Michael was sufficiently anxious about the timing of the final sprint to Carlisle that he got everyone up early and contemplated a main road route all the way. After consultation with other hostellers, however, he consented to lanes as far as Brampton, which took us along a Roman Road and past some more sections of Hadrian's Wall - including a small fort. Drizzle set in as we neared the city, but we reached the station in plenty of time. A pizza shop provided us with excellent fare for lunch as parents gathered to collect their damp offspring.

We had been very fortunate with the weather on this tour, but ultimately a tour is only as good as the sum of the participants. I'm pleased to say that we had an excellent group of youngsters on this tour, and everybody played their part in making it such a success.

That's not quite the end of the story. A number of us still had BR to contend with. We had four bikes booked onto the first HST but when it arrived the guard tried to tell us that there was only room for two. It didn't seem to matter how many times Michael showed him the reservation tickets, he just kept saying that we'd have to go on the next HST. Michael explained as patiently as he could that we had all those spaces booked as well, that that was the last train, and if we couldn't take four bikes on this train then children would be stranded in Carlisle overnight. The train was now late, and still the guard was arguing.

The inspector turned up - and supported the guard. As the train reached seven minutes late the station manager arrived, agreed that the reservations entitled us to travel and opened up the front of the train, where lo and behold there was a cavernous guard's van with absolutely nothing inside. This solved the problem, and the train managed to catch up most of the lost time by the time it reached Birmingham.

It really is fun dealing with BR!

The afternoon turned out to be wet and miserable, but we enjoyed meeting up with our friends from Exeter, Torbay and Plymouth sections, and Arthur's route was interesting and well-planned as always. Somehow the rain didn't bother us so much as the hot tea and home-made buns were served from the van at the end of the ride.

We met up with Ken next morning and enjoyed a ride to Dartmouth via the Kingswear ferry, where the Spinning Wheel cafe provided the refreshments.

There was considerable delay while Ken sorted some mechanical problems, but eventually we set off for Old Mill Creek where Eliot, Chris, Paul and Richard entertained us with leaps across a narrow stream, the last of which was a little short of the mark!

This was a perfect evening for Hembury Woods and Dartmoor. There was nobody else around at Spitchwick so the youngsters rode around on the grassy heath, dipping an occasional wheel into the cool waters of the Dart. Adrian was determined to be the star of the Section's first video, so he fell off his bike backwards and was rewarded with a round of applause.

The majority were in favour of returning by the same route so that they could descend the Hembury track in the dark. Michael, who had just cleaned and serviced his bike ready for Monday's Cornish Coast tour, foolishly allowed himself to be persuaded to join the others down the track. During the descent he found out that he had put his rear brake shoes on the wrong way around: the result was that one of his new, expensive Campag blocks slid out of its shoe and was lost in the woodland debris of the path. He spent ten minutes trying to find it with the help of a dynamo light before he finally had to admit defeat.

Dates for the 1993 junior tour to the Cornish Coast were chosen to coincide with school holidays in Devon, but unfortunately children in most other parts of the country had to return to school much earlier. The result was that we only received applications from two London boys, Clyde Fare and Jordan Walfall. We decided to go ahead with a shortened version of the tour. With Michael and Neil our group size reached the impressive total of four.

We took a train to Camborne and then followed the coastal road through the seaside villages of Portreath and Porthtowan. After some tough hill climbing we finally reached Perranporth hostel, situated on a cliff overlooking the enormous beach, in good time for supper.

Clyde had brought a large assortment of fresh fruit with him, some of which had not travelled too well. The rest of us insisted that he consumed the bananas for supper, before they became inedible: judging by the way he forced them down it was clear he felt they had already reached that unhappy state!

We spent the hours of dusk roaming the beach and sand dunes. By the end of the evening we had concluded that it's not terribly sensible to run around sand dunes in the semi-darkness when there are low wires strung across at random locations.

First stop today was the World in Miniature at Goonhavern, an interesting collection of man-sized models of the world's famous buildings and artefacts. Our planned pedal-boat session at Newquay could not take place because the boats hadn't been brought in yet for the new season. The cafe which overlooked the lake made a good lunch spot, however, and offered the youngsters an opportunity to make friends with the resident ducks.

We got some very unwelcome rain during the second half of the day. A short shower forced us to take shelter in the cafe near Bedruthan steps, but later, when we tried to explore the steps themselves (still closed after storm damage four years ago) we were caught in a torrential downpour that had us soaked in a matter of minutes. There comes a point when it is better to press on to the hostel than seek shelter, and this seemed to be such a moment. The thought of a warm dormitory spurred us on.

It was still raining when we arrived. The warden greeted us with a happy smile and directed us to the annex, a cold, spartan dormitory block across the yard from the main hostel. We felt sorry for ourselves until we discovered the hot shower. After supper we settled down in the warm common room near the open fire for a grand game of Monopoly, and finished the evening feeling that it was probably quite a good hostel after all.

The beach at Treyarnon is secluded and very pleasant. We were entertained this morning by a dog that liked to jump into an ice-cold saltwater pool and swim around frantically, barking in agony!

Next stop was the picturesque fishing village of Padstow, where we enjoyed refreshments in the harbour area before setting off along the cycle path to Wadebridge. The path is a converted railway line and attracts a large number of people on bikes thanks to the cycle hire shops at either end. The path runs to about five miles, so we stopped half-way along for lunch.

The afternoon delights included the donkey sanctuary near St Kew, the slate quarry and wind farm at Delabole and the steep climb to Tintagel. The weather was perfect as we descended the rough track to the hostel, situated spectacularly on the edge of a cliff overlooking the sea.