The Toby Carvery is one of a chain of hotels/restaurants owned by Mitchell and Butlers and the operation at Middlemoor, Exeter provides motel rooms with a large restaurant. I booked a room there quite a while ago as it seemed good value for money in the right area. I arrived about 5.30pm and, having booked in online, was given a key and left to get on with it. You have a key fob to get you into the communal areas and a traditional door key for your room, something that is becoming less common with most hotels having programmable cards. The room was quite cramped, and a little bit tired looking, with a large double bed but my bike fitted in fine and the modern bathroom with shower was excellent. A kettle for making coffee or tea seems standard nowadays but no biscuits as you get with Premier Inns and Travelodge.
Having done the necessary and hung up the washing to dry with the aid of an electric fan I went in search of food. The restaurant was a couple of minutes walk from my room and I soon ordered tomato soup (tasty but underheated) and the Carvery with choice of 4 meats and help yourself to as many vegetables as you want and come back for more if still hungry. The lamb was excellent, beef ok and the turkey nice and juicy. Lots of vegetable choice but sadly the only greens were peas. I finished my plate and went back for more cauliflower and dauphinoise potatoes and that filled me up, so no pudding and back to the blog after a couple of pints of Proper Job.
Breakfast was help yourself to as much cooked as you wanted but little other choice apart from toast and a couple of cereals – certainly not up to PI, Leonardo or Travelodge but it was enough to keep me going for the day.
The weather forecast, after heavy overnight rain, was bad with substantial rain due from midday, so I dressed in full bib tights and knit-lock jacket with my waterproof jacket accessible at the top of one of the panniers. I got underway in overcast conditions at 0930 and made my way back to the Exe Estuary trail but on the other side of the estuary. There’s a long section of wooden decking built up over the Marsh with view-holes through to watch wildlife.
I decided not to go all the way down to Exmouth and Budleigh Salterton but cut across country from Topsham to Sidmouth, stopping at Mutter’s Moor nature reserve to put on my waterproof jacket. At Sidmouth the weather had deteriorated to a thin mist that fogged up my specs. It was hard work to navigate with wet fingers making it difficult to control my phone. My cycling mitts were soaked through and, although I wasn’t cold, it was pretty miserable.
Several climbs on the way but no need for the motor until I got to the hill out of Sidmouth which went up to over 16%. Above Sidmouth my route took me past the Donkey Sanctuary, which daughter Kate and her son Matty visited when they were over in summer 2023 and “adopted” one of the residents called Ruby. Unfortunately, Ruby died earlier this year, and the adoption papers were passed onto Cleo. I didn’t manage to see Cleo, indeed the picture shows just how bad the conditions were, but told Kate that I’d looked in.
It was now downhill to Branscombe, a pretty village in some steep sided valleys which sprawls down to a beach
The hill out of the valley was steep and needed full motor power. Part way up I met a camper van coming down and had to GOAP for fear of falling off. No chance of remounting for about 50 metres but eventually got going again to come back down to sea level at Beer and its adjacent village of Seaton as the weather cleared up for a while.
At Axmouth, another steady climb for about 3 miles on my way to Lyme Regis. I was seriously behind schedule and started to realise that I wasn’t going to be able to complete the route that I had planned. I sped down into Lyme Regis which looked busy as the rain was starting to fall again. I took the by-pass around Charmouth and headed to the top of the hill at Morecombelake, home of Dorset Knob biscuits. The rain was now so strong that I sought shelter under a canopy of Felicity’s Farm Shop. It took me several minutes to cross over the road for the weight of traffic and I was now wet through despite my waterproof jacket.
As it looked unlikely to let up any time soon, I pressed on, the rain almost blinding me as I came down the hills around Chideock. At Bridport, where I had intended to carry on along the coast through West Bay and West Bexington to Weymouth I decided to cut my losses and make directly for Dorchester where I was staying the night with my very old friend and often cycling companion Rich who will join me on the next leg. It was utterly miserable and I don’t remember a worse day on my bike since I was travelling around Ireland in 2018.
Amazingly the weather started to clear, and by the time I reached Winterbourne Abbas the sun had begun to shine, and I arrived at my destination at about 5pm, drenched to the bone. Needless to say, photography was impossible once the rain started.
