When me and my brothers were little, Janet – my aunt – would take us to the pictures. She passed her love of movies to us. We would see an eclectic range of films from comedy to sci-fi. We didn’t see enough costume drama for my liking … but I was outnumbered! We did, however, go to see a movie called ‘Across the Great Divide’, the plot concerned two orphans travelling across America’s Rocky Mountains to claim their inheritance. To be honest, I can’t recall much about the movie, bar a few images of log cabins and blue gingham dresses. But the film has gone down in our family’s history as my brothers think that this was the most boring film/movie they were ever taken to see.

Today we passed our own very real ‘great divide’. After climbing for 50 miles we reached the Great Eastern Divide – the highest point on the Great Allegheny Passage. After this point it was downhill all the way to Cumberland for 25 miles.

Unfortunately, our much anticipated freewheel into town was disrupted by not one, but two mechanical stops. First Michael’s (McL) tyre punctured rather dramatically with a large pop, the tyre had been ripped by a sharp stone. After a running repair we set off again, but only made it a further ten miles before the tyre failed again. Fortunately we carry a folding spare tyre and so after Mike and Mike switched the tyre and tube we were off again – perhaps not quite as exciting as an action movie, but certainly not as dull a day as the other Across the Great Divide and we passed some very Hollywood-sounding names such as ‘Great Savage Mountain’ – thankfully we went through it as opposed to over it, (and through a very scary tunnel). Despite the incidents we conquered the Great Divide!