In what seems like ages ago, we’ve left The Cottage and have been travelling south. The journey has been a very social one, via meet up with Beth around Gloucester and a night near Taunton with Neil and Mary. This morning we arrived at Ilfracombe on Devon’s north coast.

An enormous statue of ‘Verity’ (by Damien Hirst), marked the start of next adventure – and north to south coast crossing of Devon and Dartmoor on bikes. A countywide ‘coast to coast’.

The weather was a little damper than anticipated as we prepared to peddle, but it was significantly better than the heavy rain we’d experienced during the drive from Taunton and the winds were very light.

The first 200m or so were nice and flat, but we were soon heading uphill through the seaside town to get up above and away from the coast. Steep, but short lived, it certainly made for a tough start. Soon enough we’d joined the old railway which led out of town. A combination of back roads and cycle ways took us towards Braunton. The fields were saturated and each gateway brought more mud onto the roads as tractors moved between them. Even with mudguards, there was a lot of spray from the road.

Having got peddling just before 11am, we were well in need of some sustenance by the time we reached Braunton. Happily, we stumbled upon a nice cafe who provided egg butties and big mugs of tea and coffee, which were consumed in the warmth from comfy sofa.

We could have spent the remainder of the afternoon in the ‘Wild Thyme’ cafe, but needed to press on. Thankfully, the main hills of the day had been ascended, and we joined the much flatter ‘Tarka Trail’ that followed the estuary to Barnstaple.

A quick ride through town gave plenty more cafe options, but we decided to keep on rolling towards our target town of Bideford.

We found a good bench along the way that over looked the water, so stopped for the remainder of the days flask and snacks, before a last ‘sting in the tail’ of finding that our bed for the night was at the top of the hill above the town. We had planned on strolling into town to find a restaurant for dining in, but were suddenly overcome with fatigue and instead decided to cook at the place we’d rented. There is a tiny kitchenette in the room, but enough to rustle up some quick and easy grub after a short walk down to the river and town for supplies. It sure gets dark early now. 6pm felt like 9:30!

Total Ride: 46km

Total height climbed: 381m