From Waterrow we decided to stick to the 'B' roads as the laneways are much steeper and by steep I mean 15+% in places. We were going to meet up with route 3 at Bampton but after a quick snack we decided to stay on the 'B' agin to Dulverton.
All I remember of Bampton :)
At Dulverton things went seriously downhill er that should be uphill. We climbed (walked) from 40m to 266m on a road signposted as 1:5, very hard. After that we were grinding our way up another hill (at least we could ride this one) and saw a road off to the side that was signed as 33%, we were pretty glad route 3 did not take that path.
From Dulverton we made our way toward Exmoor National Park and route 3 goes across the very top of it, so we found out.
We reached at height of 485m but a total of 990m ascent for the day.
485m not that high but the grades
An Exmoor Pony
Just after the highest point we came across another cycle tourist who was a local from Taunton and was on a three day ride travlleing light and staying in B&Bs. he was a top bloke and had just had a pint for lunch at a pub not far away...now that's cycle touring. It was funny when he said that he'd just had a pint because we were in the middle of the moor and could see for miles and there was no village?
After we crested the highest point we could see no more major hills but a lot of downhill in the direction we were travelling, yah!!! Sure we dropped 200m fairly quickly and didnt need to pedal much but then we went across a little valley and up the other side it was back to 20% grade and more walking the bikes. Some of these hills were like Timor Leste but not as long thankfully.
After we had done about 50km we started to think about where we were going to stay and we hadn't passed a village with a pub or B&B for ages so I did a search on the GPS for accommodation and 4km away it said there was a caravan park. It wasnt on the map so I got the phone out and it wasnt on the iPhone app we got that specifically finds caravan parks (it's OK we only paid $2). Anyway I got their phone number from Google and rang them and sure enough they dont do campers but make exceptions for cyclists. Off we trundled and came to a nice spot on a hill and the bloke put us in a very sheltered spot, perfect.
Our camp at Greenacres Caravan Park
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