Exford to Bude - Day Three - Bristol to Cornwall round trip

Cannot believe the weather - beautiful sunny day again. After a lovely hearty breakfast at the youth hostel we set off towards Simonsbath where we turned left over the river and climbed up the hill. We passed a memorial cairn to John William Fortescue,
  
military historian and one timelibrarian at Windsor Castle. Sir John, as he later became, came from a land-owning family with an estate on Exmoor and he loved the area very much. He was also a keen naturalist and enjoyed studying local wildlife and, inevitably, shooting them.

As we reached the top of the more we were treated to magnificent views across Exmoor. The weather was glorious, warm and sunny.  Suddenly we realised that we were once again on Route Three.  It was strange - we would lose it and find it again all across the hills to Barnstaple.

Above Barnstaple we stopped in a quiet lane to have a snack. After we had eaten I needed the loo, and decided I would try out my Whiz Freedom™. This small piece of latex allows females to wee standing up and I thought it could be very useful given the number of times I am forced to pull over and climb into a field. I could be much more discreet using this little gizmo. Crucial to its efficacy however, is applying the Whiz™ the Right Way Round. Unfortunately I managed to fail this basic requirement and piddled all down the inside of my shorts. Mick fell around laughing.
"You women claim to understand the Offside Rule and now you think you can take this away from us too!" he chortled. "Peeing standing up is the one remaining male-only preserve we have left!"
"Just needs more practice, that's all," I muttered, changing into a clean pair of trousers.

We rolled into the town at lunchtime and wheeled our bikes through the main street in search of somewhere for lunch. And so we happened upon Butchers Row.  The street had a long iron canopy and was lined with old retail outlets. As we stood looking up the street an old gentleman, noting our interest stopped to talk to us. He told us that he remembered as a boy that the street was full of butchers shops at the time when Barnstaple was a major cattle market and the cattle would be brought in and slaughtered at the back of the market. Barnstaple has had a pannier market since Saxon Times.
(I have only seen pannier markets in Devon. Apparently named after the baskets which sellers used to use to bring their wares into market, I wonder why the term appears to be common in Devon but not elsewhere. Or are there other pannier markets I haven't come across?)

From Barnstaple we picked up the Tarka Trail around the River Taw Estuary. Apart from the obvious advantage of being flat, which in Devon is always something to celebrate, it was delightfully peaceful alongside the river apart from the occasional helicopter presumably flying in and out of RAF Chivenor on the opposite bank. The path follows the line of the disused Barnstaple to Bideford Railway. In 2009 James May used this section of the Trail to attempt a world record for his programme Toy Stories to build the longest model railway. The attempt failed, partly due to vandalism, but mainly due to the British weather, with torrential rain all day mucking about with the train's electrics. May said it was like "putting a hairdryer in a bath."

Hostel at Bude

Bude lock

We passed through the very attractive village of Instow with it's Grade Two Listed signal box. Across the river we could see Bideford climbing up the hill. We were now alongside the River Torridge rather than the Taw. After crossing the river we left the Tarka Trail and took a minor road alongside the River Yeo and then back roads to Bradworthy. Here we wandered into the fine convenience store on the main square where we bought some superb pasties and got directions for the best ie. least hilly route to Bude. A thoroughly enjoyable long coast down into the town was marred somewhat by a pointless climb out again on the wrong road in search of Northshore Bude Backpackers. It was worth the effort when we found it though, we had a lovely private room with en-suite for under twenty quid each.

Miles cycled today: 62
Total miles: 154

Our route is here