Michael had considered taking some to Haytor by car to ensure that we could complete the ride within a reasonable timescale, but everyone was quite strong enough when we met at the start so we set off together for Ashburton. We were pleased to see Jack Greep returning to club rides after a long break, and also Henry and his mum Jill from Exeter.

The sun was quite hot by the time we reached Bickington, but everyone coped well with the long climb to Haytor, Ashley putting his new hill-climbing skills into practice. There was an ice-cream van at the bottom and top of the hill near Haytor, but both sold only lukewarm drinks - much to Jack's disgust!

When everyone was doing the ten tors had walked up to Haytor and back we rode the short distance to Saddle tor where we settled down for lunch at 1.15. Michael was amazed when Heidi produced a picnic blanket from her bike and settled down on it with Jill - clearly the grass is no longer good enough for some of our members!

There was considerable interest in letter boxes in view of our missed letterbox special a few weeks ago, so our youngsters ran all over the tor finding dozens of boxes in various locations. We collected several stamps and left our own cat stamp in some of the boxes.

Michael took a minor tumble on the descent to the road while waiting for Heidi to walk in front of him, but with no harm done we continued to Hemsworthy gate and walked the short distance up the hill to Top Tor. The ladies settled on the rocks for a lengthy chat while the rest of us found letterboxes left right and centre and walked on to Pil Tor and Hollow Tor to find even more. The youngsters were most impressed with a box at Pil Tor that had an intricate dragon stamp with a gold ink pad. On the way back from Hollow Tor we were greeted by some very friendly dogs, and our youngsters just had to make a fuss of them.

It was now past three o'clock and everyone was getting very thirsty, so we made the decision that six tors and loads of letterboxes would be quite enough for this year's event. Bonehill, our final tor of the day, provided plenty more letterboxes and even a junior letterbox owner who didn't want us to look while he hid his new box!

A brisk and steep downhill brought us quickly to Widecombe where we were very disappointed to discover that the village store was closed! It always used to be open on a Sunday afternoon, but now, according to the sign on the door, it closes at 12! We went to the Green restaurant and ordered multiple drinks and a free glass of water each, enjoying them in the cool of the garden. Fred helped Ashley fill all the water bottles from the back room, but he wasn't very popular when Michael found that his drink tasted remarkably like Tesco Value hand wash!

We took the short route home via Ponsworthy, pausing briefly at the ford to see if anyone could slip off their bike while riding through the water. Ashley tried to emulate Tao's route (from our 1993 rides DVD) and ended up not only coming off but also landing face first in the water - much to everyone's amusement!

Temperatures were much cooler as we descended through Leusdon. Spitchwick was crawling with visitors, more than we had ever seen there before: there was no room for us to ride around, so we quickly moved on to an unobserved rope swing and allowed the youngsters a minute or two each before we pressed on to New Bridge and home.

Fred left us at the top of Holne Chase while the rest of us headed back to Hembury Woods. This was Henry's first attempt at the Slalom track, and he had to admit it was a lot of fun. Ashley seemed to have even more energy at the end of the ride than he had when he started, and Jack had done remarkably well considering he hadn't been out with us for ages. We were all tired when we got home, but everyone agreed it had been a perfect moorland adventure.