Day 4 01/08/07

Wednesday 1st August 2007. Leg 4: Winscombe to West Nowheresville (Map Ref 497224).

Can’t seem to think of anything funny after yesterday. These last three legs have been hard, hot, long days, with a bit of northerly to contend with. Hoping for easier terrain today.

Campsite a bit of a ‘hippyville’ (fairly near Glastonbury). Left at 10:00 and headed for A370 over some nasty lumpy bits. Jonathan popping up from time to time and asking Georgina how she’s feeling. Getting curt monosyllabic replies from Georgina, who is not a happy bunny.

Meet the support team at Gordano services (that roundabout is a nightmare for cyclists). Coffee there, 20 miles done and it’s 13:40 already and baking hot.

Then we let Garmin do some on-road navigation for us (I’ve somehow truncated the route, so the first part is lost), His suggestion of cycling up the M5 is not taken up. We press on to find the Avon cycleway which will take us across the Avon alongside the M5. Garmin keeps asking us to take ‘U’ turns etc, which we continue to ignore, preferring to follow various sign-posts. These take us all round the houses and must have added a couple of miles to the route.

Eventually we’re across the Avon, and heading down towards “Severn Beach”

Seems to take a hell of a long time to get to the Severn Bridge. The terrain is reasonable, but the traffic is busy. Every other car seems to be a police car. Crossing the Severn is the nearest thing to flying on a bike. Garmin display has this little arrow heading north-west across an ocean of blue.

We’re still a long long way from our destination, and Georgina is in low spirits (again). Give Chepstow a miss as this would add another couple of needless miles to the journey, and continue towards Monmouth. Sit at the Victorian fountain at St. Arvans looking at the next hill and feeling (literally and metaphorically) low. Georgina digs deep, and we set off again, via the road past Tintern Abbey. A nice uppy-downy sort of a road.

Did a bit of owl-startling at 7 o’clock. This simple rural sport consists of cycling past a tree which contains an owl, and observing the reaction of the owl. One point is scored for every owl startled from its perch. There are moves afoot to make this sort of thing illegal.

We made it to Monmouth just in time for a toilet stop at Waitrose before closing time (8 p.m.). The whole support team are in the car park waiting. They advise us to take a more Easterly route up the A466. This we do, but it’s still the wrong kind of hills, and we finally give up at 9:45 p.m. Jacky and the lads coming out to pick us up and drive us to Peterchurch in the beautiful Golden Valley.


Distance covered: 62.5 miles
Moving time: 07:50
Average speed: 8.0 mph
Maximum speed: 25.1 mph.

Day 3 31/07/07

Tuesday 31st July 2007. Leg 3: Crockernwell to Winscombe.

Croissants and Danishes and coffee courtesy of the campsite owners. Verrry yummy.

Off a little earlier, at 9.45 a.m.

Lunch 12:00 at Upton Pyne under the oak trees’ dappled shade. (I’ll have an apple-ade in the dappled shade, please)

Then pressed on to make Tiverton services by 16:00 hrs. Burger King raised our spirits. (Never thought I’d see the day when I would utter that phrase).

Wellington 17:30. “Best medium sized town in the West” provided a toilet stop (armour-plated loos, free of charge). Cycle-paths!

But we ground to a full stop at 6 p.m. in the searing heat on the grass verge after another pull up into a place called Rumwell, just outside of Taunton. Georgina was just unable to take the heat and the prospect of another 30 miles cycling yet to come. A gentleman came out of his house and, seeing Georgina’s distress, fetched Georgina a glass of iced water. This was gratefully accepted. A little later his wife kindly donated a wet handkerchief to protect G’s neck from the sun. You cannot put a price on such simple acts of kindness. At the time they made the difference between success and failure. On again, refreshed.

Towards sunset, we were on the easier ground of the Somerset Levels.

The last hour was cycled in the dark (we almost had the full complement of lights, but Georgina had to use a head torch). Were met close to the campsite by Matthew and Jonathan. They chivalrously offered to cycle our bikes the last 2 miles (including the final steep hill), but we declined. Arrived at Winscombe at 23:00.

Knackered! Thus ended a gruelling 80 mile leg.


Distance covered: 79.9 miles
Moving time: 09:08
Average speed: 8.7 mph
Maximum speed: 38.1 mph. (not reset)

Day 2 30/07/07

Monday 30th July 2007. Leg 2: Lanivet to Crockernwell.

Day 2 dawned bright and cloudless and still. I have a slight headache (not alcohol induced, I would like to emphasize). G. has a sore bum.

We talk tactics to see if we can make it easier for ourselves. A30 is fast but unpleasant and potentially lethal. Smaller roads are pleasant, but slow.

Set off 10.00 a.m. (late again!) Went for the A30. There’s something to be said for cycling down the A30, The word is “pants”. Rendezvous with the support vehicle at Penlan Eating House and Garage 11.30 a.m. Matthew saw a lizard.

The rest is a bit of a blur, really. Lost count of the hard modern style road reflectors I hit as I followed G. down the 2-foot shoulder of the A30. You can’t beat the old retracting cat’s eye for comfort.

Interesting things wot we saw:
Winnebago towing a Freelander, no less.
Mrs. Bag-it says take your rubbish home. (Signs in every lay-by)
Old Westland helicopter fuselage on a low-loader heading west.

Roadkill varities:
Rabbit: many
Badger: 1
Fox: 1
Gloves (not foxgloves, just gloves): various species grouped together according to their past beliefs.
Cyclists: 0 (thank God)

Well that was Cornwall, this is Devon.

Song lyric for today: “Devon (Devon is a place where nothing ever happens…)” Talking Heads.

Arrived Crockernwell 9.00 p.m. All sunned out.


Distance covered: 58.2 miles
Moving time: 06:42
Average speed: 8.7 mph
Maximum speed: 38.1 mph. (not reset)

Day 1 28/07/07

Friday 27th / Saturday 28th July 2007

Picked up motorhome from Compact Camper Hire, Holme-upon-Spalding-Moor. Jacky drove the 60 miles home, and we spent a fraught 5 hours packing it. Set off at 11 p.m. to drive through the night the 420 miles to Crows-An-Wra campsite. If you don't think we'd be daft enough to take a 22 foot motorhome through the narrow streets of Mousehole, you'd be incorrect.

On arrival we set up base camp for the assault on the big beardy man with the flat head who is the (map of the) British Mainland.

We met my brother Phil's friend Sue's sister Liz and her husband Kev, who run the site, and were told that Sue was coming over from Goldsithney later on.

Back in the 'van' an assortment of loony gestures and incidents can be put down to the fact that we were all running on insufficient sleep. I nearly trepanned myself on a window that had been left open, and Matthew smashed the cafetiere (so it's back to basic bush craft survival skills for us).

Reality TV has nothing on this. I'm a calamity, get me out of here!

Rain set in about 3 p.m., a bit of a miserable end to the day, but let’s see what tomorrow brings!

Perhaps it was a mistake to have watched Titanic on the telly before we left home…

Me: “Georgina, I have built two machines which will take us the length of Britain in comfort and style. Each tyre has an air-tight compartment that is nigh-on un-puncturable by virtue of linings of the finest Kevlar known to science.”

G: “Pray tell me, papa, how many people are undertaking the journey?”

Me: “Why, just the two of us, as well you know, my pretty young girl!”

G: “But am I correct in my observation that the number of lifeboats is nil?”

Me: “Ah, don’t you worry your little head about that. The Board of Trade regulations do not stipulate a minimum number of lifeboats per bicycle. Besides, I have taken the trouble to pack sufficient spare tubes, tyres and vulcanising patches for every conceivable eventuality.”

G: "But papa, are we not going close to the bottle banks of Glasgow where we could sustain deep lacerations?"

Me: "Rest easy child, for I have charted a course which will take us well to the West, toward the benign influences of the Gulf Stream, and onto the Isle of Bute, where broken glass is unheard of and the fabled Bute-Isle Rubber trees grow. It is a cyclist's paradise: flat, yet flat-free."

And so, fully prepared, we were eager to begin the big adventure.


Sunday 29th July 2007. Leg 1: Land’s End to Lanivet.

Left Crows-An-Wra campsite 9.30 a.m. down to Land’s End in the motorhome with bikes on back. Wet start. Faffy pre-amble of photos, card-stamping etc. Bumped into Mr. Robinson from North Halifax Grammar (G and Matt’s old school). He’s cycling with some mates from Land’s End to John o’Groats in aid of Overgate Hospice. One of these chaps tells us he has been diagnosed as having MS.

Left L.E. about 11.00 a.m. (so much for an early start). Mainly back roads to Penzance, meeting Jacky and the lads near Morrisons. It’s already 1.00 p.m. – at this rate we’ll be going till 9.

Route takes us to Marazion (St. Michael’s Mount-see photo), Praze-an-Beeble (not to be confused with Zaphod Beeblebrox), then Redruth (toilet stop – in the salubrious multi-story car park.)

Finally arrive at Lanivet campsite at 9.00 p.m. very tired, but day 1 accomplished.

The latter part of the journey completed on the fast A30. Some crucial survival skills are required on this road. In particular slip-road tactics, which consist of continuing up the shoulder of the slip-road as if going off at the junction, then at the last second checking behind for traffic exiting at 60 mph, and finally traversing the neck of the slip to rejoin the trunk road. A similar procedure is needed at the “on” slip, but looking for traffic accelerating up to 60 coming onto the trunk road. Georgina took to this very useful technique like a duck to water.

Weather picked up, but a slight northerly wind all day.

Highlights:
Washed my cycling glove ‘cos I forgot I was wearing it when washing my hands.
Pete’s Pinks (sign in Leedstown).
5 buzzards, 1 lizard.

Lowlights:
Georgina’s new chain (fitted in haste before we came away) was not threaded through the derailleur properly. She cycled all the way to Penzance with it in this state. Shoot the engineer!
Georgina’s twittering transmission, after standing out in last night’s rain, drove the pair of us mad (sounded like a demented skylark was following her). Chain lube - just splash it all over.

10 miles from journey’s end we (meaning I) decided to take the scenic route, and trying to navigate back to the A30 found our way blocked by a Road Closed sign. Georgina’s morale hit rock bottom. We just walked our bikes through the road works and onto the hard shoulder, and found a lay-by to have a little cry, sis. Tried to convince G. that bikes are exempt from such things as “Road Closed” signs. I think she was still in car mode.

(Here is what I have to say on the “road closed” palaver: The “road” was not “closed”, it had not been built! So we carried our bikes across the muddy, rubbley foundations of the not yet built slip road. Thank you!)

Distance covered: 57.9 miles
Moving time: 07:04
Average speed: 8.2 mph
Maximum speed: 38.1 mph.

The write up!

Over the next few days, I (Georgina) will be uploading Dad's blog from the cycling trip. However... it is quite long so I will deliver it to you in bite size chunks! The parts in italics are my comments on the trip! Enjoy!?!

Quick catch up (and back track) before the BIG one!

Thursday 19th July, 2007

Georgina's 21st birthday today. Collected the cake from "Cakes for the Occasion" in Crosshills. It has been made in the shape of Britain, with a LeJoG route picked out in coloured icing, topped off by a little cyclist doing the ride. The lady there donated the cake free of charge. We will put the £24 into the fund in lieu of payment.


Friday, 20th July, 2007
G's graduation ceremony. Much pomp and ceremony, Chris Bonnington "By my authority as Chancellor I confer etc..." Inspirational speech. Tom McKillop awarded honorary degree. Interesting success story of son of a Scottish miner becoming head of Astra-Zeneca, then latterly Royal Bank of Scotland.

We will be passing through his birthplace Dreghorn in Ayshire in a couple of weeks. (Also the birthplace of John Boyd Dunlop, inventor of the pneumatic tyre, so better not get any punctures there).

Lots of photographs and lots of waiting around. Miraculously, the weather stayed dry. Later, I noticed a sign on the George Fox building "Bicycles not allowed in this building". Adherents to the mollycule theory as advanced by Flann O'Brien will understand why I was personally reluctant to enter.


Saturday, 21st July, 2007

Saturday we held Georgina's birthday party. A selection of memorable moments...
...all the family and friends who turned up to make it a splendid occasion.
...an uninvited guest, the mouse who turned up in the downstairs cloakroom. (Hoots Mon, there's a moose loose aboot this hoose!)
§ I performed "the" folk song, the "Seven Couch Potato Nights".
§ vast quantities of beer disappeared down the necks of the three old reprobates Messrs Jones, Allan and Ellis (we had to send Matthew out down the offie).
§ uncle Phil's neighbours'-Chinese-chicken-alarm-clock story.
§ drunkenly making a late-night smoothie out of the remains of Karen's fruit salad, but forgetting to place the collecting jug under the spout,
§ the rubbish weather (more or less constant rain all day) which meant the gazebo stayed uninhabited.
§ the usual scene of chaos the morning after.
§ taking photos of Cameron, Sally and Celia on the Worth Valley Steam Railway on their way home with a camera from which the memory card had been removed.


Monday 23rd July, 2007
Been raining heavily down south. Places like Bristol, Hereford, Tewkesbury, Oxford have been or are in imminent danger of flooding. We all feel for the people in these places. A lot of the place names we plan to pass near, or through in the coming fortnight. Perhaps we'll witness the aftermath. Hope we get some fair weather soon.

Ride into work was a good one, despite it being very humid and an easterly wind, with bothersome flies getting a free ride up the Big Hill (futile attempts to dislodge them, a bit tricky at 2.8 mph). Need to put in some effort to work off the results of the weekend's over-indulgence).

The sheep on the left hand side of the moor road have been shorn (fleeced, even). Those on the right are still in their woollies.

Time out 0:54 (Pretty satisfied with this showing)

Just missed the heavy rain on way home.

Return 0:56 (moist, but moistly dry)


Tuesday 24th July, 2007
Bunnie in the bilberries. His right eye stares impassively in the sun as I pass. Yesterday he scuttled off through a hole in the wall.

Campervan parked on the back road, with a German number-plate and a rather nice "On-One" MTB on the back. Brave souls.

We've picked the wettest summer since the great flood of biblical times to do our ride. Had Noah been around today, I like to think he would have saved a pair of cyclists, but wouldn't have bothered with the 4x4's on the basis that they were outside his terms of reference (and beside they wouldn't scan lyrics-wise).

Wind gone round to North West.

Time out 0:50:39 (A real blast down Pellon Lane)

At work, strange howling noises have been heard reverberating through the building, like some large beast in pain. Could it be the ogre that imprisons the Rapunzels, or could it be building work which is continuing? Men drilling deep into the rock from which the very fabric of the building is fashioned. Each vibration reverberating long and low throughout the place, like a long low reverberating vibration.

There is a short flight of stairs near the rear door, appearing to lead to a netherworld which is even deeper down than the dungeon where the Lead Balloon is stabled. In recent weeks I have occasionally witnessed dungareed young men walking purposefully down a short flight of stairs before turning to pass silently into the gloom.

The latest of these, hardly out of boyhood, was today carrying a white paint tin in each hand, like a pair of votive candles, in a futile effort to illuminate the gloom. He's the fourth I've counted going down there, but not one has been seen to emerge. Perhaps this is linked to Rapunzel's extra button. Did I mention she had an extra button? Yes, that's another curious thing. Rapunzel 2 has 13 buttons, whereas Rapunzel has 14. Rapunzel’s extra button is marked "-1" (Dan Dan Darrrr!). I’ve tried pressing this button, but to no effect. But there is no denying that Rapunzel has access to the netherworld. Another dimension, to which I am not privy.

At lunchtime, resolve to find another way down. Grabbing the torch from my bike, I trace the footsteps of the young bucks down the short staircase. As I turn the corner at the bottom, my way is barred by stout iron doors. None shall pass (I say again!).


Head for home. Lovely weather, if a bit breezy in a North Westerly sort of way.

Return 0:55


Wednesday 25th July, 2007

My last day at work before the main event. So came in by car. Weather a very wetting incessant fine rain, so riding in would not have been particularly pleasurable.

WE DID IT!!!

Just to quickly let everyone know we did it! We cycled all the way from Land's End to John O'Groats!!!

Anyway its all been a bit hectic since returning but there will be a new post here soon no doubt telling you all about it!

Just a quick thanks to everyone for all there support xxx