Well it has begun. After months of preparation and literally hours of strenuous training we started the journey north.
The fates seemed to have been on our side in the days running up to the start - ordered equipment arrived just in time, bikes were allowed onto trains (despite the warnings of singularly unhelpful First Great Western staff) and parents went out of their way to drive and provide a sustaining supply of sandwiches.
To cut a long story short (and to begin a much longer, but hopefully more interesting, one) we arrived at Land's End this afternoon just as the rain began to spatter. We took our photos in front of the famous sign (turning down the £10 fee of the official photographer - a man who literally takes his work home with him to avoid people stealing it), signed into the hotel End-to-End book (we're the third group to have started from Land's End this year) took some preliminary footage and set off. (There was more faffing than this would suggest, involving a cream tea, but that doesn't make for good blogging.) Land's End is not the most salubrious place at the best of times, but the rundown amusement arcade and hasty cash-in of a Doctor Who exhibit look even tackier completely empty and in the drizzle.
Despite this, we set off later than planned and the pressure to get to St Ives before dark was on. The first section along the coast was lovely, the drizzle giving the sea and moorside a sad quality as if it didn't want to let go of winter just yet, just yet. But there were splashes of daffodils all along the road banks and gorse flowers were bursting through, so spring has definitely started to spring here.
Then there were the hills. We'd been warned about these and I'd vainly assumed they couldn't be all that bad. They were - and these weren't even the bad ones. I admit we were defeated by quite a few and had to drag our unwilling bikes up them, telling each other repeatedly that at the end of this trip hills such as this will seem easy. Maybe they will, but they didn't feel easy today.
After 17 miles we arrived just before dusk in St Ives, checked into the backpackers hostel and had a well deserved pub dinner. Off to bed now and hopefully plenty of springtime stories to begin regailing tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment