The remnants of last night's rain had cleared away by the time we assembled outside Elterwater hostel, leaving sunshine streaming through the large gaps in the cloud. We decided to proceed with the first of several planned route options, taking us along the bridleway from Elterwater to Little Langdale. Once the initial short climb had been negotiated the track opened out to reveal stunning scenery shown off to perfection by the morning sunshine. Michael's photo of the scene turned out to be one of those near perfect shots that are rarely achieved.

The second part of the route was supposed to be the bridleway to High Tilberthwaite, but Michael's particular interest in the Slaters Bridge meant that we inadvertently ended up following the footpath instead. This was a good deal tougher than the bridleway. First we had to explain ourselves to the farm owner who wondered whether we couldn't read the "no cycling" sign on the gate: when we pointed out that we were only pushing our bikes she had to bite her lip and retreat. Then there were the styles, designed to make it almost impossible for anyone other than walkers to negotiate the path: we must have carried the bikes over at least four styles, the last of which was so high that Charles was recruited as a makeshift crane! And finally there was the gradient, so steep on the climb from the valley that the younger ones really appreciated the extra help offered by the others.

But then there were the compensations that the bridleway could never have provided. The Slaters Bridge itself was fascinating, with most half expecting a real live troll to emerge from beneath as we pushed our bikes across its narrow stony surface. The youngsters played on the nearby island in the river. Then there were the views across Little Langdale Tarn to the hills beyond, reminiscent of the Austrian Alps in their sheer grandeur: Jill was so taken with them that she felt the whole tour was justified by these views alone. Finally, near the top we were fortunate enough to encounter a local hill farmer herding his flock of Herdwick sheep up the stony path on his quad. Olly got to the path first and found himself surrounded by sheep passing him on all sides - he confessed later to being slightly anxious, being unaware of their benign nature. We then had to follow the farmer and his sheep for another mile or so of track as it went over the top of the hill, through a flooded section and down to High Tilberthwaite. It really was enlightening to watch the farmer and his dogs at work, and he even took the time to chat with us when we reached his farm.

The path had taken a good deal longer than we had anticipated, so after the youngsters had spent a few minutes playing under a bridge we headed straight for Coniston. We enjoyed an early lunch on a jetty overhanging the lake, made famous in the 1960s by Donald Campbell who died in his attempt to regain the water speed record. There were more ducks here than we had ever seen before in one place. When the first piece of bread was dropped in they all began sailing towards us like an armada!

We decided there wasn't time for the visits to either Grizedale Forest tracks or Tarn How, so we headed instead directly to Hawkshead village with blue skies and bright sunshine all around. Hawkshead is a fascinating village with lots of interesting shops in narrow streets. Olly and Charles found some clothing to buy while Michael checked the times for our final activity - a boat trip in Windermere.

We made good speed along the quiet road to Ambleside, arriving at the Water Sports centre at around 4.15. Here we hired a 6-man motor boat and spent an enjoyable hour sailing around on England's biggest lake, marvelling at the number of exclusive boathouses that could be seen around the perimeter and longing for the time to visit the mysterious island in the middle. Everyone took turns at the steering wheel and nobody disgraced themselves with their performance. How fortunate we had been to get such perfect weather!

Ambleside youth hostel was just a few hundred metres from the Water Sports centre. It's a very large hostel with 257 beds. It is located right on the edge of Windermere and consequently offers some very special views, but even though it was very comfortable and boasted good facilities, somehow it seemed to lack character. Maybe this was a result of the large number of car-travelling middle-aged and elderly visitors who were staying there, or maybe it was the impersonal service that is inevitable with so many staff. Either way it felt more like a small hotel, so the general verdict from our group was that it was our least favourite hostel of the tour.

We rode back to Ambleside to buy food for our evening meal, then spent some time back at the hostel exploring the various staircases that traversed the very long three-storey building and finding the many showers that were distributed along its length. Just when most of us had learned where all the corridors led, Freddie set off confidently from the dorm to lead Michael to the kitchens and found himself heading down some stairs that led to .. a bathroom! Gutted!

There was a games room at the hostel, but this was our last night and the youngsters wanted to finish their tour with some final massive Bomberman contests. For the first time we had 4-bedded dorms and the ladies were not amused to be kept awake all night, first by noisy tourists outside and second by Henry who apparently snored for hours!

Ambleside hostel provides breakfast as part of the overnight fee, so we found ourselves joining the end of a very long queue when we reached the dining area at 8.30. It was a good breakfast though: Henry piled his plates high and reckoned it was a "proper breakfast", whilst Fred and Sam helped themselves to two chocolate croissants each! We had an excellent view of the lake from our glass-fronted dining room at breakfast time. Everything looked perfect with the morning sunshine gleaming off the many yachts.

As we were preparing to leave the consensus once again was that Ambleside was too commercial. We also discovered that Charles had got up early enough to go on an amble to Ambleside before breakfast!

We had plenty of time before our train from Kendal, so we took time out to visit the Lakes visitor centre on the edge of Windermere. It was a pleasant location with an excellent cafe and gardens, but the youngsters were more interested in the well-equipped adventure playground.

Continuing to Bowness we discovered thousands of people lining the lake to watch a display by the Red Arrows as part of the Windermere Air Show. We watched as many of the stunts as we could, but time was pressing so we headed on up the B-road to Crook and Kendal with good speed. Somehow we managed to stop at Kendal, buy some food and ride the last few miles to Oxenholme with ten minutes to spare before the departure of the first of our trains.

This had been a varied and interesting tour that was blessed with far better weather than we had dared hope for in such an unsettled summer. Henry reckoned he would never forget his first cycle tour, and the rest of us took away fond memories of one of Britain's most beautiful National Parks.

Riding along Colston road the youngsters noticed what they thought looked like a spaceship. Closer inspection revealed coiled pipes around the top and a walk-in area, so the general consensus was that it was a solar-heated shower. When Michael pointed out that there was no door or curtain rail however, we decided users would have to be clothed, so the final label given was a solar-heated decontamination chamber!

Our route took us through the Dartington Hall estate from Dartington Church, and then through the little-known village route that nobody except Michael had ever seen. As we turned the last corner we came across a partly-built egg-shaped house with mud walls, and Charles, being fascinated by all things construction, engaged the owners in a prolonged conversation that covered every detail of the design!

Highlight of the morning was definitely the visit to Cranks restaurant, where everyone bought an excellent lunch at the usual high prices. We returned via Colston Road again, which looked and felt quite different in reverse!

There was a good turnout today for one of our most popular rides, including Reuben who hadn't been out with us for two years. We parked the cars near Black Forest Lodge, unloaded the bikes (and youngsters) and set off for Starcross and Powderham.

The Powderham road was closed to motor vehicles to protect runners who were taking part in a charity event. When we passed the Powderham estate we were rewarded with the sight of hundreds of deer racing across the grounds. Perhaps they had been frightened by the runners or perhaps they just felt frisky in the morning sunshine, but they provided Olly with an ideal opportunity to use his camcorder.

Fred, being Fred, led two others straight past the track turnoff. When they eventually returned we crossed the railway line and headed with good speed along the narrow path that runs along the edge of the Exe estuary. Everyone loved the track, and there were plenty more after we reached the beginning of the canal at Turf Lock. The canal seemed to be full of wildlife, including swans and even a heron that blocked our path at close range.

Hunger was beginning to bite, but the youngsters still found time to watch some mini motorbike riders on a piece of rough ground near the centre of Exeter before we covered the last mile or so to Pizza Hut.

Our last two visits to Pizza Hut have been excellent, but today things were very different. When we arrived at 1pm we asked for a table for 9. The waitress looked at the sea of empty tables near the window and announced that they wouldn't have a table for our size of group for around 15 minutes. Apparently the empty tables were closed off because they were short-staffed! We thought about suggesting that we had one of those large tables and that they closed off two smaller tables in the used area to keep the total number of tables the same, but we decided this would be too complicated for them and contented ourselves with asking whether they could move two tables together for us. She looked around vaguely and said she would see what she could do. Meanwhile we asked if we could order in advance of sitting down. The answer once again was no, because they were short staffed!

Thirty minutes later we had checked out the menus and decided what to order but were still waiting by the door. Several twos and fours had been allocated to tables, and some of those had left again 15 minutes later because nobody had taken their order! We asked again about placing our orders before sitting down, but were again told no.

It was nearly 2pm when we finally got a table. We had been determined to get the waitress who took us to our table to take our order before she left us, but again we were foiled: she was not a waitress, she was just clearing tables! At 2.12 we had our order taken, and the food finally arrived at 2.35. Unfortunately one of the orders was wrong, but we had enough food to be going along with. We asked whether we could speak to the manager and were told that the chef was off too so the manager was cooking the pizzas!

Then we got to the part the youngsters had been waiting for: desserts. They all wanted ice cream factories, but once again it took a while to get a waitress. She eventually came and took our order, but didn't make any attempt to clear our table. And after the first two servings the ice cream machine turned out liquid ice-cream - apparently it needs a rest after every serving!

It was 3.45 when we finally got away from Pizza Hut. We negotiated free drinks on our order which provided some compensation for our troubles, but now we had precious little time to complete the ride as we had planned. Our excursion of the park started with the trampoline which provided endless entertainment for the youngsters. Maybe they should get one put in at Buckfastleigh?! We checked out the bridges and then paused briefly to admire the young skateboarders showing off their undoubted skills in the skate park.

As we headed back along the canal for home a huge group of youngsters merged with our group, all riding Giant Rock bikes. We found out that they were a group from Millfield School at Taunton, out for a ride on hire bikes, but Zac happened to have exactly the same bike and he was mistaken for a member of the school group on two occasions! We rode with them past the busy quayside shops and came across a few Exeter youngsters on bikes who seemed to want nothing more than to demonstrate that they were better cyclists than Millfield! Because Zac was with us we had to deny that we were part of the Millfield group!

Our rather belated return to the cars at Black Forest Lodge was punctuated by a toilet stop at Turf Lock and some repairs to Freddie's saddle at Starcross. We didn't get back to Buckfastleigh until nearly 7pm but the youngsters insisted on at least half an hour of computer games to round off what had been an adventurous and enjoyable ride.

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.