I could have cycled from the site to Braunton but it’s about 5 miles of narrow roads (the off road route is strictly footpath only) so I drove instead. Parking was easy, plentiful and not too expensive, and I looked forward to visiting the town on my return.
The Tarka Trail from there to Barnstaple is great, it follows the old railway along the edge of the Taw Estuary and is a good hard surfaced path, it’s almost too good! Unfortunately that’s where things then went wrong. The sign said to follow the way marks for route 27 through the town, I would have if they hadn’t suddenly just stopped appearing! I was able to follow the Tarka Trail on the map until it became a footpath that I couldn’t cycle on. I used Route 3 until I hit the main road to Exeter which would take me back to where I needed to be but then missed the turn, again no sign post.
Having realised I must have gone wrong I decided to turn back, unfortunately having waited for a gap in the traffic I hadn’t noticed the back wheel was on a very slippery bit of mud, with the bike on an angle and the front turned it just slid out taking the bike, and me, down. It could have been a lot worse, I ended up with a grazed knee and the bike a grazed brake lever, neither of which will take too much fixing.
Having found where I needed to go I rejoined the path along the river, only to find a mile or so later it split again with bikes being taken back on to the Exeter road a few hundred yards from where I’d turned back! I carried on for another mile or two, had to do another double back, and thought enough is enough. That stretch is a mixture of road and trail with poor signage so I headed back into Barnstaple.
As it was past 11 o’clock and, as there just happened to be some nice substantial bike racks outside, I called in to Tea on the Taw for coffee (yes, I know it should have been tea). Having studied the menu and ordered coffee I decided I’d have brunch and asked for the Vintage Welsh Rarebit, a dish I’m particularly fond of. All I’ll say is it’s highly recommended - much better than the one I last had in Wales! There was a cool breeze for the few miles back to Braunton but I did take the opportunity to photograph some remaining Railway artefacts.
Back in Braunton, and having locked the bike back on its rack, I explored the countryside centre and town museum. The latter has another model railway - this one built to show the layout of the station. It’s not the finest modelling I’ve seen, and there seemed to be some confusion between whether it should be GWR or SR (it was the latter), but it serves a purpose. For 20p you can see the train run which seemed a reasonable deal.
By that point I was feeling thirsty so popped into the London Arms for a glass of cider, it went down well but I still had to drive so couldn’t have a second one. ☹️ However I wanted some shopping for tea so put a bottle in the fridge to chill! 😊
Tomorrow’s activities will probably depend on the state of my knee. I banged it as well as grazing it so it’s a bit sore however it survived the cycling today.
In the end I did 19.33 miles, so just short of my planned minimum of 20, with 1600ft of ascent. Just a note on that, the OS app may have over estimated the ascent on Sunday, it doesn’t know about tunnels!
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