Didn’t rush off this morning, it was a bit “soft” – didn’t seem to be actually raining, but everything was wet. Had breakfast and talked to the chap on the vineyard about Sussex vineyards and wines.

Headed off about 9:30 to get back on route by about Langham, where I joined the NCN3. The vineyard guy had said the hills weren’t as bad but the hill into Petrockstowe was steep and seeming endless.

This theme continued, but getting worse. At Black Torrindon, there were a series of deep forested gullies, the first one I couldn’t even cycle down – never mind up!

Why this forms part of a cycleway is a mystery – it will just put people off, I suspect only the fittest cyclist could get up these hills. At Bradford I decided to cut my losses and head along the road into Holdsworthy. It was market day, so had a quick browse around, lunch, then watched the “Leave” campaigners hounding shoppers. Pin striped suits seemed to be the order of the day, for some reason they didn’t pester me. I decided to stick to the 3, but with some modifications to avoid some paths, as the route looked relativity straight and in the right direction. The church tower of Week St Mary was visible for miles but was a really big climb to get up to it.

The weather was improving and I decided to head to Camelford, where there were shops and a campsite. I had enough water so I didn’t need to drink any locally, as I didn’t want blue (or was it green – can’t remember) hair. I blindly carried on the 3, mainly because the route appeared to cross the runway of an airport, and I couldn’t resist seeing what that was about. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your view, it was a disused (or largely disused) airfield Hugh on Bodmin Moor. In good weather I expect the view is stunning, the map showed all the big tors in front of me, but there was just low cloud.

Davidstowe airbase must have been a fair size when it was operating, with three runways, but now it is just a lot of broken tarmac and derilict buildings in the distance. The concrete runways were still visible and clear, but the road had been built up to cross them.

The ride down to Camelford was fast, a quick shop in Co-op (where the best I could get was Exmoor Ale) and a short ride to the campsite just outside town. A really nice site with large shrubs everywhere, and toilet facilities like you get in Germany (a small private bathroom rather than seperate showers etc). There was also a Londis across the road, that not only stocked meths – which was a bit of luck, but a good range of Tintagel ales, with at about 5 miles away was more local than the exmoor ale bought earlier.

Had a good chat to the campsite owner, who said he gets a lot of people going north and this is their first stop, he also said he’d heard that this was the worst bit, if it was worse than north Cornwall I could be in trouble. I planned the next day, but was in two minds whether to try in one go – I think it is 75 miles or more and I would like to ride along The Camel Trail, which sounds like a bit much.