Day 40  - Bude to Crackington Haven.

 

Date: Sunday 13^th June 2010   Distance: 26.01 Miles

 

We drove down to Crackington Haven on Saturday in a  hire car, stopping at Snowshill NT. somewhere really near Evesham. It's a wonderful place full of interesting objects. a Mr Wade had collected his whole life,(highly recommended.)

 

We stayed over night at Crackington Haven, which is south of Bude where we ended the last leg. We decided to cycle to Bude, although this didn't add any miles to our coast ride. The cycle ride back did though. On Monday morning we would return the hire car making complicated logistics.

 

After a brief down and up through the valley at Crackington Haven, the road was flatter than we had been used to. Then it was onto a ridge. We only got off to walk 3 hills. The downs gave us enough acceleration, without burning rubber, to roll up the other side most times. Managed to buy some fruit at a village called Week St Mary’s in the post office. (Average speed 8.5 for the ride to Bude.)

 

We caught up a tractor carrying rubble, and detected a smell like stale kitchens / rubbish heap. After several cars went by smelling faintly of chip fryers we decided that maybe there was a market here for chip oil fuel.

 

The rock formations at Millock were very interesting, with the lines of the strata running in many different directions.

 

Bob was very rude to a passing cyclist who suggested that Pat was just a passenger, a simple *iss off made me feel a lot better as he cycled off into the distance with his stripped down bike, and all alone.

 

We would like to comment on the useless lady in the tourist information at Bude, who could only find two B&B’s at £150 a night! Shame the place we found for the next night was registered with the tourist board. On reflection she did the places at Port Issac, where we wanted to stay, no favours. It is a place with very limited parking, and here she had 2 people with a bike who didn’t need a parking place. We spent 12 days in Cornwall and didn’t use the tourist board again, either their offices or web site.

 

On a final note, it was a beautiful walk through the woods of just over a mile down to the pub at the edge of the cove from the B&B, back up of course. The Coombe Barton Inn is well recommended, the best staff of anywhere we visited. The food and beer were both enjoyed on the two nights we went. The sunsets were really lovely, and we must comment on the huge hairy caterpillars on the road back from the pub, some of course had been flattened.

 

The B&B was 14 Lundy Drive Crackington Haven. http://www.crackingtonhavenbandb.co.uk/

and we mention this because they went above and beyond what was expected of B and B hosts as you will see tomorrow.