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Day 3     Sunday 25^th April 2004

Boscastle Youth Hostel to Great Torrington

It was a fairly early start this morning at the Youth Hostel.  Other people in the dormitory were up early as well.  The long walk to the toilet in the middle of the night had not been a problem – the men’s dormitory was upstairs at one end of the building, the men’s toilet was downstairs at the other end of the building.  At least the cycle torch is proving useful for the middle of the night if not being used on the bike.  I was the only cyclist at the hostel – all the other hostellers were either traditional walkers or walkers with car back-up.  Last night there appeared to be 4 Australians, a couple of ladies and a husband and wife.  It turned out the latter two were originally from the UK and he at some stage of his career was a missionary – he could certainly talk and his wife was not far behind him in this ability.  Most of the conversation was directed to the other two from Australia but whenever the conversation came my way I found it hard to get a word in edgeways.  They had lived in Australia for 15 years and were over here to do some touring and also to visit relatives and friends.  More later!

Anyway, my Australian missionary was an early bird.  He had gone to bed at 9pm last night and started to rise soon after 6.00 so I decided to follow about 6.45 having my “breakfast” of a cheese sandwich and youth hostel coffee at 7.20.  The breakfast was enhanced by an apple and a cereal bar which I had stored away for a hungry moment.  The weather outside was glorious – not a cloud in the sky.  After breakfast I said my goodbyes and found out that the couple were travelling up the coast to Bude to see their son and family who had hired a holiday home there.

I left at 8.30.  The hill going north out of Boscastle is a killer.  I think it was over ½ hour before I got on my bike at the top.  It was then down into Crackington Haven for my first very early tea break, and then up again on the other side and on to Millook.

There were a couple of 30% inclines to exercise some new muscles which I have discovered since starting the ride.  I pulled into a lay-by with glorious views along the coast towards Widemouth and Bude.  It was now about 1½ hours after leaving Boscastle and who should pull in behind me other than the Australian couple.  We proceeded to have another very long chat.  The subject matter ranged from children having to wear cycle helmets (law in Australia), about the lack of good drinking water in Australia – which was the reason for the tight restrictions on immigrants, about the benefits of hiring a French car when touring in the UK, and about other things long since forgotten.  After about 20 minutes they decided that they should be moving on to see their son and family.

The view was so good, the weather so brilliant and I felt so great, that I thought about ringing the church in Hinckley just before their service began to send my good wishes.  The number of the church wasn’t on my mobile but I thought that I knew it – so I rang.  I ended up by talking to another friend from the church who has a very similar number – the same digits in a different order.  I hope she appreciated the call on that Sunday morning.

The next short stop was at Widemouth Bay.  There were lots of surfers in the water here and also people sunbathing.  From past experience, I took extra care not to get sand in the cogs, so it wasn’t long before I moved on again towards Bude.  The tourist information bureau in Bude was open so I popped in to find out if there was a supermarket close at hand and whether it had a café or restaurant.  It did and it was on the road to Stratton which was the direction I was going.  Before I left the centre of the town I topped up from the local hole in the wall as I was beginning to run a bit short of cash.

It was just after 11.30 and in three hours I had travelled the grand distance of 15 miles.  I reckoned that there was about another 25 miles to Great Torrington.  Safeway didn’t start serving their Sunday lunch until 12 so firstly I did the shopping for tea.  The special offer of the day was a two course lunch for £4.50 together with a cup of tea or coffee.  This was too good to resist so the plate was piled high with Roast Beef, Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes, roast potatoes, peas, carrots and broccoli and also on the tray was the lemon meringue pie for afters and the pot of tea.  I wondered if the afternoon ride would be even slower than the morning’s!

The CTC directions around Stratton were a little confusing.  There were no signposts for Hersham, which I had to aim for, and the only people I could see to ask didn’t know either – and they looked as though they lived there!  Fortunately my choice of road turned out to be the right one and eventually I found myself crossing a river into the county of Devon – I think it must have been the River Tamar.  This eventually led me onto the main A388 which would take me to Stibbs cross.  If two cars had overtaken me in the last hour I was probably exaggerating.

It was on this main road that I caught up with another end to ender - the first I had seen on the journey after 2½ days.  His name was Noel Maloney, aged 74 from Dublin .  He had had a triple heart by-pass about 10 years ago and was aiming to cycle about 30 miles a day.  Consequently he would not be finishing until the end of May or even beginning of June.  I cycled with him for a few miles.  He was booking his accommodation ahead more than I was doing – in fact as yet I didn’t have a room for the night although there was a CTC recommended place in Torrington that I was going to ring.  It was Sunday and there shouldn’t be any problem finding accommodation unlike the previous night where I had booked in advance worried that more people would be away for the weekend.

As we approached Stibbs Cross the main road became narrower and it was therefore safer to cycle in line.  I said that I would ride ahead to the village and make a phone call to book my accommodation.  He soon caught me up and assisted in reading the telephone number off the bit of paper I had extracted from the saddlebag.  Without my glasses on I was unsure even of my own writing.  What a pair we made!  I mentioned to him that the CTC directions had not always been very clear and he showed me the compass he had in his top pocket and the map he was carrying – not a very detailed one.  The directions at this point say turn right off the main A388 onto the B3227.  In actual practice the A388 turns left at this point and the main road becomes the B3227 and carries straight on.  There is another road to the right which goes to Black Torrington.  I mentioned this to Noel but he probably didn’t have his hearing aid switched on or his short term memory had gone.  I started to make the call on the mobile.  Noel said he would carry on.  Then I noticed out of the corner of my eye that he had turned right – his compass obviously hadn’t been used.  I finished the call having successfully booked my accommodation, packed my mobile away, and then started to follow Noel’s route.  If the road had been uphill or even flat, I soon would have caught up with him.  As soon as I rounded the corner I found that there was a very long downhill stretch and Noel was a speck in the distance.  I gave chase.  In the chase I forgot that the dog dazer, which I bought just before leaving, was only clipped on to my belt.  Unfortunately this became unhooked and dropped to the ground fortunately hitting my foot on the way down, which broke its fall before it hit the tarmac.  I stopped to recover the dazer and carried on with the chase.  I caught him up after over a mile and pointed out what had happened.  He decided to go back up the hill to Stibbs Cross – I decided to do a loop using the lanes hoping to avoid the hill.  We parted.

Eventually I got back onto the original route which would take me into Great Torrington and came across the Tarka Trail.  This is an old railway track which runs from Barnstable through Bideford to Gt. Torrington and on to Petrokstow.  It was converted into a cycle track many years ago and Christine and I have cycled on it before.  I stopped where it crossed the main road and had a short break for refreshment.  And then down the road comes Noel – only a few minutes behind me.  By this time I had decided to use the trail, Noel decided to stick to the main road so we parted again.  I couldn’t have been on the trail for more than 10 years.  In that time it had changed in that there were now wooden sculptures of people occupying the benches along the route.  I couldn’t resist the urge and eventually sat down on one of the benches alongside a young lady.  I put my arm round her – she didn’t complain – she remained passive.

And then I continued on to Torrington where I soon found the B&B and was able to put my feet up in the garden on a sun lounger.  It was 5 pm but it was still too hot to sit for long.  I need lots of energy for tomorrow as it is the big climb over Exmoor .  Today’s ride was quite strenuous with all the hills of the morning – perhaps it won’t be any worse.

The mileage for today was 41.5 at an average of 7.7 mph.  This brings the total mileage up to 143.8

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