Today was the day after Donald's ninth birthday, and by way of celebration he had invited four of his friends to join him on a special club cycle ride to Holne. Two parents helped to run the ride, but Michael had to run the support vehicle as he was still recovering from a virus. Dennis, being Dennis, just had to make sure the support vehicle was needed by overtaking Joe and then going over his handlebars - he was OK once he had been patched up.

Some of the new youngsters had cycled before so they had no difficulty with the ride along the lower Hembury Woods track. Even Tom and Lukas, who were relatively inexperienced, did remarkably well and didn't complain at all about the big hill up to Holne! The best part of the ride was the downhill woodland track into River Dart Adventures which offered plenty of opportunity for fun and adventure. A short ride along the old Ashburton road then brought us back to Dart Bridge, from where the birthday brigade returned to Donald's house at Buckfast for a birthday lunch and the rest of us returned to Crofters for an afternoon social - which included selecting and buying a few exceptional fireworks for our social next Friday evening!