Day three dawned wet and windy with the forecast suggesting that it might dry out a bit around 11am so we had a leisurely start to the day and headed into Bodmin to the local bike shop to buy some rain covers for my panniers which had leaked a bit the day before.  Bodmin isn’t a place that tries to attract and then fleece tourists and the man in the bike shop didn’t have any rain covers and expressed surprise that anyone should want them or perhaps just that anyone from Scotland didn’t already have them.

We had a leisurely coffee and I got going around 11.30am when the rain was now just a gentle drizzle. The distance to our next stop in Bude was only 36 miles and crossed Bodmin Moor with no opportunities for celebrity chef lunches so I set off intending to just keep pedalling all the way to Bude.

It was a gentle start back on the pleasant and level Camel Trail for the first 8 miles before rising steeply to the village of St Breward and then on to Bodmin Moor. The name Bodmin Moor conjures up an image of an exposed and wild place and that is pretty much how it looked particularly on a wet and windy day that wasn’t what you would hope for on the 8^th of June.  The moor had the sort of eerie feel that you associate with a moor. There were wild horses grazing, goats, sheep, buzzards and a World War II air base with its ruined buildings and crumbling runways and no sign of other humans anywhere.

Nothing much happens other than a lot of ups and downs until the village of Marhamchurch, just before Bude. The route from here is a traffic free path and by now the skies had cleared to blue and the brightly coloured houses of Bude presented a welcoming sight. Bude is a seaside town with lots of shops selling surfing equipment, wet suits, buckets and spades. With no opportunity for lunch on Bodmin Moor, a Cornish pasty and a cup of tea went down very well. Day three was complete after 36 miles and a mere 2,200 feet of ascent.