So
I started Day 2 about 15 miles short of where I'd been hoping to be, and there was still quite a way to reach the Cornwall/Devon border. I was wondering why the road I was on had had to climb so high up, when there seemed to be plenty of land to the south, much more low-lying. The answer became apparent when I saw the stretch of water just visible in this photo. This was the estuary of the River Tamar, and to get across you would have to go down to Plymouth, which was way off my route.
This
is the entry to Dartmoor, which I didn't reach till 2.45 in the afternoon - very slow going. In contrast to the countryside around Cambridge, I was discovering that carrying 30kg of baggage makes a big difference to the average speed I was able to maintain in hilly terrain.
But
you've got to stop for a photo like this! A real Dartmoor pony, only recently arrived in this world, and totally unfazed by the attention it was getting.
And
this was the view looking back over Cornwall - one county done, lots still to go.
Sheep roamed freely over the moor, and surprisingly I didn't see any casualties to motor traffic.
I
stopped to look at these trees, a little plantation that looked as if it had been hit by blight but then had started to recover. I wondered if they were elms, but I still haven't found out.
I was taking a small detour from the route, as it was getting towards the end of the afternoon, and I thought I'd better get some food for an evening meal. This picture was taken on the way down into the village of Princetown. From up here, it looked an ugly village with lots of dreary grey buildings. When I got down to the village, I realised I'd been looking at Dartmoor Prison. Doh!
There is a dearth of campsites in this part of the country, and I ended the day booking into a B&B in Moretonhampstead, towards the eastern edge of Dartmoor, but still about 12 miles short of Exeter. So I couldn't cook anything - I went into the town and had fish and chips. It had been sunny much of the day, which is what I'd hoped for in mid July. As it turned out, that was rare.
The worry was that I'd not managed 50 miles. The top of Dartmoor is not a flat plateau, it is criss-crossed by streams which have carved steep valleys, and I'd spent much of the day pushing my bike up hill. My average speed for the day was the lowest of the whole trip, and my maximum at 40.0mph was the highest, both symptoms of the same thing - extreme hills.
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