Bristol to
Land's End!
Day
11
 So
we left in the morning dry again, with two days to go. It was
easy getting out of Bristol, on the A38 again. We bought pasties
in Taunton and then ate them at the top of a hill in the garden
of a pub which was closed. There we were warned by a local of
the hill up to the top of the Somerset-Devon border, and this
was true, there was a big hill. We took the A38 followed by the
A361 to Tiverton, then on to the A396 to the village of
Bickleigh, which was stunning: little brook running through it,
lush hills on either side, paradise. Then it got really hard, we
had a really steep hill coming out of Bickleigh on the A3072,
but the countryside was fabulous and after a few steep hills we
stopped at a farm shop where we were told we’d got over the
worst of it. At Crediton (odd name) we got on the A377 then back
on the A3072 and proceeded to Okehampton.
Considering the beautiful countryside there was nothing
spectacular about Okehampton, but it was perfectly reasonable.
We arrived at 9.05pm, just too late to get food in the pub so we
ended up having a couple of doner kebabs instead. Not ideal but
sustenance. We set off out of the town to find a field to camp
in. By this time it was pitch black, we had minimal lights, and
we were a bit wary. Luckily on the road leading out there was a
pavement, which we went along, but as soon as the pavement ended
we were seriously vulnerable to the cars which swept by so we
saw a gap in the vegetation on our right and charged through it,
through the nettles, over a barbed wire fence and set up camp.
Day 12
We woke up really early, with an alarm, because it was our last
day and we wanted to get cracking at it. We had a few bits of
bread and jam and decided we’d have a proper breakfast when we
reached somewhere good to have it. But we covered the ground to
Launceston pretty fast along the A30, and decided that we’d feel
great if we covered Bodmin Moor before we stopped for a proper
feed in Bodmin town. So we pushed on, and although we’d been
warned that Bodmin Moor would be awful, it was absolutely fine.
It was just a long way up, nothing too steep, and we ended up in
the clouds, which ruined our view but made for great, cool
cycling conditions. It had been really hot when we woke up in
the morning and I’d been dreading doing hills in the heat but it
had cooled as we went on. We got off the A30 and went in to
Bodmin for some food. We stopped in a really friendly little
place called Conservatory Snacks, run by two old ladies, and
they fed us toasties and tea and cake. Great stuff. We left in
high spirits, we only had 50 miles left.
Back on to the A30 we though of having lunch at Redruth or
Camborne, but when we got there in very little time we decided
to have a pastie in Penzance as we’d had quite a feed in Bodmin.
We stopped for a moment on the A30 just outside Camborne, and
then as we moved off, Charlie’s inner tube burst. I was just out
of earshot, my phone was off, I had the spare inner tube and
although Charlie had the puncture repair kit he had no pump so
his efforts to fix it would have been futile. With all the luck
in the world, Charlie was round the corner from a bike shop in
Camborne, and had just enough money to buy a new inner tube
(Charlie had also lost his wallet ,
way back in Aviemore) which the bike shop man fixed for free.
Phew! I didn’t find this out until I stopped in Penzance, turned
my phone on and found 3 messages from Charlie, but the last told
me he was on his way. I trundled off towards Lands End, only 9
miles away. By this time we were shrouded in thick mist and I
was wondering when the hell Charlie would show up. After cycling
seriously slowly and stopping for ages at a time, I eventually
went on to Lands End alone. It was so desolate, foggy and
deserted, although there was a wedding
 and
a hog roast. Eventually, Charlie turned up out of the fog and we
took our photos by a sign which said Lands End. Been there, done
that.
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