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Day 4 Monday 26th April 2004
Great
Torrington
to Crowcombe Youth Hostel
My
quest for a postcard last night failed – probably because it was Sunday and
that sort of shop had closed for the day. All
I could find was the ‘open all hours’ corner stores and postcards were not
on their shelves. I thought I would
try again this morning to find something to fit the bill for yesterdays ride.
After a beautifully cooked breakfast I set off at 8.30.
I still couldn’t find a shop in Great Torrington that would sell me a
postcard – apparently my best bet didn’t open until
9am. So I decided to carry on and buy
something later.
I
asked for directions to make sure I left on the right road from Torrington
and consequently had to walk the wrong way down a one way street to get back to
the road I wanted. At the end of the
road a man stopped me and asked if I was cycling to John o’ Groats.
“Yes” I replied – and he wished me well for the journey.
After
two or three steep hills I came to the village
of Atherington
which had a small shop cum Post Office. The
notice on the door said “closed all day Monday”.
I was still having no joy on the postcard front.
I then cycled on towards Umberleigh, but somehow managed to miss the lane
down into the village. The road
signposted takes you to the north of the village in an attempt to keep the
traffic away from the centre. Consequently
the CTC directions no longer made sense and I ended up by asking the local
village lady postie for directions. I
had to go south for ½ mile into the village before carrying on with my
generally easterly route. She added
“You’ve got some bloody heavy climbs ahead of you”.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have packed so much gear in my panniers!
At
Umberleigh I turned left and crossed the River Taw – quite a wide river at
this point – and carried on towards
South Molton. It was 10.30 when I got there and
I had completed 15 miles – far better progress than I had made yesterday
morning. The local information shop
had postcards and fortunately they had one of the Tarka Trail – which sufficed
for yesterday – and one of Exmoor which would do for today.
I asked if there was a good tea shop close by and was directed to the
Corn Dolly just down the road. A pot
of tea was £1.20 and the cake looked pretty good so I succumbed to a piece of
Bakewell tart for £2.00. The tea
was the proper stuff – you know – tea leaves floating around in the pot and
so a tea strainer was provided. I
managed four cups and if I had tried I could probably have found a fifth.
Not bad value.
The
long climb over Exmoor
now began. Not too steep at first
as I made my way to
North Molton, but then I had to take to shank’s pony for the next stage.
It was getting very hot again. So
hot in fact that I crossed the road so that I could walk near the hedge on the
right hand side which afforded some shade. For
once I was thankful for high hedges.
At
some point I left
Devon
and crossed into Somerset. There was no county boundary sign
to mark the event. They only seem to
erect these county signs on the more major of roads.
At last I seemed to reach the top and was able to progress more rapidly
across the moors. This was much
better and would have been perfect if the heat hadn’t caused a plague of small
insects to be travelling in the opposite direction as me! My clothes and body
were covered in the things. Fortunately
as I descended down into the village
of Withypool
the number of insects decreased and I decided to look for somewhere for lunch
– the 25 mile mark had been passed. The
café in the village was advertising Venison Cornish Pasties – that sounded
good – the pastie was eaten with more cups of tea.
It was rather a large pastie so in the end I decided to keep half of it
for tea at the Youth Hostel. This
was another self catering hostel and I needed to think a little more carefully
about what I was going to buy en route for evening meal and breakfast.
I tried the post office cum shop across the road from the café but the
choice was not great so I carried on up the road to Winsford.
Winsford
did actually have a ford. I didn’t
have to cross it on the bike as there was a raised path along the side – it
was a good job because the ford was several inches deep.
My CTC directions at this point appeared to have a paragraph or more
missing. I followed the road which
was signed Minehead and Dulverton as suggested.
If you look on the map, one is to the north of Winsford, the other to the
south so how come they are in the same direction!
I guess that they want traffic to use the more major of the lanes which
lead out of Winsford until the main road is reached, where you then turn north
or south as appropriate. The next
place the CTC directions mentioned was Elworthy which is 9 miles to the east and
there was a maze of roads in between and no obvious straight way through.
I had marked a suggested route on the map before leaving, but
unfortunately missed the turning somewhere.
I ended up by having to make a long steep climb up towards the Brendon
Hills
from the
village
of
Exton. The
Brendon
Hills
are pretty high so it would have been unlikely that I could have avoided this
climb by taking another route. Once
at the top however the ride is fairly flat along the top of the hills until you
come down into the
village
of
Elworthy.
It
was not far to go now to reach Crowcombe Heathfield Youth Hostel and I arrived
abut 20 minutes before opening time at 5. 
The
hostel was a very large house in lovely grounds with rhododendrons just coming
into bloom. Also waiting was an
American lady (30’s?) who was over for 2 months and was walking in the Exmoor
area before moving on elsewhere. Comparing
weights of luggage she said she was carrying 40lbs in her rucksack – I have
only 25lbs plus the bike. We signed
in just after 5 but somehow she had been given duff information – she was
expecting a meal to be provided and she hadn’t much food.
Come to think of it I didn’t have much either.
The warden said that there was a shop in the village about 1½ miles away
which closed at 5.30. He would give
her a lift down and there was a pub where she could possibly eat.
She would have to walk back. 1½
miles – 7 minutes by bike, it was then 5.15
– time enough for me to cycle there myself and buy something for the
evening and for breakfast. I don’t
know how he measured the distance – it was 2½ miles and I arrived puffing
just as the shop was about to close. The
American lady was just leaving the shop laden with purchases for her two night
stay. I made my purchases including
a pack of 12 weetabix and some milk together with buns and yoghurt.
How many of the weetabix can I eat in the morning so that I don’t use
up unnecessary space in the saddle bag? At
least they don’t weigh a lot! On
leaving the shop, I bumped into the lady again who wasn’t having much success
in rousing anyone at the pub – it didn’t look as though they would be
serving meals tonight. She
said “Oh I forgot to get some eggs from the farm next to the shop.
Can you take my shopping back to the hostel on the bike?” “Ok – if
you trust me not to eat it!” Fortunately
for her I had emptied my panniers before leaving for the shop and had plenty of
spare capacity, so slowly back to the hostel I trundle.
I had completed 5 extra miles on top of the hilly 50 that I have already
done today. I’ll sleep well
tonight!
Today’s
mileage was 55.6 at an average of 8.1 mph. This
brings the total mileage up to 199.4
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At
Umberleigh I turned left and crossed the River Taw – quite a wide river at
this point – and carried on towards 
Winsford
did actually have a ford. I didn’t
have to cross it on the bike as there was a raised path along the side – it
was a good job because the ford was several inches deep.
My CTC directions at this point appeared to have a paragraph or more
missing. I followed the road which
was signed Minehead and Dulverton as suggested.
If you look on the map, one is to the north of Winsford, the other to the
south so how come they are in the same direction!
I guess that they want traffic to use the more major of the lanes which
lead out of Winsford until the main road is reached, where you then turn north
or south as appropriate. The next
place the CTC directions mentioned was Elworthy which is 9 miles to the east and
there was a maze of roads in between and no obvious straight way through.
I had marked a suggested route on the map before leaving, but
unfortunately missed the turning somewhere.
I ended up by having to make a long steep climb up towards the 
The
hostel was a very large house in lovely grounds with rhododendrons just coming
into bloom. Also waiting was an
American lady (30’s?) who was over for 2 months and was walking in the Exmoor
area before moving on elsewhere. Comparing
weights of luggage she said she was carrying 40lbs in her rucksack – I have
only 25lbs plus the bike. We signed
in just after 5 but somehow she had been given duff information – she was
expecting a meal to be provided and she hadn’t much food.
Come to think of it I didn’t have much either.
The warden said that there was a shop in the village about 1½ miles away
which closed at 5.30. He would give
her a lift down and there was a pub where she could possibly eat.
She would have to walk back. 1½
miles – 7 minutes by bike, it was then 5.15
– time enough for me to cycle there myself and buy something for the
evening and for breakfast. I don’t
know how he measured the distance – it was 2½ miles and I arrived puffing
just as the shop was about to close. The
American lady was just leaving the shop laden with purchases for her two night
stay. I made my purchases including
a pack of 12 weetabix and some milk together with buns and yoghurt.
How many of the weetabix can I eat in the morning so that I don’t use
up unnecessary space in the saddle bag? At
least they don’t weigh a lot! On
leaving the shop, I bumped into the lady again who wasn’t having much success
in rousing anyone at the pub – it didn’t look as though they would be
serving meals tonight. She
said “Oh I forgot to get some eggs from the farm next to the shop.
Can you take my shopping back to the hostel on the bike?” “Ok – if
you trust me not to eat it!” Fortunately
for her I had emptied my panniers before leaving for the shop and had plenty of
spare capacity, so slowly back to the hostel I trundle.
I had completed 5 extra miles on top of the hilly 50 that I have already
done today. I’ll sleep well
tonight!