Wednesday 15th January 2020

Today the weather was much better. We unpacked our bikes.

The Tarka Trail walking and cycle route is within a few hundred metres of the hotel. 

We decided to  cycle towards Braunton.

We followed the trail along the estuary of the River Taw.

We saw this large bird along the way - a Curlew?

The sun is very low even at midday at this time of year.

We cycled as far as Braunton passing the military base at Chivvenor.

The weather remained fine all the way back to Braunton.

We did a round trip of about 10 miles (16 kilometres).

If we'd had the energy we could have continued south on the Tarka Trail inland along the River Torridge.

As it was we were running out of steam and needed a couple of rests before getting back to Barnstaple.

As well as the indoor swimming pool the hotel has extensive gym equipment but we didn't try any of it.

Later in the day we went out in the car to Baggy Point near Croyde.

We went for a short walk out towards the point.

There is a nice view back towards Croyde Beach from here.

We saw a rain squall approaching from out to sea and just got back to our car before there was a torrential downpour. We returned to the hotel.


Next day Thursday 16th January we returned to our house in Widecombe. The weather was just as bad as it had been on the way to Barnstaple on Tuesday.