MONDAY 28 JULY
93 MILES 2745 METRES ASCENT
A relatively short day, but tons and tons of climbing wee country lanes that just kept us on a rollercoaster ride that had me done in after 6 or 7 hours until rescued by lager shandies, crisps and Red Bull in a friendly pub. We had a steep 1000 feet pull up on to Exmoor National Park - 400 metres up yet full of lush gardens, hedges and cute villages, unlike Scotland at that height! It was sunny yet again, the hedgerows were amazing, towering over everything. Passed through Withypool and North Molton and we had a great wee cafe stop in South Molton. The day was just full of meandering country lanes, and it was a relief to my weary body, and now very sore achilles, that we descended quickly into Boscastle, the scene of devastating floods 4 years ago, home to a very nice youth hostel and a cracking pub full of local ales and cyders that we sampled.
FRANCIS'ACCOUNT=
What a hilly place Devon is!
We started the day with a large climb over Dunkery Hill, reaching a height of about 400 metres. The scenery was strange because we found ourselves cycling alongside tall, healthy hedges beside fields of lush grass at the sort of altitude at which, in Yorkshire or Scotland, there would be peat bog and curlews. From Exmoor, we got the most panoramic views of the trip, looking over Gloucestershire and over to South Wales. I also saw a tall plume of smoke which I assumed to be industrial in origin but which was actually the burning pier in Weston-Super-Mare.
The actual height climbed today - 2700 metres - was greater than for any other day of the trip, so far. The landscape is relentless. No sooner had we finished descending one steep, narrow lane, braking often because of the bends, than we had to drop through the gears to crawl up the next hill. John's gadgets, which gave us the figure for the height climbed, have told us that we have usually used an extra 2500 (kilo)calories each day, in excess of the usual 2000. Today, the figure was more than 3000. We have, of course done our best to make up for the extra output by eating accordingly.
Boscastle youth hostel is fantastic, sitting right next to the sea, at the bottom of the village. The hostel took the full force of the floods but is now very smart because it has just reopened after extensive repairs. The only problem, of course, is that the hostel is at sea-level and there will, therefore, be a climb at the start of the next day.
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