I left the hostel at 9am and cycled to Land’s End (yay!) via Newlyn and Mousehole and came back via St Buryan. At Newquay all the people had been abducted by aliens. Except the joggers. The aliens left the joggers. There’s a lesson for us all there. St Michael’s Mount was visible through a slight haze and a single fishing boat, very neat, was leaving the harbour.
There were no mice at all at Mousehole, just a lot of people hanging around the paper shop. On my way out of Mousehole a fox dropped out of the long grass on the verge and crossed the road in front of me without a single sound then vanished into the potato shaws on the other side.
Just after Mousehole I passed through a place called Paul.
The lanes are absolutely beautiful. Many of the dykes had pink daisies growing out of them. All the flowers are out - white hawthorn that looked like it was heavy on the branches, pink campion, purple vetch and yellow gorse. And the smell of wild garlic all the way; plenty for Lydia’s excellent soup. The birds were shouting to be heard above the wind.
Arriving at the three mile marker from Land’s End I was pleased to note there was a giant saltire in the sky above it. It had been drawn by the jet planes and made me feel quite welcome.
The lanes are lovely but suddenly plunge away round hairpin bends. I had to make an emergency stop for a chubby grey squirrel that couldn’t decide how to get out of the way quickly enough. It’s hard to enjoy the downhills ‘cos you know there is a price to be paid. Some Good Things About Uphills are: you get to have a good look at your knees. When did you last do that eh? You get to have a good look at the flowers. You get to have a good look at the road kill. The most interesting road kill is in Sicily (dogs, possums, snakes) but Land’s End offered a snakey thing and a lizardy thing.
When I got to Land’s End there was a sign. It said “Private Property. This is a private road. Please park in the designated car park only.” None of your Land Reform Act nonsense here. See, this is why Scotland needs to keep voting SNP. The designated car park cost £4 of course but bikes were able to go through the tollbooth for free. Land’s End has a shopping village. I don’t know what it sells as I wasn’t tempted into any shops except for a cup of tea (and maybe a Cornish pasty). There were plenty of people here although the wind was blasting away at force 47 on the Beaufort scale and some people’s hair appeared to have been blown clean off. The sea was amazingly wild and walkers were gamely setting off along the coastal path.
The Famous Sign is behind a fence which keeps the public 10 feet away from it. Honest. If you want your picture taken right beside it it’ll cost £7.95 for a 7x5 print. The couple next to me were telling their wee dog to “Stay” so they could snap him in front of the sign but every time the man framed his shot the dog took a few fairy steps towards him and spoiled it. They kindly snapped me there too. On the wall close to the sign there are two plaques to cyclists killed while doing the End to End. One was on his 12th when it happened.
I made a short detour to Sennen on the way back to Penzance but only found the churchyard, the dead centre as Angela would say, worth photographing.
As a shakedown trip, this was a success. I got to try out the bike and half the luggage and made a gentle start to my E2E. Tomorrow is another day.
There were no mice at all at Mousehole, just a lot of people hanging around the paper shop. On my way out of Mousehole a fox dropped out of the long grass on the verge and crossed the road in front of me without a single sound then vanished into the potato shaws on the other side.
Just after Mousehole I passed through a place called Paul.
The lanes are absolutely beautiful. Many of the dykes had pink daisies growing out of them. All the flowers are out - white hawthorn that looked like it was heavy on the branches, pink campion, purple vetch and yellow gorse. And the smell of wild garlic all the way; plenty for Lydia’s excellent soup. The birds were shouting to be heard above the wind.
Arriving at the three mile marker from Land’s End I was pleased to note there was a giant saltire in the sky above it. It had been drawn by the jet planes and made me feel quite welcome.
The lanes are lovely but suddenly plunge away round hairpin bends. I had to make an emergency stop for a chubby grey squirrel that couldn’t decide how to get out of the way quickly enough. It’s hard to enjoy the downhills ‘cos you know there is a price to be paid. Some Good Things About Uphills are: you get to have a good look at your knees. When did you last do that eh? You get to have a good look at the flowers. You get to have a good look at the road kill. The most interesting road kill is in Sicily (dogs, possums, snakes) but Land’s End offered a snakey thing and a lizardy thing.
When I got to Land’s End there was a sign. It said “Private Property. This is a private road. Please park in the designated car park only.” None of your Land Reform Act nonsense here. See, this is why Scotland needs to keep voting SNP. The designated car park cost £4 of course but bikes were able to go through the tollbooth for free. Land’s End has a shopping village. I don’t know what it sells as I wasn’t tempted into any shops except for a cup of tea (and maybe a Cornish pasty). There were plenty of people here although the wind was blasting away at force 47 on the Beaufort scale and some people’s hair appeared to have been blown clean off. The sea was amazingly wild and walkers were gamely setting off along the coastal path.
The Famous Sign is behind a fence which keeps the public 10 feet away from it. Honest. If you want your picture taken right beside it it’ll cost £7.95 for a 7x5 print. The couple next to me were telling their wee dog to “Stay” so they could snap him in front of the sign but every time the man framed his shot the dog took a few fairy steps towards him and spoiled it. They kindly snapped me there too. On the wall close to the sign there are two plaques to cyclists killed while doing the End to End. One was on his 12th when it happened.
I made a short detour to Sennen on the way back to Penzance but only found the churchyard, the dead centre as Angela would say, worth photographing.
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| A saltire in the sky |
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| What an athlete! |
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| Mousehole Harbour |
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