A teeny bit further....

Sunday 12th August

After a lovely dinner and a bit much wine at our neighbour's house last night, followed by a thunderstorm and a very restless night, we struggled to get up this morning and set off over an hour later than planned! It was drizzly and damp as we headed up Dunsford Hill and into Longdown. A very steep climb, more climbing and then a horribly steep descent which even with the drops proved a real challenge. I was so relieved to turn off into the Teign Valley, a much more manageable flat-ish section of road following the river. We had a quick drink stop and stretched our arms at Ashton and then carried on our way. My highlight of the day was seeing a group of cows standing in the middle of the river having a drink. Very cute - but on a main road so didn't stop and take pics. Here's a pic of The Old Toll House instead: Coaches & Horses 1/-, Horse & Carts 5d, Bullocks 2d, Pedestrians 1d. No mention of bicycles, so we figured we didn't have to pay and went merrily on our way before anyone could tell us any different!

The Old Toll House

We followed the Devon Delight route up to Gappah. The initial climb wasn't so bad as I thought, but I'd forgotten just how much climbing there was along the top and completely forgotten the long climb after the junction before turning off for Ashcombe, with a little bit more climbing for good measure! The descent into Ashcombe is very steep and I've never attempted to cycle it before. Armed with our drops, we gave it a jolly good go, but halfway down even Ant had given up. Our arms were very tired and we walked down into the village. A little disappointed not to cycle the whole way, but still much better than we've done before.

Ashcombe

From there, a relatively quick flat section to Dawlish, although we were stopped in our tracks by a very muddy section of road. I attempted to cycle through, but had to jump off after slipping, just managing to miss putting my foot in a huge muddy puddle! Grateful to get to Dawlish and the first toilet stop on our route, we stopped for lunch. We tried to find a quietish spot, which was tricky given that the fair was in town! I had to look away from a huge ride swinging people round in the air as it made me feel ill just looking at it!

From there we headed back to Countess Wear. Originally we'd planned to go out to Killerton for an afternoon coffee stop, but it was getting late and we didn't think we'd make it to Killerton before the tearoom closed. We were also both feeling shattered, so decided we needed a coffee stop sooner rather than later. We headed to Topsham via Old Rydon Lane and stopped at the Lighter for coffee and a much needed chocolate brownie! We both felt the benefits of a break and a brownie when we set off for Exmouth. Not quite the challenging route or as long a distance as we had planned, but sometimes you just have to go with the flow!

A much needed coffee and chocolate brownie!

62.77 miles today...a teeny bit further than the 61.85 we did last weekend! Just one more week of high level training to go, then a 'rest' week before the big day. Bring it on!