Diary - Day 3

No camping this night, we were heading back to Sam's house and the warmth and dryness of actual beds. This meant for Sam that he would not have to panic about being inadvertently touched by another man during the night, something that brings him out in a cold sweat and makes him shout 'gay'. It also meant he wouldn't need to drool on his sleeping bag, a problem that would have knock-on effects later on. One of the interesting things about this trip was counting the number of things that were inevitable on this bike ride that Sam had difficulties with - dirt, shit, germs, public toilets, foreign people, northern people, all other people, any form of touching, other peoples feet, scratching his equipment, the cold, steep hills, straight roads, not knowing exactly how far we had to go, etc,.

We woke at about 7am and before we had made it outside the tent we were being offered a cup of tea by the extraordinarily keen campsite manager. The depressing sight of fog and dampness was slightly allayed by the mug of tea placed in our hands by, if my research is correct, Mr Lawrence Palmer. What it was that we had done to deserve the water-based punishment of the Lord I don't know and it seems that mr Palmer was blissfully unaware of it as well, dolling out mugs of tea early in the morning as if we were good and wholesome people who had done nothing to upset any aqua-wielding deities.

I began to wonder later on how this Karma thing worked, it certainly seemed that we had done plenty to upset the Karmic balance, but the trouble with it is that it's all too vague. How can you keep the balance of the universe if you don't know what it is that you have done wrong in the first place? It appeared that we were being punished for something, but I didn't have my book of 'Karma and You: How to interpret the bad shit that is happening' so I found it hard to see how I could right my wrongs. I wondered if it was a simple case of anything mildly enjoyable being essentially wrong, bad, and punishable, but then that is basically Christianity and I assumed the Karmicans, Karmics, Karmicararians, Karmis or whatever they are almost certainly not called had probably put more thought into things.



Philosophically meandering my way out of Cornwall it became apparent that Devon was a much brighter and less damp county altogether. We were on the verge of getting excited but for the fact that the wind had turned around from the convenient south-westerly to a much less convenient northerly, the effects of which were not too devastating quite yet but were yet another kick in the arse from above. Just as on entering Cornwall the weather changed dramatically on leaving it, this time from damp and foggy to bizarrely clear and sunny. North winds aside this was what we expected during June and we headed on into sunburn and sweatiness for the rest of the day.

The first half of the day we made decent progress, mostly through A-roads before joining the B3277 before Great Torrington and following that towards South Molton, the view from which looks a bit like this.............


Progress slowed a little as we headed onto Exmoor and over some pretty steep climbs to Exford. From there it was due south towards Porlock via the toll road that runs alongside Porlock hill, which is a lot of fun. Popped into see Sam's dad before moving on to Minehead and finishing the days the cycling. I think Sam was glad to be back home, the day before had knocked it out of him and there had been some steep climbs today which found him dropping a long way behind.

We had fish and chips for tea which is not a great nutritional decision but was a simple option. Sam was asleep by 10pm and I was spared his snoring for one night at least. Even better he fell asleep before he had drunk his beer so I had two. Simple pleasures.

Day 3 review

mileage = 85
breweries visited = 0
national parks = 1
beers consumed = 2

• Golden Seahawk (x2) - Cotleigh