The back road to Thorverton had its moments but was fairly typical farming community backroad with the occasional interesting farm and / or cottage / church.
I reached Thorverton expecting to continue through but decided to sit in the small village green to rest and rehydrate. I was soon joined by Reith, retired, widowed, and planning to walk the Coast to Coast later this year and the End to End next year.
Reith convinced me to stay another half hour till one of the two local pubs opened. I did, not expecting to find the most heavily armed establishment outside of the British War Museum. Automatic weapons of every vintage and origin hung from the rafters alongside pistols, swords and other assorted waeponry.
As I left a couple on a tandem peddled by and yes, Chris and Dianne were just starting their LEJOG on a hired tandem so we chatted and swapped Blog addresses:
chrisanddiane2012.wordpress.com
Nearby the pub was a house with an unusual entrance. Three Penis House perhaps.
I pressed on to Tiverton along the River Exe desperate to get close to the river and finally at Bickleigh Castle managed to sit in the shade with my feet cooling in the river on an unusully hot English summer day.
I pressed on north along the Rover Exe to find and was tempted to take a swim. Later on I found the local Sewage Works about two miles upstream.
I finally reached Tiverton and Maisie kindly picked me up from the center of town and whisked me away to the the nearby town of Brampton where Maise and Frank live in a beautiful house just above the 13th century Manor Mill and overlooking a former Motte and Baily Norman castle.
So we dined in the terrace overlooking these views and listening to the bell ringing,
I made a decision to discard 2 kgs of cooking gear and rations to lighten my load and posted then back to David at London 'base camp.'
