Day Zero: After 30 years, it's just like riding a bike...

For an OS map of today's bike ride (12.9 mi; 20.8 km), click here.

For our “jet-lag day,” Ken had long planned that if the weather was good we would rent bikes and ride on the Tarka Trail, a former railway turned into a biking/walking path. The name “Tarka” comes from the novel Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson (1929). The man who helped set us up on our rented bikes was very good, and gave us some good tips about riding. 

The cycle hire at Barnstaple train station

The bikes each had names on them—Ken’s was “Hubert,” and Sara’s was “Kelly.” Ken hadn’t ridden a bike for about ten years; for Sara, it was probably more like thirty years. But after all . . . it’s just like riding a bike—you never forget, right? Sara was glad she didn't ask about how to change gears--she remembered that she used to have to pedal backwards to change gears on an old bike of her parents', but Ken hadn't heard of doing that. It was quite easy to change gears on these bikes, and no back-pedaling required!

We actually did fine after a little initial wobbliness. The weather was perfect, sunny and a good temperature for being outside. We saw sheep, cows, and painted horses. We got up enough speed that when we stopped, Sara noticed she had a few small dead flies on her chest—the kind you end up with on your windshield on a long road trip! Fortunately they were easy to brush off. 

Ken and "Hubert"

 

We stopped at the café at Fremington, which was extremely busy. Being a bit too early for lunch, we had our first ice cream of the day—Sara had salted caramel and Ken had lemon crunch (note for Dad: this was Cornish ice cream). 

After a nice break, we continued on to Instow, arriving around 2:00. We locked up the bikes and walked into the village, buying our second ice cream of the day—strawberry for Sara and white chocolate raspberry for Ken. There was a row of benches along a low stone wall facing out to the tidal river and the ocean. We found an empty one and enjoyed our ice cream, though this wasn’t quite as good. Oddly, both of them seemed to have jam in them (strawberry jam and raspberry jam). 

Outside the cafe at Fremington

 After sitting there for quite some time, just enjoying the view and the happy dogs playing on the beach, Ken volunteered to go back to the post office to get us some lunch. Soon after he left, an elderly woman and a younger one asked if the older one could sit on my bench, but I said there was plenty of room for both of them, so they sat and ate their ice cream and we chatted a bit. When they were about to go, the older woman asked if they had taken the seat of someone else, and I said no, my husband had gone to get us a sandwich for lunch and hadn’t yet gotten back. The younger woman said, “He’s probably spoiled for choice!” and I agreed he might be taking some time deciding. She said, “It looks like someone is coming with a sandwich now,” and sure enough, Ken was coming towards us with lunch. The women left to continue with their day, and we had our lunch—a hummous, olive, and sun-dried tomato baguette and crips (chips).

We decided that we had ridden far enough that we should turn around, so we walked back to our bikes and rode back to Fremington, where we shared another lemon crunch ice cream cone (that flavour was really good—refreshing and light). We also looked at the little museum there.

After thirty years . . .

We rode more swiftly back to Barnstaple, and were both a bit saddle sore and had stiff legs by the end. As we were coming off the path to go onto a normal road taking us back to the cycle hire, Sara got going too fast around the curve and went off the side of the path a bit, having to stop and then start again. But she didn’t run into any goalposts or juniper trees like she did when she was learning how to ride a bike, so that was a relief. All in all, it was a good experience getting on a bike again, especially with so many opportunities for ice cream!