The Acland family were a little late starting and so opted to take the car to the top of Ausewell hill. They passed us near the bottom of the hill, but no amount of persuasion could even get Charles to ride it with us, much to Ashley's frustration!

An unmarked path across the moor led us to Buckland Beacon and the Ten Commandments Stone. It was here in 1928 that a stonemason from Exeter was engaged to engrave the Ten Commandments into granite slabs by the Lord of Buckland Manor. The work took six months, during which time the stonemason lived in a cow shed on the site and was supplied with a loaf of bread each day for his efforts! Nobody except Michael had been here before so there was a race to find the stone first. Sam won, but only by asking another visitor where it was!

When we had found the only letterbox on the tor we headed along a different moorland track to Cold East Cross, passing some rather lazy-looking black cows along the way. It was getting rather close to lunchtime and nobody really fancied Michael's idea of climbing Rippon Tor (not even Michael himself), even if there were several letterboxes there. We headed instead for Bonehill rocks which offered shelter for lunch and an abundance of letterboxes. Ashley, whilst looking around for boxes, discovered a young Australian man and his friend with full mountaineering gear trying to climb a big boulder that was only twice their height!

A steep downhill brought us quickly to Widecombe, where the Green cafe provided useful refreshments for those who had neglected to bring a packed lunch. Freddie, always cautious here after the time he put hand wash liquid into Michael's water bottle, returned to the table to discover everyone looking at his own bottle that he had left there unattended. Their looks alone were sufficient to convince him his bottle had been doctored, even though it hadn't been touched!

We headed back to Leusdon for the downhill to Spitchwick which everyone thoroughly enjoyed. Charles and Heidi then took the left for Buckland and the car while the rest continued through Spitchwick Common itself which was pleasantly deserted today. Hembury tracks provided a grand finale to the day's activities, with the usual computer games to follow.

Weather was somewhat overcast for our car-assisted ride to Haldon, but we were still a bit surprised at the relatively low turnout for a ride that is always great fun.

Having parked in the gateway car park near Buller’s Hill we first rode the Play Trail as a warm-up, offering interesting and mainly level paths around the nearby forest. There were interesting play activities around almost every corner of the route, which of course Ashley and Olly just had to try out. Next was the Family cycle trail, which was a little longer and slightly hillier. We then rode the few miles across Haldon's autumnal lanes to Mamhead Obelisk, which offered magnificent views to the Exe Estuary and beyond while we ate lunch on the comfortable seats. This was a new location for all except Michael, and they were so impressed that they will undoubtedly return again.

A few spots of drizzle began to fall as Olly and Michael chased each other around the nearby undergrowth, so we headed back along the tracks near the Obelisk and arrived back at the Forest Park just as the rain seemed to become more settled. We had seen a van selling hot pancakes earlier, so now was the time to sample them whilst giving the weather a chance to decide what it was going to do.

Freddie, who was also cycling around the park with his family, met us briefly, but the rain was definitely in for the afternoon and neither Charles nor the youngsters could be persuaded to do any more riding today. We headed back to Buckfastleigh for some computer games, looking forward to returning to the park at a future date.