Poachers, Gypsies and Ducky Boys
As I was breaking camp a poacher and his dog came up the path.
Bloody hell, I thought, a poacher? What the Dowton Abbey is going on? He must've been out overnight because it was just getting light and he was toting a brace of rabbits. He asked if I had any water, so I gave him my bike bottle and said he could keep it. I needed to buy a bigger one anyway and I didn't particularly want to swap lip muck with this grubby fucker. I only spied a single tooth and it looked to be on the verge itself.
I've nothing against poaching or hunting in general, and don't particularly distinguish between the two. The idea of someone 'owning' wild animals, even managed ones, is biospherically silly, and my years immersed in the lingering frontier mentality of the southwestern USA forever changed my attitude to killing one's own food. I'd now prefer to do it myself for ethical reasons (I look forward to the letter bombs from outraged vegans), and will probably start at some point on this trip, but there was something 'off' about this guy. I've no doubt if he'd happened upon my camp while I was asleep he'd have stolen something. He was probably measuring me up to see if mugging me now was doable, hence the weird vibe, but obviously decided it wasn't.
I've got several friends, mostly vegans, who disavow hunting as if it's the preserve of bloodthirsty nature haters. But the thing is, hunting is what nature does. It's as natural as birdsong. Pretending it's somehow cruel is to imply we're above animals, whereas I contend we are not, or at least, not much. Thus theirs is the more arrogant position.
I don't often engage, because it's rarely worth the effort. The vegan establishment necessarily rides roughshod over the science, cherrypicking for their agenda as they go, very much like the fundamentally religious: even when you categorically prove them wrong, you don't win, because you're tearing down their psychological safe harbour, which never feels good. They imagine a refuge of fluffy bunny rabbits, anthropomorphized dolphins and gaily frolicking lambs, whereas in reality nature has teeth and claws and blood and death alongside the genetic altruism. It looks attractive to us, though, because we're supposed to be in it, so we often forget its rigour. Nothing wild dies of old age; only we do. Nothing is designed to live into infirmity.
Veganism is the weirdest and most fascinating behavioural mutation of modern humanity, and it's occurring right before our eyes. I guess one's opinion of it depends on how far one thinks we've drifted from our hunter-gatherer roots. I suggest, psychologically and physiologically, we haven't moved much at all; we haven't had time. 10,000 years is a but a stutter in our storyline. Which is why we're so miserable in the monogamous agrarian domesticity that breeds the veganism outlier: stress-related illnesses are the biggest killer we have. For comparison, cross-cultural studies abound with happy and comparatively stress-free immediate-return hunter-gatherer societies.
So why did we choose agriculture if we hate it so much? No doubt because it's easier. Put a dog in a house and he lies by the fire.
Any herbivore vs omnivore debate ultimately arrives at sentience. Animals are sentient, is the most frequent claim, and plants are not. This is murky territory and fairly redundant, certainly for the hungry, of any species. Life eats life. Making guesstimations about the level of sentience of a life form is, I feel, cultural navel-gazing. These classifications are derived from our facility with language, not because nature, our implicit nature, recognizes such things.
I'm with the vegetarians when it comes to the mistreatment of farmed animals, however. Like most people, I don't want to see anything suffer, plants included. And if this fuels your objection to consuming the derived animal products, well, good for you, and please don't stop on my account.
There are bad days (Skinningrove), good days, and amazing days. Today was the latter.
The first part of the day was spent winding through rolling hills. I noticed a lot of single horses tethered seemingly in the middle of nowhere, likely by gypsies. The horse grazed a circle around the anchor, which was then was moved to a different part of the common or field, if the patterns of cropped grass were anything to go by.
There was a village up ahead, so I stopped to ask a middle-aged man cycling on the bike path if there was a village shop where I could stock up on food, water and candy. He said there was, and he'd show me, and warned me the place was a 'bit rough'. So rough, in fact, he refused to enter, and gave me directions from the outskirts. What the hell? It was only 10 o'clock in the morning.
Wingate appeared to be distinctly removed from Ducky Boy territory, but the residents were having none of it. I leaned my bike on a lamppost outside the general store, unlocked but in plain view of the shop window, and went in to grab what I needed. 'I wouldn't leave your bike there,' advised the shop assistant when I got to the counter, 'they'll have it, y'know. Before you even blink.'
A headscarfed old lady in front of me turned in agreement, 'She's right, luv. Buggers, they are.'
There's a few reasons I knew the potential for theft was unlikely. First, I have a length of slip-knotted paracord I use to tie my front brake lever back, as I found the weight of the trailer could easily unbalance while propped up or leaning against something: applying the front brake stopped this happening. The side effect is anyone trying to snatch the rig would have to work this 'parking brake' out and fiddle with it before setting off, by which time I'd be on them with ferocious prejudice. Second, while it only takes a couple of minutes to get used to the trailer (indeed, once moving it's barely noticeable), the first time, at low speeds, it feels very strange. Third, all my gear is strapped on and everything valuable is in my small backpack. Fourth, any self-respecting career hooligan is still in bed at 10 am.
I returned to my never-out-of-sight bike to find it miraculously still there, when a baker in a white apron walked past carrying a huge tray of freshly baked pork pies. What the Dickensian? This is Downton bloody Abbey! The smell was heavenly, and before I knew it I was trotting after him like a cartoon dog. He took them inside Robinson's Butchers, a bustling craft-orientated local shop with an obviously stellar reputation. I joined the queue and acquired one, still hot, to rival the legendary pork pies of Glaves Butchers in Brompton-by-Sawdon.
I sauntered through Seaham and Ryhope enjoying a following wind along County Durham's coastline, which impressively combines the qualities of being both pretty and easy to cycle. I did a little more food shopping on the way, then stopped to talk to a couple of elderly hikers, a Brit and a German. They told me of a coastal path up to Sunderland that my trailer could probably handle, and some likely camping spots among the dunes at Whitburn, a few miles north of the city. The British fella turned out to be a caravaner who'd made many trips to Scarborough, where I'm from. I told him of some recent grumblings in the town objecting to motorhomes parking in the foreshore car parks (an astonishingly short-sighted approach to generating income for a holiday resort), and he bowed up like I'd just climbed off his sister. As a caravaner, this guy hated motorhomes with a real passion, and I'd lit the fuse. I grinned internally at the narrowness of the absurdity as I waited out his rant. The audacity of putting a fucking engine in it, eh? Scum of the Earth bastards indeed.
Sunderland
Sunderland proved to be a far nicer-looking town than its reputation suggests. The population was also a lot more culturally diverse than I anticipated: I didn't expect to see Geordies in turbans, for example. The number of different languages I heard while walking the bike through the city centre was a wonderful advert for integration. I was forced to suppress the idea that travelling the world was a preposterous notion when all one needs do is visit the county of Tyne and Wear, and crossed the River Wear (pronounced 'weir') by the larger of the two adjacent bridges.
I pedalled east along the north bank through the architecturally diverse university campus, modern-looking marina, and buzzing dockland onto the coast, turned left and followed it north.
I stopped to fill up at a Whitburn Bay beach drinking fountain, only to misjudge the pressure and spray the front of my beige shorts in a perfect 'Look Mum, that man's pissed himself' pattern.
One of the more pleasing advantages of cycle touring is you're always leaving. You're never going to see these people again, So I didn't even bother even trying to dry it or hide it. Let passersby think what they want. It's really quite liberating.
Whitburn
Whitburn is a former colliery village, once the haunt of Lewis 'Alice in Wonderland' Carroll (there's even a statue of him in the library), sited by low cliffs and a long sandy beach.
While navigating another bike path gate next to a motorbike cafe, I got talking to a rather rotund, blustery, ex-army public school-type bloke on a fancy-looking electric bike. I asked him if he knew of anywhere suitable to camp, and he mentioned a headland near an old military shooting range which was out of sight and quite scenic. It was reachable by bike, he said, but probably not with my trailer. I silently dismissed his lack of confidence as piffle. The trail was a single track. My trailer was designed for single track. We rode on for a bit and chatted. He obviously wasn't from around here, as he lacked the Geordie brogue, and he turned out to be quite the raconteur:
'Rather a strapping chap for a cyclist, aren't you by thunder? Real red meat and two veg fellow. Good man! Nothing like a healthy appetite to put some lead in your pencil, what?'
I couldn't figure out if he was on cocaine or I'd been slipped an hallucinogenic mickey and it'd animated a British comic strip character from the 1940s. 'Is there a pub anywhere close to where we're going,' I asked, 'maybe one that serves food?'
'Humph, that's a good question, young man, very good question. Now let me think, let me think for a minute. Why yes indeed, there's the Grey Horse Inn, but the last time I went in it was full of yobbos! Mind you, I doubt that'd bother someone with your sturdy thews, what? You look like you could handle a couple of rowdy yobbos! Gird your loins and go for a drink, eh? Zip up your glad rags and hit the boozer for a night on the lash? Is that what you're doing tonight?'
I immediately decided I wasn't.
'Yes, they had some yobbos in there a couple of years ago, y'know, fighting and smashing up the place! Scared all the decent folk out, old boy. Don't know if they cleaned the bugger up yet, but they need to. Can't have bloody yobbos running the place, by God! But I'm sure they wouldn't bother you, though, not with your build, what!'
Sounded like my kind of pub, actually, but I still wasn't going.
He turned off with a wave as the main path angled back towards the road, and I continued on along the clifftop track.
The small headland he'd directed me to goes by the name of Souter Point, and while not quite as spectacular as the headlands I was used to on the North Yorkshire coast, it was extremely pleasant. I pitched my tent as the sun was setting, and watched the light daub the beach and sea with a roiling tempest of oranges, reds and golds. Shit got lovely pretty damned quick.
I finished off the Cumberland sausages with a tin of chicken and vegetable soup, then brewed up some coffee (well, Nescafe 3-in-1 instant coffee with the creamer and sugar cleverly included in a single sachet) and opened a bag of Maltesers while I watched the world power down.
Now, I've had much finer coffee (who hasn't), and much more bling desserts, and I've taken in far grander views, but in that precise moment I'd never experienced a better meal. I wouldn't have changed a thing. I felt the exhausted ecstasy for the first time: the precise reason I'm doing this. A travelgasm, if you will. A perfect moment. It was powerful pleasure. Sheer, raw, and unfiltered.
Perhaps it was the hallucinogen making a last minute surge, but I'd just discovered my own personal heroin.
I could've stayed in that place until the sky fell in, but the sun moves on, and so must I.
Bloody hell, I thought, a poacher? What the Dowton Abbey is going on? He must've been out overnight because it was just getting light and he was toting a brace of rabbits. He asked if I had any water, so I gave him my bike bottle and said he could keep it. I needed to buy a bigger one anyway and I didn't particularly want to swap lip muck with this grubby fucker. I only spied a single tooth and it looked to be on the verge itself.
I've nothing against poaching or hunting in general, and don't particularly distinguish between the two. The idea of someone 'owning' wild animals, even managed ones, is biospherically silly, and my years immersed in the lingering frontier mentality of the southwestern USA forever changed my attitude to killing one's own food. I'd now prefer to do it myself for ethical reasons (I look forward to the letter bombs from outraged vegans), and will probably start at some point on this trip, but there was something 'off' about this guy. I've no doubt if he'd happened upon my camp while I was asleep he'd have stolen something. He was probably measuring me up to see if mugging me now was doable, hence the weird vibe, but obviously decided it wasn't.
I've got several friends, mostly vegans, who disavow hunting as if it's the preserve of bloodthirsty nature haters. But the thing is, hunting is what nature does. It's as natural as birdsong. Pretending it's somehow cruel is to imply we're above animals, whereas I contend we are not, or at least, not much. Thus theirs is the more arrogant position.
I don't often engage, because it's rarely worth the effort. The vegan establishment necessarily rides roughshod over the science, cherrypicking for their agenda as they go, very much like the fundamentally religious: even when you categorically prove them wrong, you don't win, because you're tearing down their psychological safe harbour, which never feels good. They imagine a refuge of fluffy bunny rabbits, anthropomorphized dolphins and gaily frolicking lambs, whereas in reality nature has teeth and claws and blood and death alongside the genetic altruism. It looks attractive to us, though, because we're supposed to be in it, so we often forget its rigour. Nothing wild dies of old age; only we do. Nothing is designed to live into infirmity.
Veganism is the weirdest and most fascinating behavioural mutation of modern humanity, and it's occurring right before our eyes. I guess one's opinion of it depends on how far one thinks we've drifted from our hunter-gatherer roots. I suggest, psychologically and physiologically, we haven't moved much at all; we haven't had time. 10,000 years is a but a stutter in our storyline. Which is why we're so miserable in the monogamous agrarian domesticity that breeds the veganism outlier: stress-related illnesses are the biggest killer we have. For comparison, cross-cultural studies abound with happy and comparatively stress-free immediate-return hunter-gatherer societies.
So why did we choose agriculture if we hate it so much? No doubt because it's easier. Put a dog in a house and he lies by the fire.
Any herbivore vs omnivore debate ultimately arrives at sentience. Animals are sentient, is the most frequent claim, and plants are not. This is murky territory and fairly redundant, certainly for the hungry, of any species. Life eats life. Making guesstimations about the level of sentience of a life form is, I feel, cultural navel-gazing. These classifications are derived from our facility with language, not because nature, our implicit nature, recognizes such things.
I'm with the vegetarians when it comes to the mistreatment of farmed animals, however. Like most people, I don't want to see anything suffer, plants included. And if this fuels your objection to consuming the derived animal products, well, good for you, and please don't stop on my account.
* * *
There are bad days (Skinningrove), good days, and amazing days. Today was the latter.
The first part of the day was spent winding through rolling hills. I noticed a lot of single horses tethered seemingly in the middle of nowhere, likely by gypsies. The horse grazed a circle around the anchor, which was then was moved to a different part of the common or field, if the patterns of cropped grass were anything to go by.
There was a village up ahead, so I stopped to ask a middle-aged man cycling on the bike path if there was a village shop where I could stock up on food, water and candy. He said there was, and he'd show me, and warned me the place was a 'bit rough'. So rough, in fact, he refused to enter, and gave me directions from the outskirts. What the hell? It was only 10 o'clock in the morning.
Wingate appeared to be distinctly removed from Ducky Boy territory, but the residents were having none of it. I leaned my bike on a lamppost outside the general store, unlocked but in plain view of the shop window, and went in to grab what I needed. 'I wouldn't leave your bike there,' advised the shop assistant when I got to the counter, 'they'll have it, y'know. Before you even blink.'
A headscarfed old lady in front of me turned in agreement, 'She's right, luv. Buggers, they are.'
There's a few reasons I knew the potential for theft was unlikely. First, I have a length of slip-knotted paracord I use to tie my front brake lever back, as I found the weight of the trailer could easily unbalance while propped up or leaning against something: applying the front brake stopped this happening. The side effect is anyone trying to snatch the rig would have to work this 'parking brake' out and fiddle with it before setting off, by which time I'd be on them with ferocious prejudice. Second, while it only takes a couple of minutes to get used to the trailer (indeed, once moving it's barely noticeable), the first time, at low speeds, it feels very strange. Third, all my gear is strapped on and everything valuable is in my small backpack. Fourth, any self-respecting career hooligan is still in bed at 10 am.
I returned to my never-out-of-sight bike to find it miraculously still there, when a baker in a white apron walked past carrying a huge tray of freshly baked pork pies. What the Dickensian? This is Downton bloody Abbey! The smell was heavenly, and before I knew it I was trotting after him like a cartoon dog. He took them inside Robinson's Butchers, a bustling craft-orientated local shop with an obviously stellar reputation. I joined the queue and acquired one, still hot, to rival the legendary pork pies of Glaves Butchers in Brompton-by-Sawdon.
I sauntered through Seaham and Ryhope enjoying a following wind along County Durham's coastline, which impressively combines the qualities of being both pretty and easy to cycle. I did a little more food shopping on the way, then stopped to talk to a couple of elderly hikers, a Brit and a German. They told me of a coastal path up to Sunderland that my trailer could probably handle, and some likely camping spots among the dunes at Whitburn, a few miles north of the city. The British fella turned out to be a caravaner who'd made many trips to Scarborough, where I'm from. I told him of some recent grumblings in the town objecting to motorhomes parking in the foreshore car parks (an astonishingly short-sighted approach to generating income for a holiday resort), and he bowed up like I'd just climbed off his sister. As a caravaner, this guy hated motorhomes with a real passion, and I'd lit the fuse. I grinned internally at the narrowness of the absurdity as I waited out his rant. The audacity of putting a fucking engine in it, eh? Scum of the Earth bastards indeed.
Sunderland
Sunderland proved to be a far nicer-looking town than its reputation suggests. The population was also a lot more culturally diverse than I anticipated: I didn't expect to see Geordies in turbans, for example. The number of different languages I heard while walking the bike through the city centre was a wonderful advert for integration. I was forced to suppress the idea that travelling the world was a preposterous notion when all one needs do is visit the county of Tyne and Wear, and crossed the River Wear (pronounced 'weir') by the larger of the two adjacent bridges.
I pedalled east along the north bank through the architecturally diverse university campus, modern-looking marina, and buzzing dockland onto the coast, turned left and followed it north.
I stopped to fill up at a Whitburn Bay beach drinking fountain, only to misjudge the pressure and spray the front of my beige shorts in a perfect 'Look Mum, that man's pissed himself' pattern.
One of the more pleasing advantages of cycle touring is you're always leaving. You're never going to see these people again, So I didn't even bother even trying to dry it or hide it. Let passersby think what they want. It's really quite liberating.
Whitburn
Whitburn is a former colliery village, once the haunt of Lewis 'Alice in Wonderland' Carroll (there's even a statue of him in the library), sited by low cliffs and a long sandy beach.
While navigating another bike path gate next to a motorbike cafe, I got talking to a rather rotund, blustery, ex-army public school-type bloke on a fancy-looking electric bike. I asked him if he knew of anywhere suitable to camp, and he mentioned a headland near an old military shooting range which was out of sight and quite scenic. It was reachable by bike, he said, but probably not with my trailer. I silently dismissed his lack of confidence as piffle. The trail was a single track. My trailer was designed for single track. We rode on for a bit and chatted. He obviously wasn't from around here, as he lacked the Geordie brogue, and he turned out to be quite the raconteur:
'Rather a strapping chap for a cyclist, aren't you by thunder? Real red meat and two veg fellow. Good man! Nothing like a healthy appetite to put some lead in your pencil, what?'
I couldn't figure out if he was on cocaine or I'd been slipped an hallucinogenic mickey and it'd animated a British comic strip character from the 1940s. 'Is there a pub anywhere close to where we're going,' I asked, 'maybe one that serves food?'
'Humph, that's a good question, young man, very good question. Now let me think, let me think for a minute. Why yes indeed, there's the Grey Horse Inn, but the last time I went in it was full of yobbos! Mind you, I doubt that'd bother someone with your sturdy thews, what? You look like you could handle a couple of rowdy yobbos! Gird your loins and go for a drink, eh? Zip up your glad rags and hit the boozer for a night on the lash? Is that what you're doing tonight?'
I immediately decided I wasn't.
'Yes, they had some yobbos in there a couple of years ago, y'know, fighting and smashing up the place! Scared all the decent folk out, old boy. Don't know if they cleaned the bugger up yet, but they need to. Can't have bloody yobbos running the place, by God! But I'm sure they wouldn't bother you, though, not with your build, what!'
Sounded like my kind of pub, actually, but I still wasn't going.
He turned off with a wave as the main path angled back towards the road, and I continued on along the clifftop track.
The small headland he'd directed me to goes by the name of Souter Point, and while not quite as spectacular as the headlands I was used to on the North Yorkshire coast, it was extremely pleasant. I pitched my tent as the sun was setting, and watched the light daub the beach and sea with a roiling tempest of oranges, reds and golds. Shit got lovely pretty damned quick.
I finished off the Cumberland sausages with a tin of chicken and vegetable soup, then brewed up some coffee (well, Nescafe 3-in-1 instant coffee with the creamer and sugar cleverly included in a single sachet) and opened a bag of Maltesers while I watched the world power down.
Now, I've had much finer coffee (who hasn't), and much more bling desserts, and I've taken in far grander views, but in that precise moment I'd never experienced a better meal. I wouldn't have changed a thing. I felt the exhausted ecstasy for the first time: the precise reason I'm doing this. A travelgasm, if you will. A perfect moment. It was powerful pleasure. Sheer, raw, and unfiltered.
Perhaps it was the hallucinogen making a last minute surge, but I'd just discovered my own personal heroin.
I could've stayed in that place until the sky fell in, but the sun moves on, and so must I.
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