The train trip from Bristol was a kind of calm before the storm. Getting the bikes into the tiny space provided on today’s inter-city trains was a battle. Someone’s missing the glorious transport solution that train + bike could provide.
Once settled we watched the west of England slip by. After Dawlish the train track is so close to the water you feel like you’re on a boat. The sky was dark and morose, and when we arrived in Penzance it was raining hard. On the platform we met some ‘End to Enders’, as the cognoscenti call them. “We’ll see you on the route,” they said cheerily. “How long are you taking?” “Seventeen days.” “No you won’t!”
We braved the rain and cycled to Newlyn. Penzance was in summer mode, busy and full despite the downpour. In Newlyn, Phil suggested we eat at the little seafood café by the bridge, but the queue was strung out along the pavement. So we went for pasties and sat outside the Fisherman’s Mission devouring them. It was Tim’s first pastie experience and he seemed to enjoy it. We chatted the popular fast-food options in Nigeria. They all seemed to involve yams.
After lunch we tackled the hill out of Newlyn, one of the worst I’ve ever grappled with. It was a baptism of fire. I had to give up two thirds of the way up. Tim was more valiant, making it to about twenty metres from the brow. It levelled out at the junction with the main B road out to Larmona and St Buryan. There was more hill, but I couldn’t get my bike going. It’s lowest gear is so low that the bike hardly moves when you start pedalling, making it impossible to move off up a hill from a standing start.
The magic of West Penwith, with its huge skies, was partially lost on us because of the grey lowering skies. St Buryan appeared empty and mildly sinister, as it always does. I joked that we were likely to see tumbleweed drifting down the main road.
We struck off west, heading for Lands End itself, which turned out to be mistake. The Land’s End Youth Hostel is actually six miles away from Land’s End, up north near St Just. Our mistake forced an extended ride on the A30, which reminded us that main roads are no fun for the fun loving cyclist. I can never understand End to Enders who try and do the ride in seven days, sticking to A roads or major B roads all the way. For me it’s the ‘little’ ways that give the most pleasure and the most connection with country you’re riding through.
The closer we got the west coast, the more the sky lifted, and more we got the impression that we were reaching the end of the earth. It’s an awesome feeling. We arrived at the youth hostel around 3pm, and a surly YHA bloke told me that we couldn’t check in before 5. We wheeled our bikes round to the front lawn and dozed for while in the front lawn, with its view down the Nanjulian valley to a triangle of blue seat . Then we toasted our arrival with a bottle of Manzanilla and a couple of packets of jamon Serrano.
That evening we walked across the valley to St Just where we met Phil’s friend Katie at the Star Inn. The place bubbled with tattoos and good cheer. We pointed out the Cornish flag that hung from the ceiling to Tim and I told him that St Just is a hotbed of Cornish nationalism. Later that evening, as we tucked into a meal of sausages, mash and onion gravy at Katie’s cottage behind the church, she put me right, telling me that St Just people are open and friendly and not particularly nationalistic. That was certainly true of Katie herself.
We walked back to the Youth Hostel, guided by the light of a moon that was almost full. I slept fitfully. Too much expectation.
Andy Morgan
