Day 7: The Devil Called Me Again….

Back in the nineties i was a frequent visitor to one of the local(ish) bikers venues, the Devils Bridge, Kirkby Lonsdale, the folk tale surrounding the bridge tells of an old woman who lived on the banks of the Lune with a few animals. One night her cow strayed across the river and would not be tempted back, no matter how much she coaxed and implored. The devil appeared to her, offering to build a bridge in exchange for the soul of the first body to cross it. The devil constructed the bridge with his own hands, leaving a print in the wet stone. The next day the woman met the devil at the bridge and agreed to fulfil her part of the bargain. She took a bun from her bag and threw it across the bridge, whereupon her small dog raced across to retrieve it. The devil, in a fit of rage at being outwitted, howled in anger and vanished in a cloud of brimstone.

Exactly the same story has been attributed to the Devils Bridge in Wales https://devilsbridgefalls.co.uk/the-legend/

Both are big biker meeting points, have we fallen for a tourist trap or, perhaps, more likely both ‘Devils Bridge’ venues have great biking roads the A6 up to Kirkby Lonsdale and the A44 in Wales.

A 132 mile round trip today, bringing the total to 716 miles, the trip home tomorrow should be about 270 miles.