One and man and bicycle go for a ride (aka Andy's LeJog Adventure 2023) 'The Journey'

Wednesday 17th May day minus 1 Getting to the start ............

I picked up my bike from Catherine and Kieron's house and headed for Paddington Station. 

The train journey takes five and a half hours, nearly two hours of which are spent in Cornwall, providing some sense of the challenge that lay ahead.  I arrived in Penzance at 7.30pm and cycled the ten miles to the campsite at Sennen which sits above Lands End.  I arrived as the light was beginning to fade, pitched the tent and slipped into my sleeping bag with excitement and anticipation for the day ahead.



The Journey - Day 1 Sennen to St Austell 65.64 miles 5,561 ft of climbing 

Lands End was quiet and still as I cycled past the gift shops and cafes to take the obligatory 'start' picture.  The day dawned still and I cycled through wall bound lanes bursting with spring flowers to Penzance where I had a coffee and bacon roll overlooking the bay with views towards St Michael's Mount.  The hilliness of Cornwall and its steep wooded valleys are one of the biggest challenges of LeJog. Many people give up before they reach Bristol. The sheer beauty kept me going as I hauled myself up yet another hill.    


The day I left London I sent an email to one of the Foundation's donors who I knew lived in Cornwall - I learnt that Mike was only a mile off the route between King Harry Ferry and St Austell.  Invited to have lunch I pinned my ears back and pushed on. 



Kindness is a theme that ran throughout the journey and the lunch (with wine) in the sunshine, discussing Mike's early days in and around Workington and the value of his philanthropy in those communities will live with me for a long time.

Fully refueled my final hilly 20 miles took me through the glorious wooded Heligan estate and with views of the clay pits near St Austell and finally to the Eden Project Youth hostel where I mixed with interns working on projects in the famous biomes.  


Day 2 St Austell to Okehampton 60.32 miles 5,906 ft of climbing 
I left the backpackers hostel after an enormous breakfast which I'm sure powered me through the day but it did feel like it was sat in my stomach like an undigested goat inside a python for most of the morning.  The first few miles were delightful taking me to the ferry at Fowey (pronounced 'foy' to rhyme with 'oi').  I subsequently learnt that my friend Tamas, who head's up the community foundation in Cornwall kayaks out of this river. 



It really is the most idyllic place and like many stops along the route left me with a wish to return one day. 

Climbing almost 6,000 feet on a fully laden bicycle is quite a challenge and it was only the stunning beauty of the wooded valleys that kept me going.  Cornwall and Devon are criss-crossed by endless river valleys which corrugate the landscape.  At one point my brakes got so hot they were unable to slow me down. 


Day 2 included my second lunch date of the trip - a meet up with Tamas Haydu, the Hungarian Chief Exec of the Cornwall Community Foundation - frustratingly, an exhaustion induced mistake led to a navigational error that added 5 miles to the day and about 600 ft of extra climbing. Fortunately Tamas is one of the nicest people you could meet and he brushed off my tardy time-keeping and treated me to a high calorie Cornish pub lunch. 


Lunch was just beyond Liskeard which is at the eastern end of Cornwall and as I climbed out of the town onto the moor it definitely felt like I could have been back home in North Yorkshire. 
  
At around 4pm I was beginning to lose my patience with endless hills and I was facing a sense of humour failure.  Sometimes you chance upon what you need.


The hillsides for much of my route through Cornwall were scattered with what I thought were the remains of mine workings and in particular ventilation towers. This is what I thought this was until I saw it was a solitary church. 


The landscape is beautiful but the poverty and hardship is easy to see.  Away from the Padstein gastro centres much of Cornwall lacks the wealth creation and employment required to sustain high paid jobs and many towns are run down and mirror elements of West Cumbria and Furness.   

Day 2 was a day of transition, from Cornwall into Devon with the threatening flanks of Dartmoor rising on the horizon. 


 
 

The final 10-12 miles of the day followed the beautiful former railway line into Okehampton, a typically fading market town nestling beside Dartmoor.  




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