Day 18
June 28th - From Knowstone to Boscastle

Today was a real toughie. 73 miles mainly into the wind over the kind of hills I have never seen in my life before and I live in South Devon.
I left the b&b at 10am and got back on the north Devon link road towards South Molton. I had been warned by a walker at breakfast about the hills in this area and it was hard work getting into the town. When I finally got there I stocked up on drink and snickers bars and couldn't help but notice that the average age of the residents was about 80 - there didn't seem to be many youngsters around at all. I dodged a few zimmer-frames and got going again towards Barnstaple and this turned out to be the flattest part of today's route.
By lunchtime I had reached Barnstaple and got something to eat and then headed for the library as the tourist information centre was closed. They told me there were two youth hostels I could aim for, one at Elmscott which was near Clovelly and not really far enough away and the other was at Boscastle which sounded much more interesting but was 70 miles away. I knew it would make it a long day but I decided it had to be Boscastle. I sent Jilly in Paignton a text to say where I was going as she had talked about meeting up at some point and then I started pedalling towards Bideford.
On arriving at Bideford I had to cross a bridge which was really high up and gave some great views. I had to laugh at the adverts for The Samaritans posted all the way along the bridge - it's obviously a favourite spot for jumpers. I got across the bridge and decided to go into Bideford thinking that I could just go through the town and out the other side. I turned left and went into the town which seemed really nice and then started following the signs for Bude. Before I knew it I was crossing back over the river on a different bridge and heading back the way I came in and, after a loop of about 3 miles, I found myself crossing the suicide bridge again. Well, at least I'd seen Bideford.
Soon after leaving there the back of the bike seemed to be wandering from side to side so I stopped to check it and everything looked ok. I pumped the tyre up a bit and it felt a lot better but a few miles on it started again. I got the pump out again but when it became a problem again a few miles later I decided it would work out quicker if I changed inner tubes. I guess a slow puncture is still a puncture which made it 3 for this trip.
Now things started getting difficult, I was quite high up so the wind was quite strong and in my face all the time and to make things worse it was now drizzling. And then there were the hills, which were constant - the only flat bits were on the brows and in the dips and apart from that it was just up and down all the time. The strong wind meant that I even had to keep pedalling on the downhill bits.
The gps died at the 39 mile mark, by now I am more surprised if I can get through a day without it going belly-up. I kept looking at the map trying to work out where I was and how far I had to go and when I reached Bude I was hoping to see a sign to Boscatle saying something like 6 miles left. No such luck - it was 11.
By now it was nearly 9pm and I had to put my lights on for the first time in the whole trip. What kept me going was that Jilly had phoned ahead and booked a bed for me at the youth hostel so I knew I wouldn't have to go hunting for a b&b when I got there, if I ever got there !
Eventually I saw the turn off for Boscastle and it said I had 5 miles to go. According to the vdo computer I was 1000 feet above sea level so I really thought that the last 5 miles would be all downhill. However, as soon as I got onto the Boscastle road it was still up and down the whole time for several miles, only the last couple of miles were downhill.
This was the first time I had been to Boscastle, obviously I had seen it on the news a lot during that flood 3 years ago. The youth hostel itself was right down near the mouth of the river, where all the cars had gone floating by. Fortunately, the hostel had been completely re-built since the flood and was really nice inside and there were plenty of amazing photos on the walls of that day in August 2004.
There is no such thing as a mobile phone signal in Boscastle so I used the payphone to call Jilly and let her know I had made it and she said that the next day she and two friends - Andy and Barry (who lives in Boscastle) would come down and cycle part of the way with me. By now I was really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.
I had a shower and then cooked some pasta for tea and, while eating it I read a newspaper someone had left behind. There were photos of floods in the midlands and one of the pictures showed a bridge in Ludlow which had been completely washed away taking half a house with it. I recognised a shop in the background - I had been over that bridge 3 days earlier.
73 miles today takes it to 1107 in all leaving me about 95 to go so a finish on Saturday is looking good.

The Routemap

The Speed (in blue) and the Elevation (in green) for the last 34 miles of the day.