall was quite good.

Our longest day dawned grey and overcast. When Henry had posed for several photographs we walked along another path from the hostel that leads to Kisdon Force waterfall. At one point there was a huge rock overhanging the path. The falls turned out to be a very scenic spot and kept us amused for a considerable time. Some swam (the water was very deep under the falls) and others took photographs but everyone enjoyed the visit.

Returning to the bikes for a rather late start we rode through Swaledale, passing Muker along the way, a village that is used in the TV series All Creatures Great and Small. We didn't have time for any cafe stops so we pressed on up the steep climb over Feetham pasture and an interesting ford to Arkengarthdale.

The village of Langthwaite had a shop where we bought various cans and packets and ate lunch outside in the chilly air. Then we were off again up another northwards climb that took us out of the Yorkshire Dales national park and onwards to the market town of Barnard Castle. Here we found a kind of bike shop come toy shop where Gary bought a new tyre, Aidan fixed his mudguard and others bought various bits and pieces.

Tonight we would be self-catering for the first time, as the hostel did not provide meals, so after a major purchase of food supplies from the excellent range of shops we pressed on through Teesdale, which took a good deal longer than we had expected. The ride was made more tedious by Matthew's blow-out and Gary and Matthew's first gear games, but eventually we reached our final attraction of the day: High Force waterfall. This was very spectacular, possibly one of the best in England with a 21m drop and a very respectable volume of water. We could even walk on top, although Michael insisted that nobody got anywhere near the edge of course.

A final few miles brought us to Langdon Beck hostel. It was located in a perfect setting, near the head of Teesdale where the valley becomes flatter. The hostel was modern inside with a nice warden and good dormitories. There was much mayhem in the kitchens on our first evening of self-catering.

Highlight of the evening was David fighting off Brett, Matthew and Gary in a play fight in the dorm!

Thursday morning dawned sunny and warm. It was indeed a lovely day, but we probably deserved it. Tidying the hostel took quite a while as it had to be left as we had found it, and we had taken the warden at his word when he told us to make ourselves at home! Graham, who was old enough to know better, was one of those with melted trainers, and he had to file the insides to make the comfortable enough to wear.

We joined the main road as far as Bearsbridge, stopping at the post office and general stores where Michael drew out some much-needed cash and everyone restocked on chocolate. From there we climbed the back road hill to the ridge where a long, straight roman road was characterised by the delightful smell of pine forest. Soon we had arrived at Haltwhistle where there was an excellent bakery that sold good pasties. There was a park opposite where we were able to sit in peace to eat our lunch.

In view of the problems with the milk and bread last night Michael tried to ring all the remaining hostels to make quite sure they had actually written down our orders, as we really couldn't do without milk and bread again. Annoyingly, however, only Snoot hostel answered.

When we had visited the grocery stores to get our next evening meal and breakfast we climbed the short hill to Hadrian's Wall and then rode a short distance westwards to the information centre near Once Brewed. Here we discovered that the wall was originally twenty two feet high! Some of our youngsters wasted their money on some chemical-filled drinks from a silly machine in the centre before we went to look at the wall itself.

There was an archaeological dig taking place on part of the wall near the centre which showed just how much had been buried under the soil. We were struck by the technical accuracy of the construction, made from rectangular stones, but the remains of the wall were now only a few feet high so it wasn't as impressive as we had imagined. We were all able to walk along part of the wall for a while, just so we could say we had.

We split into two groups to ride the 2½ miles to Houseteads fort, some taking the track along the wall and others taking the road. The road lot got there quicker but didn't have half as much 'fun' as the trackies who had numerous gates and stiles to negotiate. The fort itself, being the best preserved along the length of the wall, was very interesting, but nowhere near as 'free' as the sign at the bottom had indicated: on arrival we were asked to pay some exorbitant fee for entry. We politely declined and returned to the fort information centre, where we browsed the bookshop and got ripped off by the refreshments tent!

In view of the time we decided to take the road route to Bellingham rather than the shortcut track through Wark Forest. The first section was a flat roman road following the wall, then there was a downhill lane through the quiet lanes of Northumberland national park at Simonburn. From there we joined the B road northwards to Bellingham, which wasn't too bad as climbs go as it followed the North Tyne river.

We found the hostel quickly, a wooden hut at the top of the town in pleasant surroundings. When we got to reception, guess what? The warden hadn't noticed our milk & bread order 'until it was too late'! This really was unbelievable. She apologised, but we couldn't use her apologies on our corn flakes! She rang the milkman who agreed to bring eight pints by 8.30 tomorrow morning. Meanwhile she gave us a small white loaf to keep us going for the evening, and another hosteller donated two pints of milk to us. The only snag with this was that the milk was frozen! Aidan spent half an hour thawing it out in a saucepan.

The hostel store turned out to be the usual cupboard, but at least it had a few items for sale this time. On a more positive note, we had the dorm normally reserved for women all to ourselves - and as everyone knows, only the most comfortable dorms are reserved for women! There were even showers here, which was an unexpected surprise for such a simple hostel. There was no telephone however, so some members of the group went down to the village to use the public telephone during the evening.

Incredibly, the milk saga continued this morning. Michael and Jeff went down to the local shop to buy bread, but when they returned they still couldn't have breakfast because the milk hadn't arrived by 8.30! It still wasn't there by 9, so Michael went down to the shop again, only to discover that they had only a single pint of fresh milk in stock! He bought that and five cartons of UHT milk, then one minute after he got back to the hostel the milkman arrived! All of this made us late on a morning when we really didn't want to be late at all.

Our planned route today was ambitious: taking a very long track over the Cheviot hills. There was a road alternative that was hilly and uninteresting, but we wanted to do the track if the weather was going to be favourable. As we were about to leave Bellingham the weather looked uncertain, so we kept our options open by heading through some pleasant lanes to Elsdon. Gary managed to break both his toe-straps on the way within a very short space of time.

The skies were still overcast but there had been no sign of rain yet. A vote resulted in a clear decision to go with the track, so to make sure we survived the ordeal we raided the local store of most of its chocolate stocks! David tried riding over a ditch and ended up bending his front forks - clever boy!

Then we were off, riding away from the main road towards Hepple on a long and straight road that climbed gently, continued flat for a while and then descended on the far side. The scenery was delightful (apart from the dead badger), and as we reached the left turn for Alwinton a huge hill covered with blue heather made a magnificent backdrop.

There were some phone boxes at Alwinton so Michael thought it would be sensible to ring the hostel so that we could be certain of our milk for one night. Well there were two phone boxes: one was dead and the other was '999 calls only'. So that was the end of that idea. a few specks of drizzle got us just a little concerned, but we pushed on up the narrowing road to Windyhaugh, a remote hamlet that for some strange reason actually had a school!

Now we turned right onto the bridleway that would take us over the top. It was tarmac at the start, but turned into a rough track at Trow. David was using too high a gear on the climb and snapped his chain, so there was a small delay while Michael carried out repairs.

The weather was dry again now, although there was no sign of sunshine, and we generally felt we had made the right decision. The scenery up here was wild and desolate - quite different to anything we had seen before, as there was now no sign of human activity anywhere. Soon the track turned grassy and yet remained well-defined. It continued like this to the top, at a height of 600m, so in fact the climb was fairly easy.

At the summit, called Windy Gyle, there was a fence and a wooden gate. Careful inspection of the map revealed that this was all that marked the boundary between England and Scotland. It was a bit of an anti-climax really: no border patrols, no CCTV cameras, just a wooden gate!

Now came the fun bit: going down the other side. It was fun for most of us, although it was a little boggy in places which didn't amuse Mark at all. Aidan fell off, then Gary fell off too, but nobody was hurt and anyway it was all part of the fun.

At Cocklawfoot we found tarmac again, and a ford. Here David conveniently got a puncture, so while repairs were effected the others had time to wash their bikes in the ford. Our youngsters could be seen standing in the water with their bikes, water up to their knees and trainers still on! Will they ever learn?! There were more fords down the road, and then David had another puncture - he probably forgot to remove the thorn the first time!

It felt really nice to be in Scotland, although we might have been influenced by the fact that it was downhill all the way to Kirk Yetholm. The hostel is part of the SYHA network, and when we found the warden we were confident that in Scotland at least they would have reserved our milk and bread as requested - we depended on it. It's hard to find words to describe how we felt, therefore, when she told us that she hadn't seen our milk order on our booking!

In fact it didn't turn out so bad, since for some unknown reason the milkman comes in the evening here and we were able to get our 13 pints from him. We would be able to get bread next morning, and we still had a few slices left from our earlier shopping visits that would help us get through supper.

The dormitories were nice, there was a TV room and there was a shower! The only down side was that there was a queue for the shower, and you had to pay 40p to use it! The only other noteworthy incident was that Gary managed to cut his finger somehow. But it's all in a day's hostelling.

There were some major repairs to be carried out before we could leave the hostel this morning: Gary's front hub had to be re-greased, and Mark's tyre needed repairs when it exploded! Then we had to use the shops in Town Yetholm (close to the hostel), so it was rather late when we finally set off.

Michael needed some cash from a Post Office so we set off with all haste to ride the eight miles to the market town of Kelso before it closed. After all our efforts, however, we arrived three minutes after it closed, and of course they were totally unwilling to open the doors for us. This left Michael short of cash, but somehow we would have to manage.

Kelso was one of the most charming and quaint towns in the area, with cobbled streets, Georgian houses and a French-styled cobbled square. Shopping for our lunch in the town was very pleasant in the late morning sunshine. We had planned to visit Floors Castle, an impressive 18th century country house, but typical of our luck it was closed on Saturdays, so instead we headed to the river Tweed for lunch. Here we found a huge park lining the riverbank which provided a perfect grassy play area for lunch. Needless to say there were several water fights once lunch had been eaten.

Taking the back lanes through Nisbet our next stop was the Harestanes Countryside Visitor Centre near Ancrum. Here the avenues of trees looked delightful in the sunshine. We took advantage of the excellent cafe, which charged very reasonable prices, but skipped the woodland walks as they were muddy and we were late. We did play briefly in the adventure playground however before setting off once again along the main road to Hawick and Roberton.

The lane from Roberton to Snoot hostel was delightful with trees on either side. A left turn just a mile from the village took us over a narrow footbridge into a meadow, where the hostel was a converted chapel. This was one of the simplest hostels in Scotland, so we weren't too surprised to fine the insides lacking in creature comforts. Our dorm had no ceiling, instead having a cavernous space up to the roof, and the shower was rather primitive. More worryingly, there were no real windows in our dorm, so we wondered what we would do in the event of a fire.

The warden had got our milk for us after Michael's phone call a few days earlier and had guarded it vigilantly from other hostellers who tried to buy it! During the evening we met a Rough Stuff cyclist whom some had met three years earlier at Nant-y-Dernol hostel (shortly to close I hear). He hadn't even heard of our track over the Cheviots, so we felt quite pleased with ourselves!

There were some other groups in our dorm who were whispering from an early hour this morning. We stayed in bed as long as we could, but it was rather annoying to be woken so early.

When breakfast had been packed and jobs done we took some photographs of the delightful setting of the hostel. Unfortunately Aidan ended up in the river after a mishap on the bridge, but the older culprits were severely reprimanded by Michael and there was no real harm done.

Carlisle was going to be a long ride, so we took the main road as far as Langholm, stopping at a craft shop along the way that didn't turn out to be very good at all. We tried to find a riverside lunch spot at Langholm, and after much difficulty we eventually found one - it even had a suspension bridge to play on, albeit rather rickety!

We took pleasant lanes for the remainder of the route to Carlisle - very hilly initially, but then much easier. When we finally reached Carlisle hostel it was 6.30. We were certainly ready for our evening meals, but were a little disappointed with those that were served to us.

We were, as usual, in the annexe, which felt more like an isolation chamber than a dormitory! Clearly the warden wanted to keep potentially noisy youngsters away from the senior hostellers!

When we went to reception to collect our milk we were in for more bad news. He had seen our order for five pints of milk but hadn't actually kept them back for us! When asked why he said "most hostellers don't collect it, leaving us with lots of wasted milk in the fridge". That really was the last straw for us. He hadn't asked us to pay in advance: if he'd told us the price we would have been happy to do so! We began to wonder why such a simple task as reserving milk had proved so impossible for hostel wardens to manage in this area!

He did have the odd pint left for us to buy, but being the strange fellow that he was he insisted on actually having the 56p in his tight little hand before giving us the milk!

Matthew Nunn's parents met us at the hostel during the evening and took him home. Our tour was beginning to draw to a close.

Sunshine again was very welcome, the last few days having partially made up for the bad weather in the middle part of the tour. After taking numerous photos in the hostel grounds we made our way to the centre of Carlisle in search of an interesting cafe. Eventually we had to give up and resorted to using the British Rail cafe in the station. Being a Bank Holiday there was a market in the town centre, so we spent an enjoyable time browsing around.

Our train, due at 12.28, was nearly thirty minutes late, and further delays of 80 minutes were predicted owing to engineering works near Wigan. In fact by the time the last of our group reached Newton Abbot we were only an hour late, arriving at about 8.40pm, so things didn't turn out too bad.

This had turned out to be an interesting tour with a good group of youngsters. We had sunshine on seven days, cloud on two days and rain on three days, so we hadn't done too badly with the weather. We hope that many of those taking part will be up for joining one or both of our 1988 tours.