I may only have been a quarter of the way to John o’Groats, but I was going to be at home tonight. A full sunny day of riding got me back to Bath, where I live. So instead of a strange, uncomfortable bed in a damp and dingy hostel, I could look forward to my…
Category: End to Ends
Britain 4: Barnstaple to Taunton
I’ve clearly upset the weather gods in some past life. This is turning into a very wet trip. I fixed my puncture from yesterday evening in the B&B porch and set back out into the heavy rain. There followed a lot of long, wet slogging up and down tedious hills (pic). I was continuing to…
Britain 3: Camelford to Barnstaple
At last, a day without rain, and with a euphoric tailwind. The local element to the B&B breakfast was home-made redcurrant jelly, and jam – a delicious rhubarb, ginger and pineapple, though I wasn’t sure all those ingredients had necessarily come from the garden. Camelford had been in the news for a chemical spill in…
Britain 2: Perranporth to Camelford
There was little point towelling myself off after my morning shower. Thanks to the hostel’s lack of a drying room and indeed heating, I immediately got wet through again putting on my sodden clothes from yesterday. My locally-sourced breakfast was very satisfying though. Grilled mushrooms, dark and woodsily pungent. Lovely sweet strawberries, small and juicy,…
Britain 1: (Penzance to) Land’s End to Perranporth
The sun blocker I bought for the trip is working wonders. I put it on this morning at Penzance hostel as I set off. Immediately it clouded over, and rained heavily all day. I swished through ten miles of puddles to get to Land’s End for the ceremonial start of my trip. The visitor centre…
Britain 0: Bath to Penzance
We are now entering Cornwall, the guard announced as we crossed the Tamar at Plymouth, in the same tone that a mural might state You are now entering Free Derry. It looked very hilly through the window of the 1557 from Bath, not always in the way I expected. We passed St Austell’s bizarre clay-trail…