RogueRunners Devon IV - Day 2

Day 2 started dry, so as Duncan & Alison would be heading home tomorrow we elected to do a new route, the southern most route, all the way down to Dartmoor.

The beginning was a bit turgid to be honest, with traffic all through Barnstaple & then when the roads did get interesting, we were stuck behind a logging lorry for quite some time, but slowly the roads got better &the traffic thinned, but then drizzle started as we climbed up onto Dartmoor. But the road was fantastic as was the scenery. I had found a hotel as a coffee stop, but the look on street view wasn’t promising, so I had a back-up, but in the event the Two Bridges Hotel looked very nice as we crossed an ancient stone bridge to arrive in the car park & as a couple of us were a little ahead I managed to get some photos as the others crossed the bridge.

There were signs up saying parking was £5 for non-residents, we would be customers, but not residents, so I asked at reception & was told parking would be be free if we were customers. Which was a good thing as the place was very genteel, but in spite of that they didn’t even object to Mark’s legs being on show! The room we sat in had no fewer than seven clocks, none of which were showing the right time, one had no hands!

It was a little awkward to exit the car park, but we all managed without too much wheelspin & we traversed the rest of Dartmoor avoiding green sheep, red sheep, horses & cows, before refuelling, then heading back across Dartmoor heading north.

It was here that we found ourselves doing mile after mile on a tiny road with high hedges & grass & even rubble in the middle, I wondered why I’d chosen that road & why it hadn’t been found in checking, then I realised there had been no waypoints at all, so this was a SatNav route, not the T.Y.R.E. route I’d planned.

Just as we got back to roads with a white line up the middle, we arrived at the second coffee stop at Ullacombe Farm Café which was another lovely place. After that the rain slowly got a little heavier as we headed north, but was still little more than drizzle when we re-fuelled & only turned to proper rain once we got back to the hotel. Buy joy of joys - the self-park I'd mended on my Girlfriend's car worked perfectly.

After a rest in the hotel we wandered down to The Lime Kiln restaurant & mostly had fish & chips.