This year's summer tour started mid-morning at Bodmin on a cloudy morning. Zac had a few problems with his panniers during the first ten minutes of the Camel trail, but we were soon on our way again, stopping for refreshments at the cyclists' cafe.

The path to Wadebridge was not as busy as we might have expected in mid-summer, possibly because the forecast was for showers. We checked out the cycle hire shops in Wadebridge and were shown a range of bikes for hire at £12 per day. Dog carriers were extra, and we saw several of those on the much busier section to Padstow.

Conditions were still dry as we arrived at Padstow, passing the Rick Stein fish and chip shop in favour of pasties and other cheaper lunch items in the village itself. We settled down on a bench overlooking the harbour, admiring the many expensive boats that resided there.

One of our plans for the day was to take a trip on the speedboat, but since the tide was out we had to wait until 3.30 for our trip. An unpleasantly long shower kept us exploring many shops for the hour we had to wait, and the rain hadn't stopped as we boarded our speedboat. At just £5 for a very fast fifteen-minute ride around the estuary we thought it was pretty good value. We were going to get wet anyway, so the only real problem with the rain was that it felt quite painful on our faces as we sped out to sea. It was an excellent trip though, and well worth the wait.

Fine weather returned for the final stage of the journey, which did not prove too hilly. The beach at Harlyn Bay looked so attractive that we stopped for a bit of fun. It got a bit out of hand however, and we all soon ended up waist deep in the sea, with Michael doing his best to protect the cameras and mobile phones. This was our first dip of the tour, and it wasn't going to be our last. We were a bit wet when we returned to the bikes, but the hostel was only two miles away. We took the coastal route around the headland, planning to enjoy Treyarnon's private beach as soon as we arrived, but the heavens opened as we were signing in so a hot shower seemed like the better offer.

Once we had eaten the sunshine had returned. It took only a few moments to decide that we just had to get wet again. The beach was magnificent and this proved to be the most enjoyable swim of the tour. We played in the water for well over an hour before finally hobbling back to the hostel with bare feet.

Today's forecast was the best of the three days, and the sun was shining as we left the hostel. Michael's satnav helped us navigate the lanes and back roads on a somewhat hilly route, bringing us eventually to the Bedruthan Steps cafe where we enjoyed home-baked refreshments.

Next stop was the gift shop at Mawgan Porth, where Ashley bought some underwater goggles. Michael's Cornish relative used to run the shop in years gone by. A massive hill out of Mawgan Porth then brought us eventually to Watergate Bay, one of the largest and most impressive beaches we had seen. There was another hill to climb there of course, so we stopped for a rest and video interviews overlooking the beach. Ash wanted to continue the interview for as long as possible for some reason!

From Watergate it wasn't far to get to Newquay, a popular holiday resort. After a quick look at the beach and sea front we headed down to the Trenance Par and Boating Lake, where the Lakeside Cafe provided an excellent lunch for around £9 each.

Being high summer, the pedal boats were out and available for rental, so we hired a boat and spent an enjoyable time pedalling around the island and fountain, although Ash got closer to the fountain that Michael would have liked. Ash and Zac did the pedalling and Michael did the videoing, so we all had a fun time.

From Newquay we didn't have a long way to ride to Perranporth. We decided to have fun on the beach before going to our guest house, and when we got there we were tempted by the sight of surf boards to rent. None of us had ever been surfing before, so we decided to rent three boards and find out for ourselves what the sport was all about.

Before we got going we met a couple and their two adorable dogs, so they got quite a lot of attention from Zac and Ash. We then had a lot of fun with the surf boards. We found that once we caught a wave it was really quite easy to ride it, and we all got the hang of it after a while. Surprisingly, Michael got some of the best surfs, and commented that Ash looked like he was being tossed around like a rat on the waves, which he thought was very amusing. When we finished Ash got Michael to tow him back across the beach to the rental hut, riding on his surf board.

Soaking wet, hungry and tired we returned the surf boards and rode the short distance up Cliff Road to the Chy an Kerensa Guest House. We had wanted to stay at the Youth Hostel, but it is small and had been fully booked when we were making the tour plans, so this was the next best place to stay. It was actually nice to have large, comfortable beds and freshly-laundered sheets - a bit of luxury for a change.

We walked down to the local corner shop and bought our evening meal from there, although there really wasn't a lot available. Ash had two cheese straws, a jelly and a mango and passion fruit sorbet, not even bothering to eat the yoghurt Michael suggested he bought.

[The second part of this report, after Mawgan Porth, was written in 2022 as no notes have currently been found]

We had a very leisurely start to our final day at the Chy an Kerensa Guest House. Since breakfast was provided we made the most of it, eating as much good food as we could and enjoying the views across the beach from the dining room window. It was 10:50 when we had finally finished taking videos and set off.

Our first task was to ride a little further up Cliff Road to the Youth Hostel at Droskyn Point, where we had really wanted to stay last night. It had been fully booked, but we were allowed to look around and see the even more spectacular views across the beach that we would have enjoyed from the hostel.

Next we returned to the beach itself, where the tide was out. This allowed us to reach Chapel Rock and climb to the top, where we took our final video and photo shots of the tour. It really was a fabulous beach, but Ash was disappointed when he saw the rock-lined swimming pool in Chapel Rock that he hadn’t known about until this morning. But as Michael pointed out, it had been submerged under the sea last night as the tide was in.

We had around ten miles to ride to Redruth station when we left Perranporth at around 12.15. The light drizzle didn’t help Ash to stay in good spirits, but he soon pulled himself out of it and was charging up all the hills, leading the way.

We had a choice of trains to catch from either Camborne or Redruth, but I think we caught the 15:17 from Redruth to Bodmin Parkway, arriving at 16:04. We managed to get a table but weren’t able to play Bomberman on the laptop because the battery was flat. Instead we played card games. Ash had never really played cards much before, and neither Ash nor Zac knew how to play Whist, so Michael started them on Whist with no trumps, then added trumps when they had mastered that, and by the time we reached Bodmin they were enjoying Knock-out Whist! I think we’ll be able to have card games socials in future!

From Bodmin Parkway station we had 4.4 miles to ride back to the car at Scarletts Well Car Park, which involved a bit of climbing and took 45 minutes. We then loaded the bikes up and drove back to Plymouth, where we stopped at Pizza Hut, Crownhill, for a meal. It was a great way to finish a good tour and we all thoroughly enjoyed our time there.

[This report was written in 2022 as no notes have currently been found]