Day 3 - Moretonhampstead to Wookey Hole

Today was like the proverbial football game of two halves. 

Leaving Moretonhampstead we hit a couple of sharp hills straight away en route to Exeter. 

I had arranged to meet an old school friend Jerry Wallis as we entered Exeter. He had done his own LEJOG a couple of years before and we had only got back in touch in the last couple of months. I had shared our route with Jerry beforehand and he proved to be a very hand guide as we threaded our way through the busy streets of Exeter.

This was the last day that our route overlapped that of the Peak Tours group, who had set off the same day as us and indeed shared the same accommodation last night at Moretonhampstead.

Our brew stop was at Broadclyst and we then had 10 miles cycling through pleasant Devon lanes before hitting one of the harder hills of the entire fortnight as we climbed up to the top of the Blackdown Hills.

A welcome lunch was taken at The York Inn, Churchinford and Craig was then whisked away by Darren to a Taunton bike shop to effect an urgent repair to his rear brake rotor. He did not turn his head unit off so on the trip he clocked the team fastest time in a descent, albeit whilst his bike was in the back of the van.

There was another sharp hill straight after lunch, which caught most of us by surprise as we had thought it was going to be all downhill and flat for the rest of the day.

However, after that last climb we then had a lovely descent to the Somerset Levels and our first protracted spell of riding on flat terrain. 

My memories of that afternoon are of the sun shining, and riding with a large group of our LEJOG gang for the first time as we approached Glastonbury and then on to Wells. Before then, we had a surreal few minutes when our path was blocked by a herd of cows on the road, being moved to a new field, captured by Bill on his video blog for the day.

The air in Glastonbury was redolent with the smell of weed and it felt as though we had been transported back into the days of Flower Power as we rode through that town.

We finally arrived at Wookey Hole, and I had clocked up my new "longest ride in a day" .....again.

The link to Bill's video of day 3 is below, as always, well worth a watch

Day 3     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMxGm7E0vEc