Day 3: it's hard to imagine that most of the 200 or so miles I've ridden so far were submerged under water not two months ago due to the worst flooding the south-west has witnessed. In fact the rail line at Dawlish only opened a week before my trip after the storms battered and broke it. I'd been keeping a daily check on the repair works to make it was going to be ready in time for my trip. Amazingly after 8 weeks of painstaking work, both day and night, the line re-opened on Fri 4th Apr, 10 days before my trip.
Unfortunately I was still asleep in my cabin when the train passed Dawlish on the way down so I missed it...