D46 – Taunton to Halberton (Tiverton)
Actual distance 36.26Km or 23.2miles (or the equivalent of 250,069 pairs of men’s sunglasses)
Total Ascent 330.93m (or the height of 6.2 Wellington’s Obelisk’s)
Staying with Halberton Scout Group
We were up early keen to get off to avoid some of the heat. It was a well practiced display of packing, tidying and cleaning and we were off on time arriving at yesterday’s finish point around 10.
We followed the rainbow road out of Taunton (“It’s just like Mario Kart” said Ollie!) and hit some hills almost immediately slowing our progress slightly. However, our trip has definitely made us stronger than we realised, so despite the gradients we ploughed up them fairly quickly.
We stopped for leisurely drinks (and ice creams with ‘edible’ flowers on top- Ollie tried them all but the big yellow one wasn’t too good!) and refilled our water bottles at the White Post Cafe in Langford Budville then headed to a convenient park for our picnic lunch. Olly- always a mind of information, pointed out Wellington’s Monument- still the tallest 3-sided obelisk in the world!
Full and keen to finish so we could get out of the heat we were back on the road tackling one of the bigger hills of the day (which was a surprisingly busy stretch of single track road!)
Hill done we joined up with the canal for the final 10km along a nicely maintained gravel track (with only one detour for a toilet which kindly resulted in a donation!). Olly dropped his sunglasses as we flew along the track and they nearly fell in the water!
We reached the endpoint for today within 10 minutes of our eta (a first- previously we have been very early or over 2hours past our estimate!). Julie, Tiverton DC, let us in to the Scout HQ in Halberton and showed us around their lovely building, making us feel very welcome. She had left the County RBG camp to let us in (and have a sneaky shower) before heading back to ScoutEx camp where we will be joining her after our cycle tomorrow!
Sadly we had to say goodbye to yesterdays guest blog writer Olly and his son Ethan from our Scout troop who had come up to join us for a few days. They covered a distance of over 100km with us which is no mean feat! We waved them off along with James, who has to go back to do some essential face to face administration in order for him to be able to start his new job. He’ll be back by the weekend!
We rounded the day off with a campfire and toasting marshmallows before sprucing up ready for ScoutEx tomorrow in Exeter!
