A combination of great weather and one of our favourite destinations helped make this the best ride of the year so far. We took the car to Starcross and then rode past Powderham to the path that runs along the Exe estuary to the Turf Locks. Everything looked very colourful in the winter sunshine and we allowed ourselves a short break to take in the scenery.

Continuing along the canal path we were soon in Exeter passing many other cyclists along the way. Our immediate destination was Pizza Hut, a favourite with our youngsters, where we enjoyed some delicious pizza and unlimited drinks. We then had plenty of time to ride around the park that surrounds the canal, pausing for the youngsters to play on the public trampoline.

We returned to the swing bridges by a different path and then followed the canal path back to Powderham and Starcross - all flat of course, so nobody could complain that the ride was too strenuous!

Perfect weather encouraged us to try another car-assisted ride, this time to the Hennock reservoirs. We parked up in the car park and first rode all around the Tottiford reservoir path, including the far end section that Michael had never previously ridden. We stopped part way round for a "chocolate break" and the youngsters were totally awed by the peace and beauty of the area, the gentle sound of rippling water interrupted occasionally by the call of a duck or the bark of a distant dog.

Continuing along the interesting reservoir path we soon reached the road again and set off along the Trenchford path which had a different style altogether. This brought us eventually back to the car park, and since we needed to be home for lunch we decided to end the ride there and return another day for the longer route that includes the Kennick reservoir.

We had planned an easy off-road ride today to suit a new member, but when he didn't arrive our youngsters decided to stay with the original plan. Our ride took us along the lower track through Hembury Woods, and near the end we were amazed to spot thousands of tadpoles struggling to survive in a few centimetres of surface water.

Ashley insisted we stop for a "chocolate break" on the grassy verge at the top of the hill, then we headed for Hembury Fort where we met Robin Hood practicing his shooting. Well it was actually a 7-year-old dressed in the complete Robin Hood outfit including feather in his cap, and his aim improved dramatically when Ashley gave him a few tips!

We concluded an excellent ride with the descent of the ever-popular slalom track through Hembury Woods, meeting the most enormous St Bernard dog we had ever seen at the bottom. We arrived back at Crofters for around 1pm.

Part of the deal the youngsters made yesterday evening was that in return for not going to the bike shop yesterday they would leave early this morning. And sure enough, by 9am we were taking photos and videos of the grounds and the hostel, and by 9.12 we were off. We soon stopped again when Zac’s panniers shook loose going down the track from the hostel, but we reattached them after only a short delay.

First stop was the Tesco superstore in Minehead, where we bought all the food we needed for the next twenty-four hours. We were about to leave there when Zac and Ash realised they had left their helmets in the store! We then rode straight to the bike shop, Pompys Cycles in Mart Road, where Michael bought a tyre and 3 inner tubes for £25.50. He had fitted the new tyre and one of the inner tubes within 15 minutes, but then Zac decided he needed to get his rack straight from when he kicked it earlier, which delayed us a little longer. We dropped the old tyre to the recycling centre around the corner.

We bought some pasties for lunch from the main street in Minehead, then started the long climb up North Hill. The weather was surprisingly pleasant, with plenty of sunshine and blue skies. Ash led all the way up the climb and was very positive today, really enjoying the ride. Michael wished he had the Satnav that he had left at home so he could tell them how much further we had to go.

We had a chocolate break at the top of the hill at around 11.25, enjoying the superb views over Minehead to the sea, then pressed on to the Selworthy track, pausing along the way to see the Welsh coast on the other side of the Bristol Channel, and to make some phone calls.

Everyone enjoyed the downhill track to Selworthy – we stopped three times for photos and videos. Then we spent a little time in Selworthy village, which was very quiet today. The café was open so we went in there for a drink and caramel shortcake, and the youngsters had fun rolling down the slightly sloping Village Green – all caught on video of course.

Our usual bridleway took us through delightful scenery to picturesque Allerford, where everyone except Michael took up the challenge of riding through the ford without falling off. Zac and Ryan rode through it again for the video, but Ash felt once was enough!

The foothills of Exmoor took us up Chisland Drive towards Luccombe, and when we saw a wide-open field with great views just off the lane we felt it was the perfect spot for lunch. We ate our food in the sunshine, took some photos, had some fun and finally set off again around 2.20, which we thought left us plenty of time to cover the last few miles of the ride. It’s a shame we can’t find such great spots on every cycle ride!

The first climb, up to Webbers Post, was not too arduous, although Ash’s knees were beginning to hurt a bit, so he went on ahead to deal with that. At the top we found loads of sculptures in the forest near the viewpoint, which made an interesting digression for us as well as giving us a chance to rest. Next was the downhill to Cloutsham Ford (nobody came off) and then the longer climb past Cloutsham Farm, which was very tiring, but everyone was in good spirits now.

When we reached the top, near Lang Combe Head, we were at a height of 478m above sea level. This was the highest road in the area – certainly the highest on Exmoor, and probably the highest in the Southwest, so it wasn’t surprising that we got more excellent views across the Bristol Channel. Now that we were exposed to the elements, however, we had a very strong headwind that made this final part of the ride rather unpleasant – Ryan took the brunt of the wind by leading, finding that breaking the ride with ten-second breaks made it manageable. Well done Ryan for taking it for the team!

The final downhill to Exford was a relief. Ash led for the first part of the descent, but Zac got annoyed about that for some reason, so Michael led for the second part. We arrived at Exford Youth Hostel at 5.40 or so, more than three hours after we left the lunch spot. And it seems we needed every bit of that time in view of the wind.

The assistant warden, an Australian, checked us in and gave us the key to our room. We were in the annexe, which was perhaps not what we would have preferred. The showers were a bit cool but Ash found that by turning down the flow rate it was fine. Ash and Michael had Pasta Bakes followed by syrup puddings for their evening meal, although as usual Ash was full by the time he had eaten half of his first course.

After our meals we played Frisbee in the hostel gardens – Ash was not keen to play Manhunt again after last night! Two little girls who were staying at the hostel with their parents wanted to join in our game, but for some reason they seemed to really annoy Ash, who kept saying he just wanted to hit them! Well, he wouldn’t have actually done that of course, and he would never have said that to them directly. We all had fun with it anyway.

Then there was time for Atomic Bomberman on the laptop, playing on Michael’s bunk, followed by the conclusion of the film I, Robot.

To finish a tiring but enjoyable day, they all wanted Michael to regale them with one of his ghost stories. He told them the one about the old lady going up to the church on the hill that had a ghostly light inside. Ash fell asleep first, then Ryan, but Zac managed to stay awake to the end and thought it was a good story.

It had started raining as darkness fell and it continued raining heavily all night. The forecast for tomorrow, however, was excellent, but rain forecast for Thursday.

Exford is in the heart of Exmoor, where foxhunting has been a tradition for a long time, so perhaps it was no surprise that we were woken this morning by the sound of hounds nearby. We had a good breakfast, then Ashley took some video shots around the hostel on a lovely sunny morning. We set off a bit later than planned, at around 9.45, and after looking in the local shops we started the climb towards Simonsbath.

Ryan was suffering from sore knees this morning, so he was grateful when we arrived at Simonsbath where we had planned a refreshment break. First, we looked in the Simonsbath Saddlery shop, where a mother and daughter were having an argument about money, and we bought some of their Sheep’s Milk Ice-creams, which really were not nice. Then we visited the Boeveys Tea Rooms around the corner, which was a really exceptional café, boasting the best hot chocolates you could wish for and absolutely huge toasted teacakes! Ryan was so sure Ash wouldn’t be able to eat his that he offered him £2 if he could. Well, Ash did eat it somehow, and Ryan ended up £2 worse off. Punches!

We rode on to Challacombe where we stopped at the Post Office and General Stores by the main road to buy lunch. As usual it was well stocked with hot pasties, and we ate them outside the shop on the picnic table at around 12.50. Perhaps it wasn’t too surprising that Ash wasn’t that hungry after the huge teacake earlier. Zac had a problem with the tomato ketchup – he had to squeeze it quite hard to get any out, but then it exploded and squirted ketchup everywhere. As Ash said, it had a high-pressure valve.

We had a climb after lunch on the way to Blackmore Gate and couldn’t help noticing all the spring lambs in the nearby fields. From Blackmore we took the shortcut down to Parracombe and up the other side, then followed the delightful lane down to the Hunters Inn, arriving there by around 2.40 – very good timing really. We browsed the gift shop, bought ice-creams, and took some photos, then started on the coast path to Woody Bay which starts from right next to the Inn.

This path is one of Michael’s favourite cycling routes, and today it looked perfect in the afternoon sunshine. Everyone loved the path with it stunning sea views, so we took our time riding it, with plenty of stops to admire the views and take photos and videos. Zac was a bit saddle sore today so took even more time over the climbs, but he was determined to keep to his plan of not walking once on the tour. Ash led the field with Ryan staying with him for most of the ride, but we really weren’t in any hurry.

Joining the road at Woody Bay we had a great descent to the Lee Abbey area, although Zac was not amused to find the “surprise hill” that needed to be climbed afterwards, past the abbey itself. We took some time to wander around the rocks at Valley of the Rocks, then followed the coast path from there to Lynton bathed in more glorious sunshine.

At Lynton we crossed the Cliff Railway and rode up to the higher station. After visiting the nearby supermarket to buy our food we rode all the way down the steep Cliff Railway path again to Lynmouth, which is at sea level.

Tonight, we were staying at the Bath Hotel, the cheapest place we could find in the area since Lynton Youth Hostel close a couple of years ago. We didn’t want to buy their expensive meals, and of course there would be no self-catering facilities there, so we visited a nearby shop and bought pizza and chips to eat in. They were a bit small, so we offered them 50% more money to get refills, but they refused, so they lost out on some extra money there.

The Bath Hotel was enormous, and to reach Room 25 we had to follow a long maize of corridors and three flights of stairs – we almost needed a map! Our room was very spacious however, even with the extra bed they had put in there for us, but there were some bad points. First, the beds all head sheets and blankets rather than duvets, which made them a bit restricting. Then we found the en-suite room only had a bath! We requested a shower attachment and were given a shower head with some tubes to attach to the bath taps, but unfortunately the tubes leaked so we just had to make do with the bath.

To cool the room down we turned off the radiators and opened the windows, then we set up Atomic Bomberman on the laptop and played that while we took it in turns to use the bath. We paid £2 for internet access and discovered that there was now not much rain forecast for tomorrow after all, which was encouraging. To round off our last evening of the tour we pushed some of the beds together and settled down in comfort to watch The Last Mimzy movie, requested by Zac, which took us up to 10.30.

Ash managed to grab the only double bed in the room of course, as usual. Everyone wanted a last ghost story, but as Michael thought it was a bit late, Ryan started to tell one that he was making up. It didn’t really capture many imaginations however, as Ash was asleep within minutes.

We videoed the long journey from our room to breakfast, as the journey was quite involved. We had breakfast at 8.30, and Zac, being Zac, had a Full English breakfast. We took our time to get ready and it was 9.45 when we were finally ready to leave. The hotel was located on a bustling shopping street, so we checked out the souvenir shops before getting our bikes – Ash bought a special gift mug with a dog motif, for his Mum.

We rode the short distance to the Lynton and Lynmouth Cliff Railway where Michael successfully negotiated a discount where the youngsters’ bikes went free instead of for the usual £3 charge. When everything was totalled up, everyone paid just £1.25, which Zac thought was reasonable. The journey up didn’t take long but we got some good views down to Lynmouth, and it was much easier than cycling back up the path!

Once we reached the station at Lynton and established that it wasn’t raining, we decided to cycle up the long hill to Blackmoor Gate instead of taking the bus. Ash wasn’t too pleased to have missed out on his bus ride as his knees were hurting today, but he pressed on up the B-road. Along the way we passed an unusual site – a bird of prey was perched just inside a garden, tethered to a perching post.

Unfortunately, one of those occasional patches of rain that were floating around made contact with us quite soon after we started the climb, starting as light drizzle but getting worse as we continued. Now everyone wanted to take the bus before we got soaked, but it passed us on a narrow, busy section of road where there was no bus stop, so we just had to watch it go past and carry on cycling. We decided there and then to take a bus from Blackmore Gate after lunch.

By the time we reached the top at Blackmoor Gate, the rain was really bad and we were all drenched to the skin and quite tired. It had been a challenging ride for everyone, so when we found the Old Station House Inn, the only building in this godforsaken place apart from the bus shelter in the car park opposite, we were absolutely over the moon to discover that it was warm, cosy and served a wide range of hot meals.

We had a great time in there, drying off, warming up and eating a range of toasted teacakes, sticky toffee puddings with custard and hot chocolates. There was even a Juke Box where we could play some of our favourite music. Everyone was happy now, especially Ashley, who was feeling much better after reaching the top. We took some final video shots in the restaurant before setting off at 1.25. It was dry now, but we weren’t chancing cycling again, so we crossed the road to the bus stop and caught the 1.35 bus to Barnstaple. Fortunately, there was nobody else on it, so the driver let us bring our bikes on and charged us just £9 for all four of us – a real bargain!

We passed through some more patches of rain on the way to Barnstaple – the worst was over, but we were still glad to have taken the bus. When we got to Barnstaple, we commemorated the end of the tour as we often do by visiting the local Pizza Hut near the station.

We planned to catch the 3.43 train to Exeter, but because it’s not possible to book the bikes on these trains and they are only supposed to take a maximum of two bikes per train, we had to be prepared to take the next train instead. As it turned out the guard was friendly and was happy to take us all. After boarding the train, Michael got out his laptop and we all played Atomic Bomberman while listening to some music. Everyone was really happy now, so it was a great way to finish the tour after a difficult morning.

Our connection at Exeter was delayed by 14 minutes, so it was 5.45 when we finally pulled into Newton Abbot station. Ryan’s parents and Zac’s parents had been delayed getting to Newton by traffic congestion, but as we were late arriving they were all there waiting for us.

Another tour was over, and looking back we had generally enjoyed good weather and some of the finest scenery in the Southwest.

(Previous recorded mileage was 17 miles)