Day 3 - Newquay to the Middle of Nowhere

Tuesday, May 24, 2011 (57miles)
Newquay hindered my blog because a small part of it went on fire which caused much of the town centre to be closed and evacuated last night. Nonetheless, better late etc.
Carol and I left Newquay at 9am, up a hill. Cycling in Cornwall is like sledging in Dundee. The long trudge up is rewarded by a wee thrill down. The hills got progressively more ridiculous over the 12 miles to Padstow but this was Cornwall as you would imagine it; a string of surfing beaches in deep coves around which picturesque villages had grown like roses.
Padstow is the home of the National Lobster Hatchery. Oh yeah, and Rick Stein’s got a chippie there. It was mobbed. People are such lemmings. Television is so powerful. Carol and I ate Cornish ice cream at the harbour where yachts jostled for space. It is indeed bonny. Then we left the sea for the last time and turned inland to follow the camel river trail for 18 miles, stopping to admire the Archimedes screw at the Padstow sewage treatment plant.
The trail was very busy with families out cycling and, unusually, mobility scooterists. Even under the darkest tree lined stretches, bike renters would come thundering along. I prefer to have sky above me but the trail certainly smoothed things out for a while. We bought food in the Wadebridge Lidl to avoid an afternoon bonk (it’s a cycling term; look it up!) but I bonked anyway and had to consume some emergency sandwiches and wait for them to work their magic. The trail ended at Camelford and we climbed again, this time right up on to Bodmin Moor where we cycled over a WWII airfield so atmospheric we expected Spitfires to land on the road.

Padstow

Carol Parker, ace bike companion

It’s all a bit of a blur after that. We swooped and plunged in the narrow lanes until 7.30pm until we found our farm house B&B in a very remote location, possibly the same one Terry Waite was held in for five years, where the conversation-starved hostess kept us chatting almost until bedtime.