This year's summer tour started mid-morning at Bodmin on a cloudy morning.  Zac had a few problems with his panniers during the first ten minutes of the Camel trail, but we were soon on our way again, stopping for refreshments at the cyclists' cafe.

The path to Wadebridge was not as busy as we might have expected in mid summer, possibly because the forecast was for showers.  We checked out the cycle hire shops in Wadebridge and were shown a range of bikes for hire at £12 per day.  Dog carriers were extra, and we saw several of those on the much busier section to Padstow.

Conditions were still dry as we arrived at Padstow, passing the Rick Stein fish and chip shop in favour of pasties and other cheaper lunch items in the village itself.  We settled down on a bench overlooking the harbour, admiring the many expensive boats that resided there.

One of our plans for the day was to take a trip on the speedboat, but since the tide was out we had to wait until 3.30 for our trip.  An unpleasantly long shower kept us exploring many shops for the hour we had to wait, and the rain hadn't stopped as we boarded our speedboat.  At just £5 for a very fast fifteen-minute ride around the estuary we thought it was pretty good value.  We were going to get wet anyway, so the only real problem with the rain was that it felt quite painful on our faces as we sped out to sea.  It was an excellent trip though, and well worth the wait.

Fine weather returned for the final stage of the journey, which did not prove too hilly.  The beach at Harlyn Bay looked so attractive that we stopped for a bit of fun.  It got a bit out of hand however, and we all soon ended up waist deep in the sea, with Michael doing his best to protect the cameras and mobile phones.  This was our first dip of the tour, and it wasn't going to be our last.   We were a bit wet when we returned to the bikes, but the hostel was only two miles away.  We took the coastal route around the headland, planning to enjoy Treyarnon's private beach as soon as we arrived, but the heavens opened as we were signing in so a hot shower seemed like the better offer.

Once we had eaten the sunshine had returned.  It took only a few moments to decide that we just had to get wet again.  The beach was magnificent and this proved to be the most enjoyable swim of the tour.  We played in the water for well over an hour before finally hobbling back to the hostel with bare feet.