Sunday 05 July 2009 - Crediton to Launceston

Crediton - Bow - Okehampton - Lewdown - Lifton - Launceston

I had been looking forward with slavering anticipation to this morning’s breakfast as for once the menu offered a choice, and I had ordered smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, one of my favourites. I was therefore somewhat annoyed upon wakening to discover that in fact I felt rather sick and didn’t feel like eating anything at all. My breakfast, when it arrived, looked delicious but I may as well have been eating cold leftover doner kebab, and I couldn’t finish it. I attributed my indisposition to the questionable cuisine of the previous evening.
In view of my dyspeptic start to the day, I would have welcomed an easy ride out of town, but I knew it was not to be. Crediton is surrounded by hills and the only way out is up. As it turned out the gradient wasn’t too severe and although I stopped on numerous occasions to rest, I never had to get off and push. This pattern of long moderate hills alternating with easier terrain persisted for the rest of the trip.
A few miles out of Crediton on the A377, we met a local chap walking his dogs who gave us some invaluable tips for the section between Okehampton and Launceston. He pointed out that we wouldn’t, as we’d feared, be obliged to use the dreadful A30 as the old road through Lewdown was still available and the terrain was reasonably easy. This knowledge was so welcome that my indigestion vanished instantly.
At Copplestone we turned left on to the A3072, passing through Bow before turning left again on to the B3215 for the last few miles to Okehampton. All morning the great granite mass of Dartmoor had been looming closer, and as we approached the northern edge of the town we began to feel spots of light rain and the atmosphere became noticeably mistier. This heralded the only period of unsettled weather we encountered during our ride. Atlantic lows were fighting an unsuccessful battle against the established ridge of high pressure, and were only really making their presence felt around the high plateaux of Dartmoor and Bodmin moor. Nevertheless, the rain at Okehampton soon ceased and we didn’t really get wet.
It was still only about 10.45, so we pottered around town for a while before locating a fifties-themed café, complete with juke box, one-armed bandit and Elvis and Buddy Holly posters, where we had a coffee, chatted to a cat outside, and asked directions out of town, Okehampton being another confusing place with a paucity of meaningful road signs. We ignored helpful suggestions of taking various idyllic traffic-free cycle paths on the grounds that they’d probably add another 50 miles or so to our day’s itinerary, and kept to our previous advice to use the old A30, the now unclassified road through Lewdown.
In order to access this route we first had a 400m climb up the new A30 to reach the old road at Sourton Down. We left town on the B3260 and Paul pulled ahead as usual. I caught up with him waiting by the roadside at the A30 junction, while two Women on Horseback trotted towards me. Paul described his brief conversation with them:
Paul: “Good afternoon!”
Woman on Horseback: “You’re scary, you are.”
Our first taste of the A30 was over before it had time to become really nasty, and we were soon on the peaceful old road. We stopped to take photographs of two ponies with Dartmoor as a backdrop, then continued our West Devon journey through Bridestowe and Lewdown, taking several breaks along the way, on one of which occasions I found Paul chatting to a rather strange chap who appeared to spend much of his time waiting for buses which never stopped, possibly because he wasn’t at a bus stop. Later we came across a small country pub where we devoured a plate of delectable moules mariniere. Near Old Tinhay, we were caught by a short sharp shower and took refuge in a stone bus shelter, sharing it with a group of cyclists who were heading east. Soon after Lifton, we passed under the A30 after which we joined the A388 for the last few miles to Launceston, crossing the Tamar and the Cornish border about two miles before the town.
All that remained was a steep climb up the hill upon which Launceston and its castle are built. As we rode into the town centre, the rain started again and we dived into a pub to shelter, the friendly staff inviting us to wheel our bikes through the bar into the beer garden/smoking area. We learned that our B&B was only a little way up the road, so when the rain slackened off we hastened to check in and found that our room was on the top floor of a large house at one of the highest points in Launceston. The window faced east and we therefore enjoyed a superb panoramic view of a large part of Devon, including much of our day’s route.
During our evening stroll around the rather quaint old town, Paul disappeared into a church for so long that I was relieved to see he wasn’t wearing a dog collar when he emerged. He had been talking to the vicar, who happened to be from Derby originally. We called at a Turkish takeaway for dinner, which was a delight for me as I’d been pining for hot spicy food since day one, and I devoured my chilli-laden shish kebab greedily. We then dropped into a pub for a pint of mediocre beer and returned back to base in another heavy shower.