Today was the hottest day of the year so far – 28 degrees by mid-afternoon, which none of us found very pleasant. Michael was feeling drained by the heat before the ride even started!

We didn’t get around to leaving until 10.40 or so and then did a fairly short ride along Colston Road, interrupted when Ash got a thorn in his rear tyre which had to be fixed in the shade of a tree.

We continued down to Staverton Bridge where the river level was really low, rode along the riverside path to Staverton Island which was still closed to visitors on Sundays, saw a steam train heading to Totnes and then rode up the woodland path to the park where we played on the new swing thing.

We rode down the Staverton Station where at 12.17 we waited for the train to return. It was the “Driver Experience”, a special hire train with two or three carriages where they hire the whole train for the day for perhaps £400. They get to go up and back four times during the day, taking it in turns on the footplate. When the Driver Experience had gone through we waited for the passenger train to come through from Buckfastleigh and Ash was shown photos of the very big train when it used to run commercially.

We returned home via Caddaford, getting back for around 1.15.