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.