We originally had eight booked for this tour, but Fergus had to cancel for some reason, leaving James to come without his friend, and then sadly Gavin also had to cancel his place just six days before the tour started - it would have been his first tour with us.

Most of us caught the 11.21 train from Newton Abbot to Taunton, arriving at 12.03. James was waiting for us there (he had travelled down on the train from Birmingham), so we set off by around 12.30.

We wanted to get out of Taunton for a peaceful lunch, so after negotiating the busy roads and roundabouts we took to the country lanes and found more than enough peace by the little suspension bridge at Ham near Creech St Michael. Some of our members couldn't resist sitting on the bridge to get a better view of the River Tone.

We rode on at a leisurely pace to Stoke St Gregory where we stopped for afternoon tea in the Willows and Wetland Centre. Next stop was Burrow Mump at Burrowbridge, which just had to be climbed of course. After running around the ruined church and admiring the views across the surrounding miles of flat Somerset Levels we watched a person flying a kite in the breeze.

Riding on along the main road to Othery we were grateful to re-join quiet lanes again down to Pathe, where we got our first close-up experience with the Somerset Levels in the form of swans on the Wookey Rhyne, one of the drainage waterways that criss-cross the Levels. There were willow trees everywhere as we proceeded through Aller and along Beer Drove, and the totally flat terrain was very much appreciated by all.

Street youth hostel is located on top of one of the few ridges of hills in the area, so we had to do a little climbing to get up to Ivythorn Hill and the woodland track from Cockrod, which gave us great views over the town of Street to Glastonbury Tor which is on our itinerary for tomorrow. A short ride along the woodland track then brought us to Street youth hostel, a wooden chalet in delightful grounds.

We spent an enjoyable evening cooking our food and playing frisbee on the open downs near the hostel. We a fabulous dorm on the top floor with our own wooden balcony.

(No notes have been found for today's ride, so this report was written from memory in 2021. Please let Michael know if you remember any other details from the ride)