Day 3: Tavistock to Watchet (87.23 miles)

We bid farewell to Acorn Cottage early, knowing we have a longer day ahead of us again. We drop down into Tavistock, and pick up the road into Dartmoor. Dartmoor was an area I’d particularly wanted to include in our ride, and it doesn’t disappoint. It’s a hard cycle ride to cross it, as we climb country lanes out of Tavistock, and then take on hill after hill as the sun ambles ever higher into the sky. But the moor seems beautifully isolated, with the odd sheep meandering its way across the road, and I enjoy the climbs, and the eventual view when we crest the final hill and stop for a rest, elated with the sense of achievement.

After we’ve dropped down from Dartmoor, we push on to Crediton to stop for lunch, which, while it’s an easier ride, nevertheless can’t come soon enough. The look of rage in Al’s eyes when I speculate we have five miles to go, when he’s convinced it’s three, is terrifying, and I realise I’m not the only one in need of a break… It turns out to be about four miles to Credition, and we stop for an ample lunch of sandwiches and coke in a café, and speculation with the locals about the number of fire engines flying down the High Street.

Leaving these matters of import to greater minds than ours, we leave Crediton on the road to Tiverton, and after the left hand turn onto this road, are faced by a hill straight away. I’ve quickly come to realise that my legs don’t like stopping too long, and I usually find things hard going first thing in the day and after lunch. This is the first time in the ride that my legs really start to feel the bite. We’ve now cycled over 150 miles, and I feel like I’m doing this climb on empty. Thankfully we’re soon over the back of the hill, and I start to feel better, but we’re only just over half way, and this is starting to really feel difficult.

Once we’ve reached Tiverton, the route becomes slightly easier, and for the next twenty miles we keep up a reasonable pace as we follow the River Exe through the Exe Valley, with the trees that line the road providing some welcome shade. I find it hard to relax though, as I know from the map that the Brendon Hills lie between us and our destination for the night, and that they don’t look like a kindly range. My eyes are continually drawn to the right, where the hills loom over us, hoping the route will take us through the foothills, rather than over the back of the hills.

Finally we reach Bampton, and I know that we have about fifteen miles to go. One of the judgements Al and I have realised on this ride is that there are delicate judgements to be made about each other’s psychological state. Whereas I really dislike cycling on the busier A roads, with less training and carrying a rucksack, Al has been finding the days harder, and particularly the climbing. I decide now is the time to break the news of impending hilliness to him, so I stop to prepare myself for the climbing, sorting out my food and ensuring I’m comfortable on the bike, and tell Al that I think the last section is going to be hard. He takes it better than I thought he might…

We nearly miss the sign for our turn, as someone had taken the sign away from the direction we’re approaching, and when we look to the milepost, someone has rubbed out the second digit for the distance to Watchet, so all we know is that the first figure is a ‘1’. We joke that it’s probably ‘19’. A mile later it becomes clear it was. For the second day I’ve misjudged the distance, and rather than just over seventy miles, we’ll have done nearer ninety.

The journey through the Brendon Hills is hard, with the climbs both numerous, and a mixture of the long, and the short and sharp, including a couple of 14%s, but when we eventually reach the other side, we see the descent to the coast:


That night we sit outside the Star Inn in Watchet, tired, but drinking a pint of Barn Owl, and waiting for our fish to be cooked, looking towards the harbour. There are worse things to do in life. It’s the sort of evening that lifts the spirits after what, in retrospect for me, was physically the hardest day of the ride.

We’ve done 205.68 miles.