The West Country Way Cycle – Day 3, August 23rd 2024.

I slept well. I stayed up until 10ish charging things and petting dogs and cats. Once again I did wake fitfully due to the deflating pillow. I’ll have to fix that.

My alarm went off at 7:00 and it was raining, as it had done all night. 10 minutes later it stopped and I emerged.

The GoPro is being dodgy. Something is wrong with the SD card. I went into the pub and made myself some tea and toast which I consumed while taking down the tent in the drizzle. It’s possible I accidentally turned the oven on too. Whoops. The tent was covered in small spiders.

My GoPro and Airpod batteries are low so I saw a café in my future. I stopped a little off the moors and took the straight route down and up (but mostly down) country roads to Barnstaple, passing tractors and horses and filming on my phone. I took some lovely cycle paths through the town, bought a meal deal from Tesco, and headed out along a nice cycle path to the coast and café.

Once there I mistakenly put my bike in a bike hire rack, rather than a public one, and accidentally knocked all the other bikes in it over while extricating mine…

I put some stuff on charge in a heritage centre and got a Mocha and a cake. I’m there now.

***

I carried on along cycle trails for twenty or so Kilometres. Most of this was the Tarka Trail. It was very pretty – through woods, by rivers, over bridges, past sculptures. I stopped by a bench with a wooden sculpture of a man fondling a woman. An older man who I’d overtaken a couple of times (due to having to go back on myself to film) caught me up and we chatted a little.

A short while and a quick few kms later I stopped at another sculpture and ate lunch – then on towards the coast. After passing a pile of logs I got a call from a landlord in Salford offering me a house. We chatted for fifteen minutes, and I accepted. I hope that was the right choice.

Soon after this I started seeing Cornwall flags and signs for Bude. I went most of the way there then, at the coast, turned left towards Widemouth Bay.  It was a zoom down a hill, followed by a steep climb, then another, then another (bloody Millook). It would have been a lot easier if my low gear was working. It kept popping in and out.

I stopped many times going up the hills to snack. People cheered me as I passed – it reminded me of the Alps and Montenegro.

At last I reached the final hill down towards Crackington. I put my GoPro on and zoomed down at 100mph. Then my SD card glitched. Damn. I held my phone up to film and went almost as fast. I had intended to get a shot of me cycling to the top of the ramp, the beach opening up before me, however my family were on holiday there at the time and mum, sat on a nearby wall, spotted me and called out. I had to stop to go and say hello. Instead of the shot, I got a pint.

I said hello to much of the fam and met my cousin’s daughter for the first time. She kept trying to drink his pint. I excused myself and went down to the beach to dip my hand in the sea. It has to be done.

I went up to the holiday house, had a bath, dinner (an Aubergine dish my brother makes), then went up to bed around eleven. Lovely.

What a nice trip.

Watch this trip on Youtube