Glorious summer sunshine blessed one of our favourite rides of the year, to the heart of the South Moor and the isolated Redlake Tramway. It's not exactly a long ride, so we felt we had the time to call in at the South Brent cafe for cold drinks and teacakes. When Tao had eventually worked out that the shop marked Newsagent was not the best place to buy his lunch, we proceeded at a leisurely pace to Wrangaton golf course. We all noticed the pair of golfers stop what they were doing and turn to face us as we cycled towards them. The look became even more fixed the closer we got, so we knew they were brewing up for a complaint. Apparently we were cycling 3 metres too far to the left - we were on the "fairway" and not the marked bridle path! To be honest it all looked pretty much the same to us, being a moorland golf course. Still, being obliging people we did as we were asked - and then found that the path itself crossed the "fairway" a few metres farther along!

The climb up Ugborough Beacon was tough in the mid-day heat, but the wind was fresher on top and the views were absolutely stunning: from the rocky tor on top of the Beacon we could see the coast from Plymouth right around to Teignmouth, and all the land was laid out in front of us like a map. An enjoyable lunchtime was followed by a truly adventurous ride across open moorland to the Tramway and on for several miles to the point near Redlake itself. There was no hurry, and so plenty of time for Michael and Oliver to try out their digital cameras. This was primarily to augment the new photo galleries recently added to the club's web site, but Tao seemed to think it was for his own personal album as he maneuvered skilfully down a steep slope past the grazing cattle.

Having crossed another section of open moorland through knee-high moor grass interspersed with cotton grass, we proceeded falteringly down the rough slope to the warm and sheltered valley of the river Avon. From here, the narrow path wound its way downstream towards the Avon Dam and our familiar route home along the Abbots Way. So ended another exhilarating summer adventure.