Holy moly, it's hilly round here. A couple of 20% climbs and one 25% climb made for a tough day in the saddle. Weather mixed, had my waterproof on and off all day with some heavy downpours and it was pretty windy, great for cycling. The route took me into North Devon and on to Exmoor. Exmoor was stunning, very eerie at some points, especially when the black clouds came overhead. The climb out of North Molton was quite something, it is part of the
Beast of Exmoor Sportive so I knew it was going to be tough. Lots of little arrows on the map today. Luckily it stopped raining during the last big climb and indeed for the rest of the cycle. Whilst this was a fairly short day, in terms of miles, only 66 miles in total, I still managed to get in over 6,000 ft of climbing. Glad I packed so many gears on my bike, I needed them. This was my slowest day of the whole trip with an average of only 11.7 mph. I was quite surprised with North Devon, it was really run down, lots of businesses closed, not at all as I had expected. I was planning on stopping for some cake but never passed anywhere open.
After, 5 hours and 37 minutes of cycling, I arrived at the campsite in Winsford after another steep climb. Carol, Katy and the girls and put the tent up, their first go. A great effort and they were well chuffed with themselves as you will see in the photos. Just at that, the heavens opened and it absolutely bucketed down.
We rewarded ourselves with dinner out at the local hotel,
The Royal Oak. The staff were very kind and let us dry some of our clothes in their laundry room. Excellent food, great local ales and very friendly staff.
On the way back to the campsite, we saw some Exmoor ponies that live wild on the moor. This was quite special as we had been told that they are quite difficult to find, the girls were thrilled. Then it rained again, infact, it rained pretty much all night and it was very windy to boot. Carol and Katy did very well to put the tent up. Again, another night with very broken sleep.
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