Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
After breakfast Glyn led us round the hotel checking we had completed the jobs to her
standard. In the daylight it was clear that we had missed most of the leaves.
'It must have been really windy last night, because this car park was spotless when we
finished last night,' I said.
This seemed to do the trick, and she seemed happy enough with our efforts. There were
also several patches of the outside of the hotel that looked like we had failed to clean. We
made sure that we were deep in conversation with Glyn whilst she checked these, and we
managed to distract her sufficiently to get her seal of approval. We passed with flying col-
ours and she allowed us our bikes back.
Arek was still asleep when we left.
We were both feeling like death. A combination of the Polish beer, the lack of sleep and
the fact that we were cycling to Scotland on tiny bikes had started to take its toll. For the
first few miles of that morning, neither of us enjoyed the ride. The road climbed yet again
after leaving Okehampton. Devon was just one big fat hill after another, and we still had 2
½ weeks and nearly 900 miles to go. It was demoralizing.
We were following what was once the main road between Cornwall and Somerset, be-
fore the A30 was built parallel to it. It was satisfying to hear the distant buzz of traffic on
the very busy A30 that many End to Enders follow from Land's End all the way to Somer-
set.Theroadwefollowed,however,wascompletelydeserted,anditdidn'ttakelongforus
to get back into the spirit of the trip.
We gradually warmed to Devon. Its hills became less severe, and the countryside it
offered us was breathtaking. Our route led us through the tiny villages of Belstone Corner
and Coleford, which were little more than collections of houses. Dogs barked at us as we
passed through these places, as though we were the first visitors in many years.
Quiet country roads are obviously a pleasure to cycle along, but they also have their
drawbacks. As there are so few vehicles about, many of the vehicles that do use the roads
assume that they are the only ones to be doing so. I turned a corner to be met with an oil
tanker that was travelling in the middle of the road at a ridiculous speed. It would have va-
porised me had it made contact. Fortunately, I managed to dive into the relative comfort of
thehedge.IturnedtoseeifBenhadsurvived,ashehadbeentrailingslightlybehind.There
was no sign of him. I heard the screeching of the tanker's brakes and so feared the worst,
butBen soonemergedroundthecorner,lookinglike hehadalso taken refugeinthehedge.
BenwasbecomingincreasinglyfrustratedwithmeandTheFalcon.Itschainhadgotin-
to the habit of falling off at regular intervals for no apparent reason, and these occurrences
were becoming more frequent. As if that wasn't irritating enough, its front wheel then fell
off midway through the morning. It quite literally detached itself from the bike as I was
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