Saturday 04 July 2009 - Glastonbury to Crediton

Glastonbury - Othery - Taunton - Wellington - Tiverton - Cadbury - Crediton

My luxurious slumber suddenly evaporated, to be replaced by the sound of cups rattling and a stream of fraternal profanity. The last time my kid brother woke me up by swearing at me had been around 1974 when, during an episode of alcohol-related somnambulant mis-micturition, I had mistaken the table between our beds for a urinal. I was reasonably confident that I hadn’t repeated that particular faux pas, as I was still snuggled up in bed.
“What’s the matter?” I enquired.
“I can’t sleep, I’m making a drink” replied Paul. He sounded stressed and exasperated. I knew his sciatica had been disturbing his sleep, so I asked “Is your leg hurting?”
“No. It’s your snoring.”
I was absolutely mortified. I know only too well the misery of hours of enforced sleep deprivation caused by unwanted noise, having endured many sleepless nights being tortured by my neighbours’ gangsta rap and incessantly barking dogs. And now I had inflicted that same suffering on my brother. This was the only night of the trip that my snoring presented a problem, so I can only conclude that my throat muscles had been more relaxed than usual, thanks to the alcohol content of the cider in the Queen’s Head.
There was only one decent thing to do. It was only 4am, so I got dressed and went out for a walk, allowing Paul the opportunity to snatch a couple of hours sleep. The destination of my early morning stroll was not difficult to decide upon, and I was soon ascending the steep path to Glastonbury Tor.
Dawn was beginning to glimmer in the eastern sky, and as I rose above the trees on to the bare hill, I realised that the Somerset Levels were blanketed in early morning mist. It wasn’t until I neared the summit that the ethereal outline of St Michael’s Tower began to form. I walked inside and looked up through the roofless structure at the blueing sky before wandering back out into the mist. Sunrise was approaching, and I watched spellbound as the mist grew thinner and sank below the summit, leaving a white sea surrounding the Tor.
The Avalon of Arthurian legend upon which I stood was indeed an island before the fenlands of the Levels were drained, and was known to the Britons as Ynys Afalon. Presumably it will regain its former status should sea levels rise sufficiently in the future. I gazed down its slopes and at its unexplained terraces as the mist slowly dissipated until it remained only as gossamer threads hanging over the woods below.
The dawn brightened and the low twittering in the trees gradually developed into a full birdsong symphony, with every possible avian emotion expressed simultaneously. I really couldn’t imagine anywhere I’d rather be. And then I realised I was not alone. Two hazy figures emerged from the remnants of the mist, climbing the path up the hill. As they drew closer, I saw that they were two hippies, probably in their late teens. They appeared to be friends rather than boyfriend and girlfriend, and I sat down and chatted with them for a while in the ancient tower. They were wonderfully companionable young people who radiated peace and hope, and I rewound 35 years in their presence.
On my way back down the path, I met a middle aged couple who, in contrast to the hippies, responded to my cheery greeting with frosty silence. I made my way back to the B&B, almost getting lost along the way, and let myself into our room as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb Paul if he’d managed to get to sleep in the absence of my uvular serenade. As soon as I walked through the door, he raised his head from his pillow and said “I can’t believe you buggered off like that”.
Breakfast was still over an hour away, and I had become quite cold wandering around in a t-shirt in the misty early morning, so I got back into bed and soon felt incredibly comfortable, wanting to lie there dozing for at least the next five hours. Time then cruelly accelerated, as is its wont in such situations, and it seemed that only a few minutes elapsed before I had to get up.
When we walked into the breakfast room, I was surprised to see about a dozen other guests, as the house was only of an average size. The room was packed with rather large tables, leaving limited room to squeeze through to the cereals and coffee which predictably were situated at the furthest possible distance from our table. The return journey was particularly tricky, as we were obliged to carry our coffees and loaded cereal bowls over the heads of some of our seated fellow guests.
Our table was flanked by two other tables, at both of which was seated a solitary Breakfasting Lady of about sixty. Whenever I looked to the left I was met by a ferocious glare, whereas to the right I received a sweet smile. The two Ladies were equally intimidating. The couple running the establishment had nobody to assist them in preparing and serving the meals, and the quality inevitably suffered. The bacon, eggs and sausage were all grossly overcooked, but we didn’t mind because we were in Glastonbury, where nothing is normal.
Before we set off, I left the Bristol A-Z in our room as it had been taking up too much room on my bike since fulfilling its vital function in getting us through the city. I hid it to prevent our hosts finding and helpfully returning it before we escaped.
The cycling part of the day began with about twenty easy miles across the Somerset Levels, past myriad drainage channels which were often festooned with water lilies. We left Glastonbury via the A39, turning left on to the A361 and passing through Othery, East Lyng and West Lyng before merging with the A38 after the bridge over the M5. We were soon in the outskirts of Taunton, and we stopped near the River Tone bridge where a passer-by informed Paul of a cycle path that started by the bridge and ran all the way to the town centre.
We followed the path and sure enough found ourselves in the middle of an extremely busy Taunton. We found a coffee shop for lunch, and then realised we’d completely lost our bearings and had no idea which direction to follow to get back on the A38 to Tiverton. A degree of confusion ensued, not helped by the fact that everyone we asked was a visitor and didn’t know the way to Tiverton either, but eventually we re-orientated ourselves and headed in the correct south-westerly direction out of town. A feature common to the centres of almost all towns and cities seems to be the absence of useful road signs.
After skirting Wellington, we found ourselves once more in hillier terrain as we approached the Devon border. We passed a settlement called Whiteball, then one called Red Ball, but a pub a little further along the road spoilt the snooker imagery by being named Poacher’s Pocket, rather than something like Centre Pocket or Top Right Hand Pocket. We then crossed the M5 twice, after which we had to suffer a disagreeable stretch of the A361 dual carriageway to Tiverton.
At Tiverton, we turned left on to the B3391 which bisects the town, crossing the River Exe and taking the A396 south, following the river, as far as Bickleigh where we turned right on to the A3072. Here we had to tackle the excruciating Bickleigh Hill, which soon saw us off our bikes and pushing. The final ten miles or so to Crediton was an unrelenting switchback with the highest point being Cadbury Hill, but our reward was to be surrounded by picture postcard Devon countryside, complete with blue sky over rolling patchwork quilt hills dotted with contented cows. We didn’t bother straying into the fields, but if we had, we may well have encountered Farmer Palmer with his shotgun, instructing us to “Get orf moy laaaand!”
Our B&B was a fine Georgian villa at the south end of Crediton on the A377 Exeter road, near the railway station. Our host Peter had done a fair bit of cycling himself, and made us very welcome with tea and biscuits on the patio. The front gate to the property was on a blind bend, and there was no pavement so access and egress were slightly hazardous, especially as motorists seemed to enjoy driving as close to the gate as possible.
Happily we survived with all our toes intact, and we walked into town in search of a meal. We found Crediton town centre to have a somewhat run down atmosphere, with many semi-derelict buildings on the periphery of the main street. Although it was Saturday evening and there were quite a few people around, nobody seemed to be particularly having fun. With the nightlife of Exeter only about eight miles away, Crediton holds little attraction for those seeking a good night out and its few pubs appeared mundane and uninviting, as did everywhere else including the café and the Chinese and Indian eateries. We eventually decided on the chip shop. When fish and chips are exceptional, as they were in Thurso, they constitute a fine meal. Unfortunately they’re nearly always crap, and those in Crediton were true to the norm, most of mine ending up in the well-fed bin on the pavement outside. The service had been extremely fast and efficient, which is usually a bad sign. After our meal, we went to one of the mundane, uninviting pubs and washed the taste of the crap fish and chips away with a pint of third-rate beer.
We returned to our very well-appointed lodgings and fell to discussing our final goal which was now within reach with only two and a half days to go. Paul opined that we still had a chance to fail should the forthcoming terrain consistently replicate the severity of the last ten miles, which he calculated we had crossed at an average of little over 4 mph, mainly due to my indolence. Even though I felt the odds against Devon and Cornwall being quite so vindictive were astronomical, I couldn’t be absolutely sure what lay ahead, and my optimism became tainted with semi-doubt.