Another hill, and still another

Morning porridge!

I started from Exeter at 9am to Ottery Saint Mary. Pete came with me with
his nice Peugeot bike. We talked much on the way.

Small paths and winding roads.

Coleridge everywhere... 

Note the perfect rhyme.

The "Poet's Stones", not finished yet but currently being engraved in China...
["Coleridge aurait sans doute trouvé ça stupide" (une autorité compétente)].

We ate halva and flapjacks before the church.

To an elderly woman passing by:
"Excuse me, do you know where Coleridge's house is?"
"Yes, up there, but he doesn't live in it anymore."
"Hum well I guess not..."
"He now lives in the parsonage. He is a very good man. Unfortunately, he is going blind."

And we learnt much about the dignified Coleridge family and Melanesians.

Coleridge, Pete and bikes

Then Pete had to go back, unfortunately, and I cycled on my own towards the coast. Good cycling but so many hills! It almost seemed that they were there with a purpose. Things have to add up. Some say "when there's a will, there's a way"; I would add "when there's a hill, there's a view".

I wish I hadn't taken a tent.

My bike it has upon its rack

No doubt a burthen weighty,

Some say this is a common plight

But I am sure it's heavy.

When I arrived in Beer riding down a very steep descent, the sun kept playing with clouds and it was very windy. Some Saturday people sipping pints at an outdoor cafe.

Beer

This sea really different from the northern one. Cliffs falling abruptly into an oily, shiny water.

Never-ending hills along the coast... Bulky forms. Wonderful to contemplate, hard to cycle up.

View from Seaton

The evening came. It started to rain.

I found a road shelter that seemed suitable -- dry and made of solid brick. I could hardly be seen from the road. I slept there for two hours or so. At some point, I opened my eyes and saw dubious black spots on the white wall. Insects. They were on the wall and on my sleeping bag and crushed under my panniers and creaking dead under my feet when I got up and walked. [With hindsight, it appears that they were woodlice. Woodlice are not insects but crustaceans.]

A woodlouse is not a very frightening creature in itself.

I think there was a nest of sorts. They were of all sizes. "A million million slimy things", at the very least. [No, they were not slimy. Woodlice are not slimy. And they were not a million either.] So I took a deep breath, packed my stuff and left. I cycled in the dark with the reassuring massive presence of the sea on my right. I finally found another shelter further south with fewer insects.