Take it Slowly....

As well as cycle rides I am also managing to get out walking around the Moors and the Devon lanes. 

Most of the lanes around this location are sunken lanes having been used for many many years.
 I do enjoy walking these lanes but one of their drawbacks is that you don't get much of a view.
During the summer it's more of an annoyance than it is at this time of the year because with all the gales that we have had and are still having it does offer a lot of protection from the winds.

When you leave the banks and hedges that is the sanctuary of the sunken lanes and get out on to the open moorland you really notice the difference.
 The shield that the lanes provide you with can make the walk a lot more pleasant in the bitterly cold winds that we get at this time of year.

 As you move out on to the edge of the moor as well as feeling the wind a lot more you can also come across Dartmoor ponies.
 These animals as well as the sheep which seem to be everywhere on the moor have total freedom to roam.
 They are contained on the moor by the use of cattle grids on the roads but the animals don't have any road sense at all. 

As you drive or cycle along you have to be prepared for them to wander out across the road in front of you.

Every so often you will see signs like the one above giving a running total on the number of sheep and ponies that have been killed on that stretch of road by idiot speeding drivers.
 The sign above indicates that during 2019 eight sheep and four ponies were killed and that section of road is only just over a mile long...
If you come to Dartmoor for a visit just remember to take it slowly on the moorland roads.....

New Plans...

Now that Christmas and New Year have come and gone Anne and I will start to make plans for this year's touring...

 We have decided that we will stay on at this location until after Easter...
 The main reason is that it makes sense to stay here over the Easter holiday period because if we were to book into a club campsite they will charge us an inflated price for our stay as it is a bank and school holiday.

 If we stay here we will only be paying our seasonal rate for Easter which is far less than either of the club's charge for the same period. We will in effect be staying on here for an extra three weeks before heading on to our regular spring visit to Dorset.

 We will be in Dorset for about six weeks but we haven't decided yet which site we will stay at.
 Whilst there we will have the caravan serviced and I as usual will be having various medical checks.....

 We are undecided as yet where we will move on to from there....
 Over the next two/three months we should  start to formulate our destination plans for this year's touring season.
 When we have come up with some ideas I will share the plans with you as always......

 On the cycling front I am now starting to get into improving  my fitness after some very high chocolate consumption over the past month 😊...
 Trying to lose weight is my number one priority right now....

 Below are some images of posters and shirts that were on the walls of a new cafe we found in Tavistock about a week ago...
 The owner is a keen cyclist and even offers a discount on your bill if you arrive by bike...

The Fifth Year.....

Yes .. this will be the fifth year that we will have spent Christmas and New Year in Eva the Eriba....

 Every winter season we have over wintered down here in Devon and this year is no different.

 For the first three years we spent the season at the C&CC site near Tavistock and we really enjoyed ourselves there with a good group of people and some fantastic site managers who always put on a get together on Christmas and New Years Eve.
 They then moved to a different site in a different part of the country and the new managers didn't exactly fit in with the 'friendly club' tag line...

 Last year we found our current location just a few miles out of Tavistock....
 It's a private site and we enjoyed it so much last winter that we are back again for our second winter season here...

 It's quite surprising the number of people who decide to spend the Christmas and New Year on a campsite in their RV.. motorhome or caravan with some even braving it in a tent.. although with all the wet weather we have been having it would be only the very brave or foolish that will attempt tent camping this year I think......

 Anyway we are now preparing for our Christmas here on the edge of Dartmoor and I would like to wish everyone out there on the 'blogosphere' the very best of Seasons Greetings to you all.

 The Purpletraveller blog will be back again early in the New Year....

Back up to Dorset ......

Sunday 15th December 2019.....

Today we have travelled back up to Dorset to visit my daughter and also to attend yet another MRI scan at Poole hospital.

 We didn't leave the campsite until about 1400hrs and the morning was quite dry and sunny although it was cold....
 About 45 minutes before we started our journey the heavens opened and it poured with rain...
 The roads were very wet but it didn't seem to slow people up as lots of cars flashed past us at silly miles an hour.... 

As we approached Honiton we encountered a really bad hail storm which turned the road into a skating rink and one car seemed to have braked too hard and spun out of control careering straight through the centre reservation destroying the reservation cables as it carried on across the opposite carriageway ending up embedded into a bank....

 The hail that had fallen had not melted but had frozen as it hit the road and had just accumulated on the roadway making it take on the characteristics of an ice rink...
 Perhaps if the driver had kept his speed down he would have avoided this accident...

 Anyway we stopped off in Honiton for a natural break and when we set back off again we found that the eastern side of the town had really dry roads with no sign of the previous bad weather so the rest of our journey proved uneventful.

 A couple of images below showing the ice rink like conditions in the main car park at Honiton....

My MRI scan is scheduled for early Wednesday morning and following lunch in Poole we will be heading back to Devon in the afternoon. 
Hopefully our return journey will be less eventful...    
If there are any further developments I will keep you informed.   

More Huff & Puff.... it's more Gales .

Yes. .the settled weather didn't last long before we had more strong winds and rain...

Walking on the moor there are signs of damage caused during the last bout of strong gale force winds....
 The trouble with the moor is that it is so open that there is nothing to break the speed of the winds..
 Having said that I have to admit that one of the things that I have always enjoyed about walking in wild landscapes is the wild weather that goes with the territory....

Back at the caravan site we have had to close our pop top roof yet again... It's no real problem for us as we both have headroom with the roof closed..
 Looking at the weather forecast for this coming week it seems highly likely that we could have the roof down for most of the week....

Today we went into Tavistock to visit the Christmas tree festival at St Eustachius church.
 We have visited the festival most years that we have stayed here over the festive season....
 It's always nice to see all the trees that have been dressed by various local businesses and organisations in the area and it helps to raise funds for charity..... 

Following our visit we went across the road to the Bedford Hotel for afternoon tea .. and very nice it was... although probably a bit too civilised for me :-)

Doing not a lot......

Over this past week until today we seem to have had wall to wall rain and strong winds.....

 The campsite that we are staying on is towards the top of high ground overlooking the river Tamar and across to Cornwall.
 Any strong winds coming in from the south west can hammer across towards us and on a couple of occasions over this past week I have had to lower our pop top roof both for safety and also to make it a bit quieter for us to allow us to get a good nights sleep.

 The constant bad weather has really restricted our activities...
 We really have been doing not a lot.
 No cycling and no walking on the moor that is unless you wanted to end up completely soaked.

 Even the best wet weather gear that you can buy wouldn't have been able to keep you dry over this past week...

 Then today arrived...

 What a lovely day we have had....
Yes it has been cold but it was dry and the sun was out and it does really brighten everything up including our mood. 
 The cold I can live with much better than I can the rain.....
 Mind you having said that looking at the national weather forecasts we always seem to have some of the warmest or should I say less cold weather down here in the southwest than the rest of the country...

 The forecasts are telling me that we should be able to enjoy some more settled weather over this coming week so walking and cycling should be back on the agenda.
  Below are some images of our campsite..the lane outside the site and this evening's sunset looking over towards Cornwall.... 

The Old Bike.....

Whenever I see an old bike I can't help but wonder on what sort of life that it might have had.

 At one time the bike in the image above would have been brand spanking new...probably sitting in a bike shop somewhere just waiting for someone to come along and purchase it.

 It would be just waiting for someone to give it some life.... after all a bike is nothing until it is ridden.
 The paintwork would have been gleaming and the chrome would have been sparkling and all shiny and new. 
The rubber handle bar grips..the saddle and the tyres would have had that brand new bike smell.

 Looking at the bike with it's rod brake levers that would probably have been sometime about the 1950s. So this old bike could have had 60+ years of being ridden along the roads....
 That could be many many miles of someone enjoying the pleasure of turning those pedals... and sitting on that saddle and listening to those wheels swooshing along the road....

 Now it is being used as an advertising feature outside a shop in the town of Chepstow.....
 However with just a little bit of TLC this bike could be restored to a serviceable and rideable condition....
 It could still have a good few years of use left in it.

 It might not be as quick and smooth as a modern bike and it might not stop as quickly with its old style braking system but it could still do what it was originally intended to do and give someone the pleasure of riding a bike.

 I have to admit that I can never understand why a lot of people feel the need to change their bikes every few years when the lifespan of a cared for bike can be many years....

 My own bikes are all about ten years old now and each one is still able to give me hours of riding pleasure....

 Maybe at some point in the future my bikes could be sitting out front of a shop somewhere being used as an advertising feature and someone else will be wondering what sort of life they have had....how many miles they have done and where they have been...