Day 2 - 18th July 2002

Tracy

Up relatively early (for this trip), before 8. After breakfast I headed to town with Mike to take pictures and buy a few items while everyone else packed their bags, reorganized the loads (i.e. Mark and I getting a lot more weight to ease everyone else). Once again we weren't off quickly, about 10am before we hit the road but again the weather was sunny and relatively cool. Progress was slow for the early part of the day but a stop at Burger King (the kids were still not convinced by British food at this point) brightened everyone up and kept us plodding along. The A390 is an acceptable road for biking but the route today was tough with a lot of north-south rivers to cross on our east-west road and we were tired by Liskeard where we stopped at a convenient pub's beer garden for a restorative combination of ale, soda, pasties and pickled eggs.

Resting on a climb

Liskeard to Tavistock was another slow ride with a lot of up and down, climaxed by the drop into and then climb out of the Tamar valley but we had elected to send Mark ahead to scout accomodation while I hung back in case of problems among the slower moving traffic. He found a very pleasant B&B with plenty of space out back for bikes and a stop at a small store found us the makings of dinner which we ate in our room prior to a quiet night.

The pattern for future days was already beginning to take shape with one of Mark and I leading the way while the other trailed the slowest rider with a set of tools. Manda was usually slowest (and had to be actively told when to change gear for the first few days), Tracy was slowest on the steep uphills, Mickie the slowest going down and Michael easily able to run ahead or slow down depending on his mood.