Lands End - Moushole: LEM

We considered a new blog for this post-JOGLE leg of the journey, but weren't really sure it constitutes a tour in its own right. On leaving Lands End we cycled about 10 miles along the coast to our inn for the night (the Ship Inn) in Mousehole. We arrived at about half 5, checked in and had a nice amble round Mousehole, making a dinner reservation (or two) on our way. 

We found ourselves a boat for sale in the harbour; pondered buying it and rowing across the channel with our bikes to continue the journey, but decided a little rest and clean clothes might be nice first.

After showers we headed out for a lovely seafood meal by the seafront at 2 Fore Street.

We had local scallops as well as squid, crab, smoked salmon, samphire, skate, and prawns - washed down with local Cornish ales. Fantastic.

Truro - Lands End!!

We stocked up on calories for our final day of pedalling with another full English breakfast at the B and B and were then on our way into an ominously grey morning sky. We were delighted to be following a garmin route to lands end, kindly constructed by my dad to see us through the last day after a tough time with the roads of Cornwall the previous day. Just on our way through Truro centre it started to piss down TORRENTIALLY and we stopped to waterproof up (having very optimistically eschewed them as we left the B and B).

We cycled through road-rivers and felt like salmon heading upstream on several occasions, but got the miles in very efficiently as we thankfully didn't have to keep stopping to map read in the rain!

On reaching Redruth we ducked into a nice dry bakery and made their floor wet whilst scoffing pasties before continuing on towards Hayle. Between Hayle and Penzance we joined the A30, though where it was non-dual carriageway and has a pavement alongside that you can cycle along - a great tip off and a good compromise for less hilly cycling without worrying so much about death-by-traffic. We stopped in Penzance for a wee stop in Tescos and to wring out our gloves. Happily it had stopped raining at this point and as we left Penzance we de-waterproofed!

The A30 from Penzance to Lands End was much, much quieter and quite a pleasant road but we couldn't remotely see where we were going as it was thick with fog! This should have been the first real views of the Cornish sea but we were struggling to see the road ahead. 

As we were following a garmin route we knew exactly how many miles we had left and excitement carried us through the final miles under the Flame Rouge to lands end.

Arriving at the Lands End retail opportunity and mini theme park was surreal. We were desperately searching for the finishing post, what we felt was the definitive end of the land, but had to pass through shops, cafes, and restaurants full of people who'd just driven there.

On finding the post we had the obligatory  photo opportunity (official prints to follow :p) and then ducked into a bar for lunch and a celebratory half:

(N.b. the views were much the same as at JOG. Very white.)

In the restaurant we watched the sun come out and the fog clear up. Maybe we should have waited for our photos but its well representative of our morning's journey there!

Launceston - Truro

As much as we could have stayed in the B & B's loft suite for some time, we had to leave and progress further onto lands end. With a B and B booked up in St Day, near Redruth we set off into the grey cloudy morning (a little late having lingered over our lovely breakfast).

The day was undeniably hilly and we had a bit of a nightmare trying to avoid the A30 but avoid very hilly lanes. The biggest problem with the lanes we were on was that with the showery weather, stopping to map check every few turns was particularly tedious and time consuming.

After stopping for a bite to eat in Camelford we started to realise how far Redruth still was and started to wonder whether we could make it there without more night cycling (we've had enough for the time being).

We thought the unclassified roads along the A30 would be lovely and quiet but were proved wrong as one turned out to be completely terrifying (i think we found the beast of bodmin!) so we rerouted a again, turning off as soon as possible. This lead us up towards Treviscoe tin mines and heading in the direction of St Austell. We realised at this point that the B and B in St Day was too far to reach before dark and made an SOS call to cycle touring central (my mum) who did a fantastic job of sorting us out with a lovely B and B in Truro for the night. 

From Treviscoe we found a fairly straightforwards route of A, B and more A roads to launch us in the direction of Truro. It was starting to get dark and we were glad to find that the route wa a fantastic gradual downhill and time trialled our way into Truro, finding that our B and B was on the road in, perfect for tired legs after 60 hilly miles!

We were welcomed into the B and B, quickly showered and then headed out for a Thai meal before getting an early night in preparation for our final day of cycling!

Done

Done.

Chapeau to Hannah for another brilliant day's cycling.

Thanks to Andy for today's route. Thanks to Sally for booking last night's b&b.

Exeter - Launceston

This morning saw a slow start as we booked up accomodation for the next few nights (which look like they'll be rainy!) and booked our trains home(!) for Friday. Once we'd escaped the m5 travel lodge we unfortunately had the task of getting in one side and out the other side of Exeter. No mean feat it would seem. It took us the best part of an hour to find our way out, including some traumatic roundabout navigation which saw us ending up on different sides of the roundabout!

After a slow, hilly and very mizzly/foggy morning we stopped for lunch at Finch Foundery in sticklepath - jacket potatoes all round!

We then passed through Okehampton, a little place with just a few shops and carried on into Cornwall, our final county!

From here our B and B for this rainy night was just up the road and we arrived miraculously dry (and just before it pissed down) at about half 5 where we were greeted with tea and shortbread. We're staying in their 'loft suite' which is rather luxurious as we have plenty of space - our own sitting room!

We dug into the emergency rations for food instead of going out in the rain and have even been able to watch the bake off this evening. Luxury indeed!

Street - Exeter

After a good nights sleep at the youth hostel we consumed a whole box of weetabix for breakfast and hit the road to Exeter before 9. 

We made good progress taking fairly quiet roads and found some fantastic quiet farm tracks. We stumbled upon the 'burrowbridge parish library' in a red telephone box which was pretty cool.

We stopped for lunch in Taunton which on first glance seemed unpromising but found a fantastic deli where we had homity pie and salads. We also bought bread and cheese for our second lunch on the road.

As we left Taunton I was really feeling low on energy so we stopped off and stockpiled sweets to keep energy up.

We took a B road into Exeter which wended its way back and forth over the m5 until we arrived at our room for the night at the m5 travelodge. We had sainsburys salads for dinner and enjoyed our car park view(!) . Onwards to Launceston tomorrow, rolling ever closer!

Early lunch in Taunton

Homily pie and salads at a lovely deli! Got some miles to get in today (24 down, 36 to go)

Sherston - Street (South Glastonbury)

We had a very good nights sleep in Sherston and were treated to a fantastic cooked breakfast from my aunty. We shed our little-used kitchen gear for the sake of a bit more weight and set off towards Bath. On our way out of Sherston we came to a closed road that was actually closed (no bridge over the railway!) and had to take a random cut through to try find a route round. a few minutes later we ame across the familiar figure of my aunty walking the dogs and realised we were heading back towards Sherston.

Once we'd found the correct and passable route out of Sherston we headed for Bath, where we stopped for a new inner tube an some air at a bike shop and had a pasty and cake for lunch at Pultney Bridge. Leaving Bath we enjoyed a fairly downhill route to Wells where we marvelled at the cathedral and then an even better roll into Glastonbury. Tonight we are staying in the youth hostel at Street (just south of Glastonbury) but didnt manage to find anywhere open late on a Sunday for food supplies so have just polished off a revoltingly large takeaway pizza mountain.

Ledbury - Sherston

We both loved our pod camping experience, although Rob found the floor a bit hard with his lightweight thermarest in comparison to sleeping on earth in the tent. We had porridge for breakfast but unfortunately burnt it so after leaving the campsite had to stop for an emergency breakfast in a lovely bookshop cafe in Newent.

After Newent we passed through the horrors of Gloucester. The cycle route was particularly dubious round here and we kept losing it so often that we ended up wheeling across the middle of a few roundabouts and car parks in search of the right road out of the town.

Having climbed out of Gloucester up Painswick Beacon we were hungry and stopped at Olivas deli for a very good spot of lunch (excellent quesadillas!) and then popped across the road for tea and cake with my great aunt Peggy who it was really lovely to see.

As we cycled our way from Painswick towards Sherston, Rob's back tyre punctured once again so we had a roadside puncture repair session which slightly delayed our progress to Sherston.

However once this was all fixed we rolled our way to my aunty's house in Sherston with no problems where we had lovely hot showers and were treated to a fantastic home made shoulder of lamb curry followed by apple and blackberry crumble. We played with the dogs and caught up with the football and had a very lovely evening.

Brunch in Newent en route to Gloucester

Brunch in Newent after a burnt porridge disaster this morning!

Cardington - Ledbury

The campsite in Cardington was perhaps the darkest place we've been at night, which was lovely and the dawn chorus was fantastic. On our way to the toilet block before leaving to start cycling we met two lovely golden retrievers who we'd seen the night before and had a golden retriever fest, fussing them until we were both covered in dog hairs.

At quarter to nine when we were setting off it was already quite warm, the start of what was a really pleasant day with gentle sun and a lovely warmth. We stuck to a nice woody hedge-lined maze of quiet little roads as we headed into Ludlow, which was very pretty and quaint and which also felt very Southern! We stopped here for tea and a panini (brunch really) and then carried on down the B road towards Tenbury and Ledbury. We did get a little lost trying to leave Ludlow, a common theme for us! 

Being in Herefordshire and it being harvest time there were alot of tractors on the roads today and on the way into Tenbury we pulled over to let a large one with a plough on the back pass by, only for it to knock me over with the edge of its plough which spilled over the side of the road. Fortunately it just hit my pannier and I just wobbled over in the lay by. Alarming though! After this we stopped to pick up a consolatory custard tart in Tenbury and a couple of pasties of lunch and spoke to a guy who was a bike maker - he makes Flying Gate bikes and was very interested in our journies. We ate our pasties on the road out of the town towards Ledbury.

We noticed we passed a lot of orchards today and on the way to Ledbury passed a shop selling local cider so stopped and picked up a few to go with our dinner. This evening we are staying in a camping pod in the woods outside of Ledbury. 

The inside has no furniture but a plug socket and a little light and heater and we have a nice porch to sit on and cook dinner (pasta and pesto). 

We've been sampling our lovely local cider and Rob is working on a fire (not much luck so far as there's little in the dry way of kindling around!). Tomorrow we head for Sherston and my aunty's house, can't wait!

Wrenbury - Cardington

I'm pleased to report that dinner turned out to be eminently edible. Spicy chicken goujons followed by hotpot went down a treat and was excellent, especially for the price.

Today's cycling was a fairly gentle affair through a constant maze of high hedges and small flat roads. The biggest concern was with finding a cafe for our breakfast brew, which was eventually solved by convincing a pub to open early - after being greeted by a noisy but very soft, half-blind, three-legged dog. The pub had seen the tour of Britain pass right outside just last week, and had a picture on the wall of team sky and Wiggo passing by. We like to think that there will be a similar photo of us appearing in weeks to come.

After leaving the pub we headed for Shawbury, home of RAF Shawbury. Having had a light breakfast we were seriously ready for lunch at this point and were very pleased to find a pub doing food where Rob had chicken pie and I had Shawbury toad in the hole (was vey tasty!).

From here it was just 7 miles into Shrewsbury where I was very excited to pick up some miniature toiletries and we found a lovely spot for tea and cake - beetroot chocolate cake and apple cinnamon crumble cake.

Leaving Shrewsbury was hard - as usual with bigger places, but we were pleased to make it out on quiet roads as it was rush hour. After a frustratigly slow time trying to find the campsite just outside but NOT in Cardington(!), we pitched up, showered and headed to the pub for dinner. We have just finished a lovely meal in the village pub, The Royal Oak. Rob had "fidget pie" - a local speciality of gammon and cider and I had slow roast belly pork, followed by fantastic apple crumble and caramel apple pie with some great local beers.

We will be going to bed very full and happy this evening!

Chapeltown - Wrenbury

Waking up this morning in Chapeltown we felt well rested to begin cycling again. We set off cycling at 9 on the dot and made our way straight through the middle of Bolton. After a pretty uneventful trip through the town we emerged victorious out the other side, passing through the highlights of Atherton and Leigh and finally made it into the countryside of High Legh as we headed towards Crewe. We stopped for a very nice lunch in Pickmere at the Red Lion pub where we had filled baguette with chips and for once remembered to get our water bottles refilled as it was quite muggy.

After a scary stint on an A road we hfound our way to Nantwich on a B road and out the other side to Wrenbury, where we at camping in a field attached to a pub (CAMRA summer pub of the year 2013 nonetheless!) we're currently enjoying local pork scratchings and local beer and waiting for our "supper club" dinner, which is £6 for two courses.... Hoping its edible! We'll be watching football tonight before another early night.

Leigh

Made it through Bolton ad stopped we a wee at Leigh library! 

Rest day #2: dossers

We took the (necessary) luxury of a second rest day today. Yesterday was a true rest day - sleeping, eating, washing, looking at the blog, enjoying the strava data, and - most importantly - going to the pub.

Today was about catching up on all the little jobs we still needed to do. Cleaning, fixing, planning, booking, phoning, drying, lubing, degriming, fiddling (with brake tension) and refueling.

We're both now eager to restart the cycling and finish the final 9 days to Land's End.

Enjoying the Wayoh in the sun.

The weather's always like this in Lancashire. Honest. 

Taking in more local food. A Whitehead's butchers steak sandwich,

And of course (Jack's) Holden's ice cream - pistachio on the left and madras curry flavour on the right.

Next stop - somewhere near Crewe.

Chapeltown - rest day

Today we have washed some clothes and rested our tired, tired legs. We also found time for a very good ice cream in Edgeworth and to meet Rob's friend Craig for a few pints in the pub.

Ingleton - Chapeltown

We left Ingleton Youth Hostel and stopped at the shops in Ingleton to buy some bread to go with our tasty cheese and quince from Booths in Windermere. The cycling this day began with a frustratingly devious and uphill route out of Ingleton towards Clapham (not the London one). On leaving Clapham we headed straight up another hill heading towards Clitheroe. This hill turned out to not just be any hill but the most never ending hill in the country. Every 'crest' to the hill turned out to lead to yet another hill. Whilst the weather was for once okay, we were feeling exhausted and covered the first 10 miles for the day in just under 2 hours. The descent was well worth it though and took us much of the way towards Clitheroe.

In Clitheroe we stopped for our ewe's milk cheese, bread and quince lunch in a churchyard (where we met the vicar, who road a bike and stopped to chat to us about bicycles etc). Cycling out of Clitheroe we headed straight for Blackburn on the A-road (since it was Sunday and nice and quiet). Aside from me feeling quite exhausted, this was fairly straightforwards day of cycling (albeit a very slow one!) and we arrived to Rob's parents house at about 6pm to begin our rest day.

Kirkstone - Ingleton

As we set off from our campsite right on Kirkstone pass it was hard to overlook the mizzle and mist. The campsite had an on site bar doing breakfast so we stopped for a bite to eat before tackling the pass. This was when the first puncture of the day revealed itself as Rob's back tyre looked sadly deflated. I stocked up on camping gas at the campsite shop whilst Rob got repairing and then we tackled the pass. Having done it a few weeks ago on my road bike I can say that it is much more of a challenge fully loaded, but I managed it nonetheless.

At the top of Kirkstone

We stopped in Windermere for a visit to Booths supermarket where we bought some lunch stuff and found a bike shop next door so bought a new spare inner tube. This was when we noticed that the screw holding rob's pannier rack on at the bottom had sheared off leaving part of it stuck in the lug. The bike shop near booths was unable to help so we cycled to the massive bike shop in Staveley who took it in for an hour to remove the screw whilst we found a (fantastic!) place for lunch - veg chilli and lovely salads. 

Having already had problems with the pannier rack a few times we weren't surprised to hear that it was the wrong one to fit the bike and it was rubbing the frame. The bike shop fitted a new one which fits beautifully and let us use their Internet to google hostels and campsites for the night. 

Leaving the bike shop we headed for Kendal. On the outskirts of Kendal we noticed that Rob's back tyre was once again flat. We taped up a little hole from the inside of the tyre, patched the inner tube and hoped for the best. Fortunately we discovered bike shop no.3 for the day conveniently on the road into Kendal. Here the shop assistant put some air into the tyre and blew up the inner tube. Dramatic! However, having explained the recurring puncture to him this meant he very kindly took it off to replace and check himself. We stocked up with another inner.

Enjoying Dentdale

Earlier in the day I had booked us beds at Ingleton youth hostel (for a bargain price of £9.50 each!), but we started to wonder if, leaving Kendal at 4, we could make the 30 miles there before dark. Having done only 20 miles already we were keen to get further than Kendal so set off. 

However what we learnt is that there is no quick way to cycle between the Lakes and the Dales. We rode through some beautiful valleys but encountered hill upon hill. As the light faded we got out our headtorches and bike lights and ploughed on through the dark, down from newby pass, arriving in Ingleton at 8:15pm. We checked into the hostel and went to then pub in search of food, who sadly weren't serving food anymore. After a trip to the co-op we feasted on pizza and garlic bread and well-earnt beers before retiring to our dorm rooms for some solid zeds. I can safely say that we will be avoiding any more night riding for the rest of the trip!

Blackford - Kirkstone

We woke on the Dandie Dinmont campsite in Blackford to find a flat tyre on Rob's rear wheel. We had a few oat bars to lift our spirits and once this was repaired (with some chatty support from a few of the elderly caravaners on the site) we were on our way towards Carlisle for breakfast. In Carlisle we completely just happened upon a place called John Watt & Son, a Victorian style coffee house which smelt incredible and had quite the tea selection too. We had a lovely cooked breakfast here complete with Cumberland sausages.

We got lost leaving Carlisle but did manage to stumble upon a bike shop so we nipped in for some air in Rob's tyre. Once we'd evenutally managed to find our way out of Carlisle we began to see the hills of the Lakes looming large in the distance. 

We stopped for lunch (which we'd picked up from M & S in Carlisle) in a small village called Hesket Newmarket on a nice little bench here. A few hills aside, our route into the Lakes was remarkably rolling and we were blessed with a sunny evening as we rolled towards Ullswater to the campsite at the bottom of Kirkstone Pass.

The campsite on the pass had a pub attached to it where we feasted on the best steak and ale pies we've had in a while and some lovely local beers. We went to bed full and happy to finally have made it to the Lakes.

Late breakfast in Carlisle

Kircudbright - blackford (near Carlisle)

We awoke in Chatton house B and B in Kircudbright to a perma-drizzle outside. We enjoyed our continental style breakfast (with a fantastic fruit salad) in the company of another young couple also staying in the B & B whilst pouring over our maps for the day and peering out of the window into the reasonably wet and grey morning, wondering how long our waterproof gloves would hold out today.

Delya gave us some very good advice about which road to take out of Kircudbright to avoid tedious hilly stuff and although the road suggested was closed for repair we took it anyway. This made it nice and quiet. 2 miles down the road we found some loose cows who decided we were trying to heard them whilst their friends in the field started to moo threateningly at us. Rob cycled on through whilst I cowered behind a road works sign at the road side. After some expert herding from Rob, he left his bike down the road and returned to escort me through the bovine blockade.

The last of many Scottish rainbows we saw.

After a recovery bacon butty (should have been beef really!) in Castle Douglas we continued on our way. The weather was still damp but with sunny spells and we saw a lot of rainbows this day. Cycling on towards Annan we began to feel a real excited energy at the prospect of crossing over into England. We stopped briefly in Annan to pick up dinner and hammered on towards Gretna and the English border and county of Cumbria.

Cycling out of Gretna took us on an amusing and slightly alarming road literally alongside the M6 (there just seems to be a fence in between!) but it wasn't look before we found our campsite for the night, "Dandie dinmont".

Having pitched the tent in the rather soggy camping area we discovered that the gas cannister (a non self sealing one) had leaked itself dry in my pannier leaving us with no ability to cook dinner. We sheepishly knocked on the reception door at the campsite to ask if they sol gas canisters or if they could help us out with a kettle full of water so we could cook our emergency couscous and were invited in with our stir dry ingredients to use their kitchen and even eat our dinner at their table. We felt very lucky to be met with such kindness from strangers once again as we ate a good meal and went to bed well fed and warm and back in England.

England!!!!!!

We made it out of Scotland!