Friday

Today I crossed the Brendon Hills leaving the Exmoor National Park behind at Monksilver.

I had a late start at 9.00am after a fine breakfast at the Royal Oak. I changed my plan last night when I discovered that the pub had drying facilities so took the opportunity to get some clothes washed. When I was on Ride-Stride-Glide, my John O’Groats to Land’s End trip, my brother Alan took care of all the support work, but this time it is down to me.

Today’s route was a third less than yesterday in distance but with around the same amount of climbing. Basically it was a roller coaster of ascent over ridges before descending to river valleys.

A steep pull up from Luxborough was followed by the descent into Roadwater. Two kilometres of up hill later I went downhill to Monksilver where I had tea at the the pub.

Travelling on to Bicknoller involved another up followed by the inevitable descent. Somehow I missed a turning off of the main route. I was very pleased that I had made an error as I had assumed that the bus stop I wanted would be in the village. However, it was on the main A358, just where I joined, it and a bus arrived within 5 minutes at 3.03.

Five minutes later I was at Williton looking for the Mason’s Arms.

Tomorrow is a much longer day, 25k with 580m of ascent. The good news is that I can get just under half of the climbing done in the first 2km ascending to the main Quantock ridge.