The day dawned bright and sunny, and before all the other campers had stirred u had packed my tent, loaded my bike and was slowly making my way back up the steep hill out of cloud farm. Today's destination was Tintagel, a seaside town that claimed to be the location of Camelot.
Malmshead - lovely in the morning.
My journey started by finding by I heading southwest out of Exmoor National Park stopping briefly to admire the calmness of the quaint hamlet Malmshead and the views from Kinsford Hill. I shortly found myself in Barnstaple, known as one of the oldest Borough's in the UK.
The museum in Barnstaple
Here I picked up the National Cycle Route 3 onec again and followed a super bike path called the South West Coast Path to Bideford before taking the Great Torrington Train Line (now a bike path too!) towards Little Torrington.
The Beam aqueduct
The Train Line is a really well used route, and their were tonnes of tourists out cycling and walking and heaps of cycling cafes. I stopped off at one I thought mum would approve for a quick bite to eat and top up my water. The train line itself had long stretches of dirt path that was actually not too pleasant for a loaded up bike, particularly as it was predominatly up hill.
This one is for you mum!
At around Little Torrington I cut more west aiming for Holsworthy, by now I was mostly surrounded by farmland. At one point between Berry Cross and Shebbear on a tiny narrow road I couldn't help but laugh as I witnessed a trio of cars stuck behind five or six slowly moving cows that were taking up the road. My laughter caught in my throat, however, as I realised that the about 4 tonne of bovine was being herded by the vehicles towards itty bitty me and I had nowehere to hide.
Look out: cats and dogs? not too sure what his sign meant, but Baiky had to get involved!
Then the cows caught site of me, on my lonesome, pedalling implacably towards them and in the pure poo inducing terror that only a Gatt on a bike can inspire, the six cows abruptly stopped did a U-bolt, and charged back towards the (apparently) less menacing cars. The cows squeezed around the cars and continued to flee from me, emptying their bowels as they ran. Finally they found what I hop was their field and ducked off the road. I cycled on.
The bulls in Spain would be ashamed of this.
By this stage I had been cycling uphill for what seemed like 40 miles. I ran out of water at one stage and had to ask a some friendly locals to top me up just around Holsworthy. I soldiered on thorugh to Titson and braced myself for the final 15 mile slog uphill. Once again the final 5 miles or so were a lovely downhill where I could cruise to my destination, and always at the back of mind the niggling thought -"how the hell am I going to get back out of here again?"
Well, I found camelot. Not too sure what all these historians are arguing about. It looks like a castle and its in Tintagel. Case closed.
