DAY 4: Aeros and Minstrels

Lydford to Wellington – 59 miles

We decided to set off early this time. Early for us meant 8.30am. We had a long way to go, and our faith in our ability to go the distance, especially in the land of hills like Uruks, had taken a knock.

So we skipped breakfast and hit the Granite Way, which turned out to be flat and tender on the limb. Crossing an old railway bridge over a deep wooded valley, we stopped to take a group photo with Tim’s camera, which he deftly propped up on Jools’ bike with a 10 second self-time delay. The mood was happy and hopeful, not just because of the flatness of the Granite Way but because we knew that the mean old hills of Devon and Cornwall would soon be behind us.

Okehampton is another place that I’ve spent my life speeding by but have never stopped in. Cycling forces you into an intimacy with places you’ve previously ignored, old market towns that might otherwise exist in your mind only as a motorway sign, a turn off. Like so many old market towns we’d passed through, Okehampton had a left behind feel. Its days of glory as a hub for all the surrounding country are only hinted at in the old buildings, and the names of its streets. It felt like it has lost one reason for being but hasn’t found another one to replace it.

The little café by the Museum of Dartmoor life served a mean breakfast – Full English or vegetarian version if you prefer. We sat in the little courtyard in front of the museum eating our fill, calling home, talking about hills and how to avoid them. Phil gave us an update on Henry the hernia, and the fir cone he’d found to insert down his trousers and keep it at bay. Jools was organising his rendez-vous with his wife Kate. It was her birthday and he’d decided to spend the day with her and then go back to Bristol with her and spend the next day, which was our first day off, back at home.

We left Okehampton fed and energised, and took the low road eastwards. Though we managed to avoid a muscle-shredding climb up on to Dartmoor, we became snarled up in another stony and ragged bridleway near the village of Sticklepath. I promised myself, from then to eternity, to steer clear of bridleways. The promise didn’t last long.

‘Are you looking for somewhere,’ an elderly woman rambler asked cheerily as we were recovering at the end of the bridleway. ‘Yes,’ Jools answered, ‘how to avoid hills.’ She looked at us in disbelief. ‘How to avoid hills?!!,’ she said. ‘That’s all you’ve got around here…hills.’ ‘Yeah, we know.’

Progress was steady all the way to Cheriton Bishop, and the hills seemed tamer. The bright morning sun made all the colours you could see sparkle – the green, the brown, the white, the blue. We rendezvous’d with Jools’s Kate and their two boys Joe and Laurie in the car park of the Old Thatch Inn. Warm hugs and smiles all round. It felt good, and strange, to meet people from beyond our little bubble. Somehow it was impossible to adequately describe what we’d been through, or give a sense of what it was like to be in our little world, so parallel to theirs, and so disconnected. Even though we’d only been away from home for four days, it felt like Kate and the boys had come from a distant place.

We unloaded all our camping gear into Jools and Kate’s car, paring our loads down to a more manageable size. Kate commented on the muscles in our legs, and took a photo of Phil and I standing side by side for comparison. Then we had lunch together in the pub.

I was anxious to get going again. We still had over 40 miles to Wellington, and the Komoot elevation profile showed three imposing shark’s teeth blocking our way, including one that had the contours of a fang.

After saying our goodbyes, Tim, Phil and I rode on to Tedburn St Mary and then northwards across the heart of Devon. The first two miles after leaving Tedburn were a delicious glide through late summer fields and woods, chequered all around us under the blue sky. We covered two miles in little over five minutes, the fastest speed of our trip so far. Then, when we stopped in some hidden village to admire an old medieval walkway under a cob building, the silence was profound.

This was deep country and it was harvest time. Huge tractors towing machinery of every shape and size roared by us. Combine harvesters made their regimented way around the fields. ‘At the end of the field, turn left’ Phil quipped, mimicking the robotic voice of a satnav. There was busyness and purpose everywhere, but I understood none of it. I was just passing through.

Then the shark began to show its teeth. The third one – the fang – was especially gruelling. A 23-percenter as our Brummie friend would say. Just before the summit, a screw came loose near Phil’s front hub and his mudguard and front pannier rack were hanging dangerously. While we were mending it by the roadside, Phil said, ‘Where’s my batman, Charles, when I need him.’ Phil was frequently invoking the imaginary Charlies, bidding him in toffee tones to ‘come and get me in the helicopter’ or ‘take down my tent and pack my bags, there’s a good man.’

Tim’s rear brake has also been giving him plenty of trouble, almost from the word go. There was barely any grip left in it. None of us knew much about disc brakes, except Jools perhaps, so we botched the best we could. But it was clear that an urgent overhaul would be required. I called ahead to the only bike shop I could find in Glastonbury, where we would be the next day, to arrange an emergency pit stop.

At the summit of the fang we lay just inside a field where a herd of cows were grazing behind an electrified fence, eating trail mix and Kendal mint cake, when a huge Hilux 4×4 came by. The driver gave us a mean, slightly puzzled look, and then wound down his window. At first I couldn’t understand what he was saying, because he was saying it with a Devonshire accent as thick as clotted cream. So I drew my head in closer. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear…’ ‘I said does Farmer Giles know you’re here?’ ‘Er…no. We’re just having a rest. We’ll be on our way shortly.’

When I told Phil what I’d just heard we both fell about laughing. I tried to explain to Tim the significance of Farmer Giles, but it was hard. Could I have heard right? Now, another line of dark humour has been unleashed, and farmer Giles is everywhere and he always knows where we are.

The last ten miles to Wellington took us through the darkening countrysideon small lanes with grass growing down the middle that dipped and curved and tumbled ever downwards. Wellington was another bypassed market town, faded and beautiful, though more moneyed than Okehampton it seemed. On the outskirts we stopped at a corner shop and bought an Aero bar and a packet of Minstrels. Sweets had never tasted so good, not since I was seven years old. They also gave us the required saccharine rush to cover the last few miles to the Travel Lodge, which was situated in a big commercial estate the other side of town, next to MacDs, Costa Coffee, Aldi etc etc.

I never imagined the sight of a Travel Lodge hotel could make me so happy, or the sight of the fluffy towels that awaited us in the bathroom. It was all soulless but so satisfying. The hotel had nowhere to store our bikes, so we had to take them up to the room. Each one fitted into the lift with an inch to spare.

On the stairs we met an Indian family, husband, wife, three daughters, from Oldham who were on a tour of Britian. That day they’d been to see the Golden Hind in Plymouth. Tomorrow, St Michael’s Mount. Day after it was going to be Scotland. We had a nice chat, and the husband admired the way we’d manoeuvred our bikes in and out of the Travel Lodge lifts.

After a drink at the local pub, who had stopped serving food minutes before we arrived, we ordered a takeaway and sat in our room eating it, watching the new about Afghanistan on the TV. Many of the people huddled in and around Kabul airport, desperately waiting for news of their visa, their flights, their passage to safety, would be seeking refuge soon, some of them in the UK, even Bristol. All the more reason to be riding to raise money for Bristol Refugee Rights. We were journeying in comparative luxury, confident and secure in our surroundings, but even so, the smallest act of kindness, the warmth of a welcome were like blessings. How much more so to those fleeing Afghanistan.

Andy Morgan