After welcoming Mark Lakeman out on his new bike we set off along the usual route through Harbertonford, veering right near Moreleigh to bring us to Crabadon Cross and the Curtisknowle turn-off. We had soon found our way onto the muddy track that led steeply down through the woods to the old railway course, and there we had lunch alongside the swift-flowing river Avon.

Then came the interesting bit - trying to get back to a road. We were really no more than half a kilometre from Gara Bridge, but the railway course turned out to have lost much of its hard core and had certainly suffered under the recent rains. We eventually emerged unharmed, having crossed a couple of bogs and ascended a muddy bank to an equally muddy footpath, but the bikes needed a few spins through the nearby puddles to make them rideable! The owner of the house near the bridge turned out to be a cyclist, and was amused to see the state of our bikes.

In the amount of time it took us to climb the hill towards Lupridge (about fifteen minutes), the sky clouded over to obscure the delightful sunshine that had followed us all morning. Now all we could see was a dark and angry cloud racing towards us from the South West and filling the whole sky as it came. We turned tail and headed down into the valley again to Bickham Bridge, arriving just as the storm struck - but only to find nothing in the way of shelter! Well, there was some shelter in the forest on the way down the hill, but the leading youngsters had sailed straight past it.

It did stop, after we had all got drenched, and this made our return through the picturesque lanes near Diptford a real pleasure.