Sunday September 14th - mini moos

The campsite was just off the A30 and we live just off the A30. What better way to spend a Sunday than on a nice straight road home with no navigational worries and the sweet breeze from a speeding car whooshing past your elbow every couple of seconds... well, it made sense in dgym's head anyway. I managed to talk him out of taking the main road all the way home and we just did a section of it, but that was bad enough, roads like that are no fun and my legs weren't at all happy with me by the time we got onto the little roads again. The way back was quite hard work, we seemed to end up choosing the hilly route nearly all the way back - the hills weren't quite enough to be marked with arrows on our map, and we ended up wishing for a nice OS contour map!

It was just before Lillington that we found what must be the teensiest tiniest little cows in the world. We weren't sure they were real at first, as we didn't know you could get cows that little but then they started munching on grass and scampering around. It's a shame we didn't have room in our panniers to take them home with us!

It's nice cycling home, you can cycle for much longer and relax as you don't have to worry about where you're going to stay, unless you accidentally dropped your keys down a drain or something. Dgym beat me home as he was less knackered than me. It was quite weird coming back into the house after a week under canvas, but good to be home!


So...

We had originally intended to spend two weeks cycling all the way to Cornwall and back, maybe, well, we'd see how far we got. It turns out that didn't work so well for us in terms of motivation. Without a fixed destination to aim for, and having to make it back as well, with miles and miles of monster Sidmouth-like hills everywhere we turned and the scenery, while pleasant, not stunning enough to justify the level of hillage, we kind of ground to a halt at Ladram bay and headed back home after that.

With still a week to spare before I was due to set off to France, and a couple of leaflets I had picked up at the campsite, we formed a new plan, which I am ashamed to say involved un-hippily driving back down to the South Devon region to spend a few days visiting various animal attractions in the area:

1. The Donkey Sanctuary - donkeys are lovely and it was nice to see so many of them. Free to get in and has a little maze and some nice walks.

2. Prickly Ball Hedgehog Hospital - probably the coolest of all the places we visited, as they have "Meet a hedgehog" sessions where you are formally introduced to a couple of their hedgehogs, the story of each hedgehog is told as it's shown around the room and you get to stroke it, which isn't as painful as you'd think.

3. Crealy Adventure Park - has a cool farm with lots of bunnies, chipmunks, happy little sleepy piglets and a huge goat who wants to be your best mate. There's also a death slide, which dgym went down (after much perching on the edge and working up the nerve to jump off) and I politely declined, a couple of long but incredibly slow slides, and a rather unexciting rollercoaster, in which they make you go round twice in the hope that maybe you'll be more terrified the second time. Quite frankly, after the insane white-knuckle experience of being driven along precarious mountain passes by a Portuguese driver who could barely see over the steering wheel and didn't seem entirely convinced of which side of the road you drive on there, most rollercoasters pale in comparison these days...

4. Otter Sanctuary & Butterfly Farm - go and get your glasses / camera lens steamed up in the butterfly house and meet some cool butterflies and hummingbirds, or go outside and see the otters being fed.

All this took a couple of days, during which we also made it to Exeter to catch up with Paul & Helen, have some dinner and see their lovely new house, it was good to see them again. We then we headed home with still a few days left for me to get ready for France.

Full photo set for Devon trip

Saturday September 13th - we slacked off

The screaming seagulls woke me up in time for sunrise on Thursday morning and I had a bit of a wander down to the beautiful sandstone cliffs on the campsite's private beach.

We were quite tired and the site was well equipped and not too expensive so we decided to stay on a bit and give ourselves a chance to actually be on holiday. Ice creams were eaten, beaches were walked upon and legs were allowed to recover a little. We had a pleasant stay at Ladram Bay, despite being kept awake on the second night by a couple having a screaming unintelligible row in which the bloke kept threatening to leave, stomped off but never lived up to his promise and came back for another round when he realised he couldn't really get very far on foot.

We left early-ish (9am) on Saturday morning, Dgym being up at an unusually early hour, rolled down the hill and followed the river Otter as far as Ottery St. Mary. The valley was lovely and gently rolling, lots of pleasant ups and downs, and the sun wasn't too fierce.

Ottery St. Mary was pleasant, although not the most beautiful of towns. We parked up by the bakery and friendly locals stopped to enquire about our travels. One little old lady asked whether we'd been to Wales. We haven't (well, not properly anyway). She advised us to go, as it was lovely. "The people are very friendly there. Just like me!". She walked off. Later, as I was squatted by the roadside rummaging through my bar bag, she passed by once more and patted me on the head, wishing us good bye.

We spent quite a while in Ottery, munching on baked goods and plotting our route into, and out of, the Blackdown hills to avoid as many arrowed roads as possible. The arrows really do mean business in Devon.

We couldn't avoid all the big hills. There was another 20% coming out of Ottery which was tough, but didn't feel as bad as the Sidmouth one. I managed it without getting off and pushing, but we still had to stop a lot.

We stopped at a campsite just off the A30 near Chard, which was quite expensive at £11/night but had the loveliest ground I've ever pitched a tent onto, lovely soft springy grass.

Wednesday September 12th - big hills

There were no toilets on the campsite so first thing on Wednesday, dgym went into town to use the public toilets, leaving me to cook breakfast and start packing up, whilst fending off a dozen hungry inquisitive chickens. I don't think he was too impressed upon his return to find one bird perched on the seat of his trike, and to learn that another had found its way into the tent while my back was turned (He didn't seem at all consoled that I had skilfully managed to extract the chicken from the tent, which is considerably harder than getting it in there in the first place)

The big climb of the day was coming out of Southleigh, or so we thought. We stopped a short way up the hill to eat some lunch, as we'd taken our time in leaving and had both got hungry again. We fuelled ourselves for the climb ahead with bread, cheese and olives. The hill was tough, we had to stop to recover ever few metres, but at least it was a nice quiet shady road.

At the top, we passed Blackbury Castle. We're rather fond of castles, both intact and ruined but this one was a bit mislabelled on the map - on the site it was marked a little more accurately as Blackbury Camp, an Iron-age hill fort. No stones!

There was a long descent through Harcombe, unfortunately a little steep to go "Whee!" down properly. My fingers were aching from clinging to the brakes so tightly all the way down (but at least dgym wasn't frying eggs on his hub brakes as in Portugal).

We'd had a nice holiday in Sidmouth a few years ago so decided to head down there again. Unfortunately we arrived just too late for the tourist office and with not a camping ground in sight. I tried calling a few B&Bs but all were were full. Our legs were tired and we didn't really want to go any further, but it was getting a little late so we picked up some dinner items from Tesco, and headed west out of Sidmouth.

Cycling west out of Sidmouth is not for the faint of heart. The road was marked 20% as we came out of town, and lived up to its promise. I ended up getting off and pushing, which is really not much easier but at least gives the cycling muscles a better chance at recovery. Dgym had no such luxury so kept stopping every few metres to recover. It was a long hill, and probably would make quite a nice descent into the town - we looked behind us to some lovely views over the cliffs.

There was a similarly long descent to Otterton, and then another (slightly shorter) climb to Ladram Bay, home to Ladram Bay Holiday Park, our destination for the night.

Reception was closed so the owner of the site cafe told us to pitch up and sort it out tomorrow. We put the tent up and hurriedly cooked dinner, just in time for darkness.

Tuesday September 11th - herding chickens

On the second day I was up at 7:30 and there was no hope of seeing dgym for some time yet so I set about getting the stove set up for our porridge, and foraging for blackberries. Dgym emerged two hours later, still tired from his disturbed sleep.

Blackberries and porridge are a lovely combination, or so I thought, dgym decided he wasn't so keen on porridge after all so started considering alternative breakfast solutions.

Tuesday was not kind on the legs, and we only ended up riding 15 miles. The few miles to Whitchurch Canonicorum were OK but then were faced with our first arrowed climb (the designation on our map for steep gradients) followed by a similar descent to Wooton Fitzpaine, where we were delighted to find dozens of swallows waiting for us on the overhead phone lines. Having recently become rather fond of swallows after moving in next door to a nestful of them, we were quite pleased to see this.

A longer and more difficult climb stood between us and Monkton Wyld Cross. At the top we decided that since dgym was hungry and I was thirsty, we should head for Axminster. We hadn't seen much in the way of shops or pubs all morning so this seemed like a good idea.

We had fish and chips in Axminster and found a Tesco on the edge of town where we stocked up on water, snacky cakes and some bits for dinner.

We reached Colyton a little after three. We'd been planning to go a little further but we ran into another C&C site adjacent to a field of cows and free-range chickens, in which the chickens were able to walk under the electric fence and roam the campsite freely - it looked like a fun site so we stopped.

I took a wander around Colyton which turned out to be a lovely town with a beautiful church, old buildings and quiet narrow little streets.

The chickens were plump and tasty-looking, and very lucky that we already had our dinner planned. They seemed determined to get their pesky little beaks into our food, so dgym herded while I cooked.

Monday September 10th - a late start

The trip to Devon started out with Dgym wandering around looking for his thermal layers and refusing to leave without them (despite the fact that we were supposed to have left yesterday and he hadn't seen said thermals since skiing in April) and me getting very frustrated and desperate to get cycling. Not a great beginning.

It was mid-day before we were ready, solar panels fitted, panniers packed, bikes tuned up and ready to go. By this time, my breakfast porridge had worn off so we stopped a few miles down the road for a pub lunch.

Our ride started out nice and relatively flat, such is most of North Dorset. We opted for the smallest roads on the map - tiny, unclassified single track lanes. Our choice paid off well and we encountered very few cars on our journey. The roads were tiny and shady, perfect for warm September cycling.

The flats didn't last. South Dorset is beautiful but very hilly. The gradients started to get more "rolling" after Leigh, and by the time we reached Beaminster we were into proper hills.

A few miles before Beaminster, half way up a hill, we stopped to look at the map and realised we only had a few hours of daylight left in which to reach the coast, find a campsite, set up the tent and cook dinner - and we weren't doing that well. This was not made easier by the fact that there were no campsites marked on our map until we reached the coast. We pushed on, determined to set up camp and cook in the dark if we had to.

The next ten miles or so were continuous ups and downs. The ups were tough but the downs were wonderful. At one point I rounded a corner on a descent to find a vast landscape of beautiful green sunlit hills and valley laid out before me. I don't think dgym got that as he couldn't see over the hedge.

The last few miles, after Stoke Abbot, were a welcome respite, nice gentle terrain and descents, just what we needed as my legs seemed to have mostly given up.

We happened upon a Camping and Caravanning Club campsite a few miles before we hit the coast, not marked on the map, a £6/night tap-in-a-field affair, just what we wanted. We were the only campers there.

For dinner we cooked up rice with dried mushrooms, lentils, leftover tinned tomatoes from home with peas, ham and vegetable stock. For a first camping meal it was very nice but a meal for two hungry cyclists barely fits in a Trangia 27 pan! We ended up with just about enough time to set up, eat and wash up before dark.

We started to go to sleep as soon as the light had gone but were both disturbed throughout the night by a pair of owls holding an argument just outside our tent, and a bunch of noisy dogs over the road.

Cerne Abbas

It's been a while, but we've been busy with all kinds of non-cycling activities, most of which involved searching for somewhere nice to live, and then moving there. After several months living in the flat beneath a herd of tone deaf karaoke-loving elephants, we finally found it. For all our travels, we've ended up in England - Dorset to be precise.

It's a lovely house, a quiet semi-detached farm cottage with lovely views over the surrounding farmland. It backs onto wheat fields and is frequently visited by pheasants, hares and all kinds of birds. There's a pair of swallows nesting in the neighbour's eaves who seem to be constantly flying back and forth and are rather lovely. We're only renting but are clinging to the hope that through a combination of hard work, luck and/or economics, one day we might be able to afford to buy a house this nice.

The past few months have been shamefully uneventful on the cycling front, mostly due to our living in a busy area of Guildford, where the roads really aren't much fun for cycling so, aside from the occasional trip to the shops our poor bikes haven't seen much action. We've been trying to set that right since we moved, but the weather's been so miserable that it's only in the past week that we've really felt like getting the wheels out.


Cerne Abbas

Cerne Abbas looked like a good target for our first trip out. It's about 10-12 miles away, features a giant naked man on a hillside and looked like a pleasant enough place.

Our first attempt at this ride didn't quite work out. For us, going on a bike ride of more than a couple of miles requires various pieces of equipment - tools, repair kits, rain coats... and still being in a bit of a post-moving mess, we didn't know where any of it was. It took a couple of hours to find everything, after which we decided we only had time for a shorter ride. We made it as far as Glanvilles Wootton (a bit less than half way there) and turned round.

Dgym was away on Wednesday but it was still too nice a day to not take the bike out. I managed to get away nice and quickly this time and headed south through the villages of Stourton Caundle and Bishops Caundle towards Cerne Abbas. The roads up until Middlemarsh were really quiet, I only encountered a few cars in 6-7 miles, and there weren't any major hills.

From Middlemarsh there are two roads running down past Cerne Abbas towards Dorchester - the A352 and what looked like a quiet road running parallel to it. Unfortunately the quiet road is also rather busy (by Dorset standards anyway) and also involves quite a long ascent up onto the ridge overlooking Cerne Abbas and other surrounding villages. I don't mind climbing long hills, and I don't mind a bit of traffic but it's not so much fun huffing and puffing away when there are cars and lorries thundering past, or queueing up behind me and getting impatient and/or laughing at my feeble efforts. The view from the top was rather pleasant though.

The traffic mostly disappeared after the turn-off into Cerne Abbas and there was a lovely long descent down to the village.

Despite being home to a fairly famous tourist attraction, Cerne Abbas seemed like a quiet and pleasant little village, and has more to see than just the Giant. The 13th century church and surrounding area are worth a look - the adjacent street has some lovely old Tudor houses and you can visit what remains of the old abbey.

I headed out of town to check out the Giant, following signs to the lookout point and picnic area. I found the picnic area, from which the Giant was visible. He was more faint than I'd imagined, perhaps it was just the viewing angle and he looks more distinct from the air, but I didn't see him at first.

From the picnic area there was a footpath called "Giant Walk" so I decided to get a little closer, locked up the bike and started to follow the signs, up steeply ascending footpaths and steps, most of which were covered in slimy chalky mud. Unfortunately this turned out to be a little futile as you can't see the Giant at all from the Giant Walk - it takes you along the bottom of the Giant's field, which is fenced off due to erosion, and the angle of the hillside means you can't see anything. Never mind... I headed back down, got on the bike and went a bit further up the road to the lookout point on the A352, from which the view of the Giant is much better - although I suppose the best view would be from a helicopter.

I took the same route back - the road up from Cerne Abbas was a long and fairly hard climb but at least there was very little traffic, and the busy top road was an excellent descent which was over before I knew it.

It's great to be back on the bikes. Hopefully we'll go on more day trips and some longer ones when time, funds and weather permit.

Cerne Abbas photoset on Flickr

Update 17/07/07: Homer certainly wasn't there last week when I visited. Looks like I really missed out...