Diary - Day 34

A nice short day today, relatively, and most of the next day off so we were not in the greatest of hurries to get going. Added to that it was scorching in the morning and this was so confusing it took some time to adapt. Dorset and south Devon can often look like this:


Due to the absurd number of contours in this part of the world and the lack of other options we spent the entire morning on main roads, taking the A35 and then the slightly less mental A3052. It was warm and the views were good, but there was plenty of climbing to do and a lot of concentrating as cars belted past every few seconds. I have no idea why people do the entire length of the country on main roads, I can only assume retardation is to blame. We had a great time on minor roads leading all over the place, most of which we could spend taking up as much space as we wanted, but on main roads there is no such luxury. Each to their own and all that, but it is clear to me that I am right and other people are spectacularly wrong!

We negotiated Exeter, or the edge of it, and took the A379 down the coast until Dawlish and then took to the hills in the vague direction of Kingsteignton. Our target was Red Rock Brewery situated on a farm somewhere in this general area. It took a little while but we located it and sat outside drinking the beers that had been kindly left for us:


Due to the fact it was Saturday afternoon and some people have better things to do than wait around for us we never got to meet ........ of Red Rock. He left the bottles for us as he had said he would and we drunk to his health, and possibly the detriment of our own, in his absence. There will be another chance to see Red Rock I am sure, it's a part of the country well worth a visit.

This is the best photo of Sam peeing that I was able to take (and there were plenty of opportunities!):



Just look at that sunshine! Amazing stuff, we had barely seen that since the Peak district but for about a day and a half in the north of Scotland.

To round off the day we rolled into the campsite on the river Teign and met a few interesting characters. As we wheeled our bikes through the site someone in a static abode asked us if we had been in the Tour de France, or some such jocular nonsense. We explained the trip to him and before we knew it we had been invited to the birthday party of some fella called Harry who we had never met until that moment. This is the view from our tent:


So an hour later after showering and changing we were back to Harry's caravan being fussed over by a bunch of very nice people, mostly with 40 years headstart on us, and eating and drinking copious amounts of their snacks and booze. We spent a few hours talking, mostly listening really, to another bloke who lived on the site as well. He was a boxing trainer and certainly had a fair bit of passion for the sport. That was an interesting episode and it was fascinating to listen to a 56 year old man who still tried his utmost to keep up with his much more youthful charges, to the extent of not drinking at all! Dedication that is, 'and I don't have it' I thought as I tucked into another 12 mini sausages and can of beer. A little before midnight we bumped into a young Welsh couple who had also been press-ganged into eating snacks and drinking cans of beer. After a chat with them we were kicked out, nicely, and headed back to the tent knowing it was a good thing we had little to do tomorrow...............

Day 34 review

Mileage - about 55
Weather - 9/10 - the best day since Durness
Pints drunk - possibly the most yet. Good day :)