I decided to return home today. I walked from Ivybridge to Morchard Road and had a fair amount of wind, cloud, sun and rain, it was never cold. I wild camped the first night high up on the moor, that was an interesting experiece! En route people kept saying to me that really bad weather was ahead, 'bibilcal rain' was on its way and so on! When I arrived at Morchard Road on Thursday evening dark clouds were definately building. I found a small field adjacent to a fishing club, pitched my tent and then went to the pub, 6 minutes away. Heaven! The landlady and a couple of locals warned me yet again about bad weather.
I returned to my tent in darkness got in and within 10 minutes the heavens opened. I thought my tent would collapse with the weight of rain but of course it didn't. When daylight came I realised that my tent had sprung a small leak at the foot end and the end of my down sleeping quilt was sodden.
I checked the BBC weather, it was predicting that the weather would be at its worst as I would have been approaching Exmoor so I made an on the spot decision to just catch the train home. I'm sure if I hadn't reached Morchard Road or had already walked beyond it I would be still walking but the train line and station halt was right in front of me, so I just took the easy way out. So I caught the 07.38hrs train, two changes later and I was home by 12.10hrs.
I enjoyed my 4 nights and days, the weather was variable so I was able to use everything. In the downpours my £15 Champion long coat worked perfectly, I was dry as a bone throughout. My only complaint, a bit too much road walking.
I had one incident, (maybe its a new sport for some people?) when casually walking along a narrow sunken tarmacked lane a few miles north of the A30. It was sunny at this point and everything was quite, no cars to be heard or seen and I had drifted into my own thoughts.
Suddenly, something touched the back of my leg and a very loud and prolonged car horn blasted at me!!! I nearly jumped out of my skin in shock! I glanced to my right, my brain said 'personal danger' and I instinctively threw myself into the hedge area. In that instant I knew it was a car bumper that had touched the back of my leg. The owner had deliberately and slowly crept up on me in his electric car and I didn't hear a thing! Inside was a middle aged mum and dad and two 12-15 year old boys in the back, ALL laughing their heads off at my expense! As they passed the man shouted "its electric, very quite!" I quickly tried to respond with a sarcastic quip but all I could manage was "Electric cars, you've wasted your money, they'll never catch on!" A puny effort I know but in my shock thats the best I could do! They disappeared and I could only stand in the road and fume!