LEJOG Day 4 - Bude to Barnstaple

The Engineer at work.  It was the tiniest piece of metal on the brake disc!

An amazing 30 mile trail

Along the estuary

Morning visitor

Last of the Cornwall hills!

Hoo-boy!  A king sized bed!

Over the viaduct

On the Tarka Rail Trail

Reminded us of pedalling on the coastal rail trail in Varazze

Last Cornwall hill day today, we’ll be in Devon tonight (and we won’t talk about the Devon hills just yet).  It’s a hilly 47 miles today and it looks like it’s going to be a balmy 84 / 29 degrees today.

The rooster just crowed outside our funky B&B window.  Upton Cross is a very cobbled together place, with rooms tucked into every nook and cranny.  We were boiling last night, but the sea breeze came up once it went dark and was a lovely temperature for sleeping.  I had the best night’s sleep I’ve had on the trip so far.

On sleep, earplugs and eye shades make a world of difference when you’re sleeping in a different room each night. We had Belgian motorcyclists in the garden outside our window last night and I hardly noticed them

Really?  This is what you do for blinds?!

And all the light coming in from the ‘artistically’ spaced blinds didn’t bother me a bit with the eyeshades that I’d thrown in the bag at the last minute.

The rooster is still crowing…

The route was a bit misleading yesterday.  Although the Sustrans book said Bodmin to Bude, the gpx of the route went to Marhamchurch and just stopped.  We got out trusty Google Maps for the route to the B&B, but why would it say Bodmin to Bude if it’s really Bodmin to Marhamchurch?  These are the things you wonder about when panting up yet another hill.

Packing for the weather is a challenge when trying to keep the luggage weight down.  I had been checking the forecasts for Truro for a couple of weeks before the trip and the weather looked similar to Lancashire.  But, the weather has turned - in a good way, it’s warmer than expected.  Thank you, Weather Gods!  However, that means I only have one short sleeved jersey, which is why we’re in the same shirts for the past 3 days.  Nightly laundry does occur!

Some serious ups and downs today!  You can see it on the route map, nasty steep suckers!  Not as much uphill pushing today though, we may be starting to get in the swing of ‘twiddling’ (that is a technical term) our way up a hill.  

There have been some fantastic downs, but we need to explain to the farmers that their huge tractors are interfering with our epic descents!  We crest a hill (finally) and start heading down, standing up in the pedals, screaming along and then…a tractor.  Have to stop that wonderful descent, let him go by, often by mere inches as we cower in the hedgerow.

The engineer was back out today as there was a ting, ting, ting as we were pedalling.  Finally turned out to be a bit of metal embedded on the brake disc, file it off and the ting was gone!

After all the hilly bits, there was the Tarka Trail, another old railway that has been converted to a walking / cycling trail - absolutely amazing!  Miles of well groomed, immaculate cycling trail through gorgeous countryside.  There was a gentle climb over several miles on a gravel trail and a paved trail descending into Biddeford.

We cruised along the Taw River and then along the estuary to Bickington, to the Cedars Inn in Barnstaple, our home for the next two nights!  We’ve made it out of Cornwall, the first county of the tour, and are now in Devon. It will be good to have a day off, chance to heal and relax.

So, 175 miles so far and the first of six sections of the trip are done!

LEJOG Day 3 - Bodmin to Bude

Bodmin Moor ponies

The Engineer at work

Coastal Bude

5 main hills today, the last two diddy ones on the right were the worst!

First pub in the walk, okay, this looks fine

On the rooftop of Fawlty Towers

 It’s a shorter day today, only 36 miles, but (dun-dun-dun) it’s over Bodmin Moor!  That’s a 1500 foot climb.  Weather is supposed to be in the 80s / 26 so light gear and lots of water.  Wind is supposed to be less today, 4-5-6 mph, S swinging around to E in the afternoon.

The pedalling was good yesterday and we did surprisingly well with all those steep (for two people on a fully loaded tandem), sharp hills.  The gpx navigation was a godsend, saved us at least twice from making a serious error due to missed or non-existent National Cycle Network signage. Steve did bike maintenance last night to get rid of some creakiness that arose yesterday.

Aches and pains section - sore, but manageable.  Backsides are bruised from being in the saddle for so long while climbing.  Hands and arms are twingy, but not too bad - think we’re building those muscles pushing the bike uphills!  I have a pain in the ball of my foot that I need to ask Dr. Google about.  Taking paracetamol and ibuprofen today until those little niggles sort themselves out.  

The moor is supposed to be a big climb up and desolate. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodmin_Moor. We’re packing plenty of food and refilling the water bottles as we can - we drank an amazing amount of water yesterday!

It ended up being as challenging as predicted, but not in the sections we expected!  We went further along the Camel Trail first thing, from Bodmin until it ended at the start of the climb - that was a lovely 8 miles through trees and countryside along the Camel River.  Then it was the climb, the Cornwall Gear (the smallest gear we have!) and the push to the top of Bodmin Moor.  We got to the top and thought woohoo, we’ve done it - nope, not even close!  The route view looked like just a couple small hills to go - they were steep, get off and push hills instead!  And then the back disc brake stopped working - rather important with 500 lbs of us and our gear careening downhill!  Luckily we have an engineer on board so that was sorted in 39 mins.  Last pull up to the B&B - ‘are we nearly there yet’ every few minute from the front!

Definitely a Fawlty Towers type of place.  We haven’t blown out the electricity yet, but that’s not from lack of trying.  Walked down into Bude and plonked ourselves at the first pub we found for a ‘scoop’ (a drink) and dinner.  No luck again finding a taxi back so walked, with some pulling and a bottle of wine ‘carrot’ from Steve.

Early, early bed tonight - unless the Belgian motorcyclists next door keep us awake!

LEJOG Day 2 - Truro to Bodmin

Today we leave Truro and head to 44 miles to Bodmin.  It looks like a lot of up and down.  Winds ESE and maybe not quite as strong as yesterday’s, but we’ll see.  We’re picking up breakfast and second breakfast at the Lidl across the street as this guesthouse is one of the few places on the tour that doesn’t serve breakfast.

Minor aches and pains from our big push to get here yesterday.  Today will be a more reasonable pace.  Interestingly, we met a man and his son yesterday who were at the end of their JOGLE (John O’Groats to Lands End, the reverse of ours).  He had just pedalled up a hill with a 20% grade.  Hope we can do that by the end of our trip, it would be good to be that fit!

Finally got the Diabetes U.K. Justgiving page, fingers crossed it works now! 

Steve & Katherine’s LEJOG FOR DIABETES UK 

Padstow and the Camel Trail are on the route today which will be a nice break from the hills and a chance to enjoy coffee by the harbour!

It was a very up and down hilly day today.  I learned something new, how to use GPX files!  Yes, I should have learned this sooner, but this is a game changer for this trip.  We we’d ready to give up on the route after one day, there were so many sign gaps!

Made it to the Westberry Hotel in Bodmin.  We did well on the hilly bits and the Camel Trail from Padstow to Bodmin was awesome!

We each had a Cornish pastie and dinner was Vietnamese.  Looking for seafood tomorrow!

We’ve also had over an hour of English church bells tonight, I feel like I’m in a Dickens movie!

LEJOG Day 1 - Lands End to Truro

We woke up to sounds of the sea, coming in from the open window.  The moon was still out shining in the water towards the Lands End lighthouse a mile offshore.  It’s Day 1 and time to go!

Breakfast isn’t until 8:00 so it’s coffee, coffee, coffee until then.The gear is scattered everywhere in our wee room up in the eaves so a couple hours to sort all that won’t hurt - need to come up with a packing system so we don’t have to dump out the bags any time we’re looking for one little thing.  The weather check says sunny, wind is ESE at 12-15 and temp is mid 70s / 22-24. Steve is making trip notes from the book about any little navigation ‘challenges’ to pay attention to.

Had a nice breakfast and a pack up for second breakfast. Pedalled up out of Lands Ends over the tops and then down into Mousehole.  This was via an off route detour down to the sea in Lamona Cove, where there was no road out - we’d missed the turn at the top of the hill so went all the way down to the sea  and then back up!  Mousehole, we’d been to before, and it was lovely again for a coffee by the harbour. Skirted Penzance and around the bay by the stunning Mont St. Michel.  Had lunch in Hayle, which was a nice omelette and a salad.

Then it was ‘route sign carnage’ in Camborne.  The Route 3 disappeared completely to be replaced by town and minute signs.  NCR 3 isn’t the best, but the signs with x minutes to the town centre worked even less well.  We also had a deadline to get the van back by 5:00 in Truro, which as we found with sailing time constraints cause too much pressure and the elements don’t cooperate.  In today’s case, the hills and the cycle route signs did not cooperate.  I finally went with old reliable, Google Maps, on the cycle setting which routed us back up and down all the remaining Cornwall hills to Truro.

All afternoon, we’d been pushing ourselves to get the speed to be get to Truro in time to get the van back and my carrot was to go to Sam’s in the City for a pile of seafood and a big glass of wine, but when we got to Sam’s it was closed!  Under construction and not mentioned on their website.  Such disappointment!  Asked Google again and found Hooked, another Truro seafood place - the evening was excellent and well recovered! 

The van was returned on on time - just.  The wind speed was more like 30mph, and it was a headwind, again.  It was, all in all, a good if challenging in the end day - 47 miles, 2700 feet.  We’re sore, but full - nothing that 10 hours sleep won’t put right!

LEJOG - Getting to Lands End

The view from Lands End

Have to try both!

Getting close now!

Stonehenge

A Rattler by the sea

Unloading the tandem

 Left Surrey just before 8am after a very nice overnight with Jess & Matt.  Matt makes a mean steak and Jess pours an excellent Gewürztraminer!  Thanks, guys!  Sad to drop off the bundle of excitement that is Sofia though…

As we were leaving, I said to Steve, ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this!’

The trip to Lands End had an estimated travel time of 4 hours and 50 minutes.  This part of the trip was a bit cludgey.  There was no way to guarantee that we could get the tandem on a train so in the end we rented the van, which proved to be the right decision as there were train strikes.  However, the closest car rental place was in Truro, 46 miles from Lands End (not going to pedal that twice!).  So Steve dropped me and all the gear at Lands End, drove back to Truro, dropped off the van, took the train to Penzance and then a taxi back to Lands End, just in time for dinner.

We had been here years ago and found the place was a bit past it’s best, but it is the starting point for the trip so rather than pedalling here from somewhere else to start we decided that we’d give it another go.  We lucked out, a lot of money has obviously been invested and the place has been nicely upgraded.  It’s still touristy, but sitting on the patio overlooking the ocean is lovely.  Even saw some dolphins!