At the beginning of September, Chris set out on his birthday challenge to cycle from Land’s End in Cornwall to John O’Groats in Scotland (aka LE2JOG). This is my attempt to blog along the route.
Today was a bit of a lazy day. We didn’t really have much to do apart from go to Land’s End and get Chris’s paperwork organised so that he could get ticked off at each stop along the route.
Due to the issues with the car Chris completed his route from Land’s End back to the farmhouse where we are staying so that tomorrow he can set off from here at the same time that I leave for Penzance to get the car sorted out. (oh mental note to self need to look up the bus times from the garage to the town centre.)
We went and did the tourist thing and had our photos taken at the sign. If you stand on one side of the barrier although you get other people in the picture you can take a picture at the sign. There is a charge to have your photo taken with the sign so it’s up to you. Once we’d wandered around and taken photos, we collected Chris’s forms and then headed to the official start line. I’d offered Chris the keys in case he got back to the house first but he said that the hills would probably slow him down. He also said that I might be better to take them. I had the camera and took a couple of pictures of Chris before he started the route. I wandered back to the car and a lady and gent stopped me and asked if Chris was doing the whole route. I explained that yes he was doing the whole route and that he was raising funds for The Fountain in Bedford. They then said “Bedford? Really? We’re from Hertfordshire” how cool is that lol.
I got in the car and drove back to the house via the local shop as we needed some bits. There were two shops pretty much opposite each other I went into the first one to get some margarine and squash, when I got to the till the girl was really helpful and lovely, I asked if they did stamps but she said they were out and to try the shop over the road. I moved the car to the other shops car park and then went into ask about the stamps. The lady was really grumpy and pointed out that I wouldn’t be able to get any stamps till tomorrow (I kinda knew this but some shops in Bedford sell stamps over the till as well as at the actual Post Office counter which is good on Sundays).
I headed home and as I pulled into the driveway I could see Chris pottering round as he had beaten me back. I sat down at the kitchen table and worked on finishing my letters so that I could post the ones that had stamps and then get stamps tomorrow for the ones that needed them (one is airmail so I couldn’t do that one without taking it to the post office)
We hang out at the house for most of the afternoon and then decided to go for a bit of a drive. We headed up to the Minack Theatre but it was £4 each to get in which wouldn’t have been a problem but we would have only had an hour to look round and really I wanted longer than that to have a look round.
We decided to walk down to the beach which was a little crazy it was fine walking down it was a bit steep but manageable. The walk back nearly killed me. I really should have taken my inhalers with me. I’d been paddling in the sea while on the beach but then couldn’t really get my shoes back on again as my feet were absolutely covered in sand. I got most of it off but there were bits of shell and bits of sand that I couldn’t get off my feet. It was good fun though the sand was proper sand and the see was amazingly clear. You go to the Norfolk or even the coast at Brighton and the water looks so cloudy and dirty here it was crystal clear till a shelf a few metres out when it got really deep.
We went for a bit of a drive to find the other coast but my navigating failed a bit and I realised that the road we were going up actually turned into a bridle path and we weren’t going to get through. So we stopped and parked the car. Chris pointed out a pile of rocks we’d stopped by and actually it was a barrow not just a pile of rocks. It’s called Ballowall Barrow.
In the evening, we spent time back at the cottage. Chris made spaghetti bolognese for tea which was yummy (and one of my favourites).
For the stressful, energetic half of the trip read Chris’s posts here.
