Day 1
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| Loch Ness - with not a monster in sight |
At 300km Nick was going so strong and ahead of schedule that he was aiming for 500km, then disaster struck. Me. I think I only put 1 scoop of maltodextrin in his bottle instead of 3. 25km later mega energy crash. On the plus side he had his burnout in a large lay by in a beautiful spot!
Day 2
We made excellent progress today, especially seeing as Nick cycled through two quite infamous passes in the Lake District. It was so hot though, that I could barely keep up with supplying Nick with full water bottles! A little more drama on the water front ... when I topped up the water tank I didn't put the cap on properly and it's gone. I'm pretty sure it fell off the van while turning into Lockerbie. Fortunately Jason has a spare for me and I'll pick it up when we go past Wigan ... Probably tomorrow.
I also discovered that out aircon needed regassing. First available appointments are for Wednesday and I have no idea where we will be by then. With a bit of phoning around I found the lovely people at Cecil Street Auto Repairs in Carlisle, who were kind enough to take pity on me and squeeze me in. A huge, now non-sweaty thank you to them!
A potentially more serious problem was that Nick hadn't packed enough of maltodextrin powder or whey protein isolate. Can't buy it in the shops but I bought sugar instead and we'll just have to hope it will do the trick. But hey, it can't be worse than me starving him yesterday!
We eventually spent the night in Yealand Conyers. Finding a place to stop for the night was a little stressful, because there were just no conveniently situated campsites, and not suitable laybys. We eventually slept in a church carpark, that we thankfully knew about because we'd parked there a few weeks earlier to go walking in the area with my aunt.
Day 3
Spent the night at the C&CC site just outside Tewkesbury. It had rained like crazy during the day, so because we needed a speedy getaway, the warden parked us on tar instead of the grass field where our booked pitch was situated. No time to be waiting for a tractor to pull me off in the morning! We hadn't seen much of the rain on our journey southward, so were rather surprised that everything was so soggy.
Day 4
Today's cycling wasn't all smooth sailing. The Devon hills really took a toll on Nick, and he stopped cycling earlier than usual because his knees and ankles were taking a lot of strain on the hills. Having recently recovered from a knee injury that had taken months to come right, he sensibly decided not to push it. We had a lovely dinner together in a pub in Bratton 
Clovely. Given the size of the village, it may well be the only pub, but without a doubt it had the best coasters I've ever seen. None of the locals passing where we had parked, just up the hill from the pub, knew of any nearby campsites, and suggested we spend the night in the parking we were in. When we pointed out the sign saying 'No overnight parking', they said 'Oh don't worry about that ... those 3 cars over there have been here for months', so we did.
Clovely. Given the size of the village, it may well be the only pub, but without a doubt it had the best coasters I've ever seen. None of the locals passing where we had parked, just up the hill from the pub, knew of any nearby campsites, and suggested we spend the night in the parking we were in. When we pointed out the sign saying 'No overnight parking', they said 'Oh don't worry about that ... those 3 cars over there have been here for months', so we did.
It wasn't only Nick that was taken strain on this day. The various insects that had made a meal of me in Scotland seem to have some sort of delayed itching juice that they injected me with. Part of today's shopping was a supply of antihistamine products.
Day 5
We decided to take the day off cycling today, to give Nick's knees and ankles a rest, and also to work out some of the kinks in our processes. I felt that there was far too much 'fannying about' time ... it was taking about 2 hours after stopping cycling before Nick was getting to bed, and we just don't have that sort of time to waste on a long trip like this. We booked into the C&CC site in Tavistock for the night, and set to work streamlining everything, and having ourselves a moerse braai. We also discussed Nick's routing, at length, and decided to do something different. Nick's preference has always been to avoid busy dual carriageways and favour smaller rural roads, but in Devon & Cornwall, this is difficult cycling. The gradients on these little roads that he cycles can be over 30%, whereas a road like the A30 has such smoothed out hills, and gentle gradients, that it would be much easier riding. We agreed that he'd start the next day on the A30, and if he didn't feel comfortable, would leave and go back to the smaller roads.
Day 6
It wasn't an early start this morning, because we had to drive from Tavistock back to Bratten Clovely for Nick to start cycling inthe same place that he stopped. It was around midday when Nick eventually set off, and headed for the A30. I popped into the shops for our daily supplies, and some electrolytes, because his hands had been a bit swollen, and I needed to sort that out. When I came out of the shops and looked at the tracker, there Nick was, off the A30, on rural roads. 'Oh dear', I thought. 'He isn't liking the dual carriageway'. Almost immediately I got an SMS from Nick saying he liked the A30 well enough, but there was construction, and cyclists were on a detour.
Oh well ... the downside to that though, is that I don't know how long the diversion is, so can't just mosey on down the A30, so had to follow the cyclists
diversion on the narrow little country lanes too.
On a blind hill and corner, before catching up to Nick, a delivery van flying round the bend
straight at me, had me stampin
g so hard on the brakes that the coffee machine flew out its holder, and spewed its used capsules and drip tray contents all over the van.
When I'd eventually passed Nick and found somewhere to wait for him, I'd been able to assess the extent of the issues with the coffee (some of the pods I couldn't reach), and when he arrived, had a total tearful meltdown! Nick sorted everything out, and continued on his way, eventually reaching Lands End pretty close to 6pm.
Oh well ... the downside to that though, is that I don't know how long the diversion is, so can't just mosey on down the A30, so had to follow the cyclists
diversion on the narrow little country lanes too.On a blind hill and corner, before catching up to Nick, a delivery van flying round the bend
straight at me, had me stampin
g so hard on the brakes that the coffee machine flew out its holder, and spewed its used capsules and drip tray contents all over the van.
When I'd eventually passed Nick and found somewhere to wait for him, I'd been able to assess the extent of the issues with the coffee (some of the pods I couldn't reach), and when he arrived, had a total tearful meltdown! Nick sorted everything out, and continued on his way, eventually reaching Lands End pretty close to 6pm.
The car park at Lands End was a windy place. So windy that the first two pay & display tickets I bought were blown away, never to be seen again. Not amused. It was beautifully clear though, which according to other people there at the time, was not the case the previous day. I'm really glad we had the day off in Tavistock, because I think it's much nicer to have arrived in sunshine than mist.
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