A day of firsts: the first time any of us had been to the Lake District, our first headwind of the trip, and our first navigational misstep.

With the Dawg vetoing our original plan to travel via the notorious Kirkstone Pass (with its series of brutal one-in-four gradients, known in cycling circles as The Struggle) in the strongest possible terms, we spent the first half-an-hour of the day plotting an alternative route that avoided the area’s major hills. Given what was to transpire later, we’d almost have been better off sticking with plan A.

We’ve been really lucky with the weather – out of approximately 50 hours in the saddle so far, we’ve probably only experienced about an hour-and a half’s rain in total. But just as importantly, the wind has been with us too. Many of the people I spoke with in the build-up to this trip warned me that the prevailing south-westerlies typical of this time of year would be our biggest enemy on the journey down the country – it’s the main reason most people choose a LEJOG route over a JOGLE one. But ever the contrarian, my logic was that travelling south (downhill, you know!) towards home would give us a psychological boost. And with largely easterly and northerly winds pushing us along over the first week, that decision has been justified and we’ve made great progress.

That changed today. As we entered the Lake District, the wind howled in our faces, making it tough to get any kind of momentum up. We were using gears that were previously reserved for getting up hills to push us along the flat, and combined with general fatigue following two long days (and breaking the three-pint rule the night before in The Old Crown!) it felt as though we were plodding.

Still, we soon broke through another milestone – 500 miles for the trip – and that helped spur us on, as did the views. The scenery was stunning, and we soon forgot about the wind as we forged deeper into the landscape. The morning’s ride through Mungriesdale and down the western edge of Thirlmere was lovely, and we almost had the place to ourselves. Unfortunately, we were not alone for long. As we made for the tourist honey traps of Ambleside and Windermere, the volume of traffic on the roads shot through the roof. Our surroundings were still beautiful, but our enjoyment of them was compromised by the need to stay vigilant and concentrate on staying safe.

In fact, the over-commercialised nature of the area around Lake Windermere threatened to tarnish our first impressions – until fate intervened. Up until now, we’ve been able to navigate fairly easily using a mixture of iPhones, pages torn from a road atlas and our own research. But today, with our attention firmly on the tourist traffic streaming by us, we made a costly error and missed a turning that took us five miles south of where we wanted to be. Rather than just head back up the road and correct our mistake, we decided to cut across country. You can see where this is going.

Our first warning should’ve been the name of the road we planned on taking: Fell Foot Brow. If that doesn’t scream ‘hill’ then I don’t know what does. The 20% gradient sign at the bottom was a pretty major clue, too. And if any lingering doubts remained, they were soon dispelled as we began the climb – it just went on and on. And then on some more. Then up. Then on. And then up and up and up. On then up, on then up. Our legs and lungs were burning by the time we got to the top, but our reward was some amazing views from the summit. It was easily the toughest climb of the tour, and it’s no wonder most routes avoid it – from 20% at the start, it went up to 25% in places; even the few cars that passed us were struggling with the gradient.

From there, flushed with success at making it up in one piece, we made our third mistake and decided to cut across the top. At first the road was great, a dry-stone-wall-lined singletrack taking us through rolling moorland. But as the road petered out in a farmer’s yard, we were faced with a choice of turning back or carrying on off-road via the public footpath. Figuring we’d come too far to retrace our steps, we pushed ahead. The path was terrible, through fields and over fells, past startled sheep and grumpy (and confused) farmers, and it stretched on for miles, but it did eventually bring us out on a tarmac track, and from there – thanks in equal parts to both luck and judgement – we were able to wind our way back to some kind of civilisation.

It had been a massive detour. But funnily enough, despite the fact it had added an extra couple of hours onto our journey time, taken us miles off track and exhausted the muscles in our legs, I think all three of us enjoyed that part of the day the most: great friends having an adventure together. It reminded us of why we were doing the trip in the first place: for the sheer joy of doing it, as much as for the challenge and charity aspects.

Tired and hungry, we collapsed into the nearest pub we could find, The Blue Bell just outside Milnthorpe, where we had some additional good fortune as fellow guests Liz and Nigel donated some money towards the Pete & Mary Trust (for details of how to do this yourselves, check out the Sponsor Us link below, or in the menu at the top).

As legendary west coast rapper Ice Cube might say: today was a good day.