Day: August 10, 2015

Cycle Tour of Devon – Day 3 – Okehampton to Plymouth

Slept okish – but was woken by the torrential rain – nice.

Morning had broken, and our hearts when we saw the stupid, stupid weather. It was wet. And windy. And we had to have a little chef.

After a latish breakfast we set off in the rain on the final leg. This one was only a small jaunt around Dartmoor to Plymouth.

We got wet at the beginning, and in the middle, but not at the end. The ride from Okehampton is a good one, “mostly” downhill, with some hard climbs, but in general you are on tracks and it is pretty flat. Obviously by this time, every little climb is more tiring than you would expect, and if it hadn’t been for the rain, it would have been almost pleasurable.

We didn’t stop for lunch today, as we expected to get to Plymouth for lunch time, and we almost had a sit down for a coffee, but the serving wench was most put out that we were wet, so we ate in the street. At one point it said “13.5 miles to Plymouth”, 5 miles later we say a sign saying 13 miles to Plymouth, but at that point it was nearly downhill all the way. We crossed some amazing bridges, and went through some really eerie tunnels, with mist and darkness that even Marrsys super bright lights couldn’t penetrate.

I was loving today, the sun came out, and the last 13 miles were a joy mostly great road, and you could really get a spin up – I even overtook navman at one point – much to his disgust.

We got into Plymouth and had one last surprising hill to crawl up, and then it was down the harbor for a beer, and to let Brend change in the darkest toilet – in the world…

Sian came to pick me up for our trip to Dartmouth, and the guys were off to get trains home. We had cycled around 170 miles and gone up 11,000 ft or so, half of Everest or three Snowdons, some of the scenery was epic, some of the hills steep, and some of the weather wet – we had pints and pies and good times…

Big thanks as always to the team – hopefully we’ll get a few new stragglers next year

 

Day 3 – Strava track is here

 

Dartmouth

So cycle tour complete we headed on down to (or maybe across to) Dartmouth for the night. Luckily the weather had broke, and the old current bun was shining. As I was wet and cycled out, Sian drove, so I enjoyed the passenger experience, with a big pork pie and a drink.

Driving down here takes AGES.. We only wanted to go a few miles, but it took rather a long time, but eventually we got to Townstals Farmhouse in Dartmouth, which would be our home for the night. Pleasant people, decent room, unfortunately not a great shower, but once refreshed we took the long walk down to the harbor. It was steep. I had cycled up some steep bits, but I think this may have been even steeper – but downhill, fine for now, but not something to look forward to on the way home.

Had a quick mooch about the front, and bought a paper and was surprised to see very little in the way of outside seating. The harbor side is splendid, but it seems a missed opportunity to not have tables outside, anywhere… So we headed on for a beer in the Crown Hotel, which was quite nice, and had the obligatory drunks at the bar – we were told of one place with a beer garden, only for the drunk to remind the bar man that it had shut some time back – whether they meant last night at closing I will never know.

Went for a little more of a stroll and tried a place we were thinking of food in – the Dolphin, which was a little “unclean” but served decently proceed drinks and we found a table to read from. After a couple in there we headed to yet another “oldest pub in xxx” which was small, and busy, and the toilets were on the top of a narrow windy staircase – Sian had a Vodka that was filled with Barcardi and Kate had some grub. Before we knew it it was supper time, so luckily just across the road was an Indian, so we dined with slightly too wet curry, a very nice server and a very annoying lad who luckily left before our mains.

Long walk back up the hill and crashed out, tired…

Nice place to visit, but not a lot there, and no drinking int he sun…