The Hills Burn Thighs

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We set off from Salisbury just before 8am with hope that our journey would find better roads. And it did.

Most of our morning we spent on country lanes and passing through small towns. Fields, sheep and old parish churches as far as the eye could see. Lots of hill climbing. We spend an hour climbing one hill to come down the other side in about 3 minutes which is liken to going up a flight of 5000 stairs to take an elevator down at the top only to do it all over again. An astonishing amount of horse poo on the roads too.

Stopped at a pub halfway through and had a ploughman’s lunch and a pint.
Second leg became difficult with another stretch of slow gravel road that stretched for 5 miles. We once again had to cut the day a little short. The hill climbing takes longer than anticipated and we were losing light. There are no lights on small country roads so trying to cycle at night would have been very dangerous.
Staying at the haunted White Hart Inn in Exeter. We saw many winding staircases, but no ghost.
My knee is in pretty bad shape. Not too bad when I’m peddling but hurts like hell when I’m not peddling. We will keep on trying. Today will be difficult with some heavy hills and we are both tired and sore but we still want to try.

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