dst. (km) Today 77.51 Trip total ?? Odometer 624.5
No breakfast at the backpackers so I cruised out at and rode down to Lands End. It’s the sort of place that everyone knows is tacky, but everyone visits all the same. At nine in the morning before it all opens up everything looks even sadder and more depressing than normal. It was dead still, no wind, no people, just flat sea and gulls calling.
I sat at the famous sign post and wrote a postcard to Jo, taking my own photo before the stalls opened up and I was forced to pay the £5 charge for a photo! I love the sound of the gulls here, it just seems to suit the place.
Norky bike at Lands End
Breakfast wasn’t until Penzance at about 22km, I was more than a little hungry by then! I nearly laughed out loud at the menu when I saw the English Vegetarian breakfast — fried eggs, fried bread, beans, everything else fried in butter and bacon fat. The only difference from the regular breakfast is the absence of bacon and sausage. I had the traditional breakfast, which was OK, but foolishly asked for a café latte, which was shocking. I should stick with straight espresso or filter coffee here — these strange foreigners just don’t seem to know how to drive their milk frothers.
The tendons in my right knee were very sore this morning, but raising my seat a fraction seems to be helping and it got gradually better during the day. I think a few things have come loose in the days on the bike.
Falmouth is a nice place after the tourist towns, just a plain ordinary sea port town. I’m staying at a B&B though, since the hostel in the guidebook has apparently been closed for a couple of years! The ever-so-helpful local Tourist Information Centre staff tried to direct my to the nearest backpackers — “just a little bit up the road” — in Newquay, where I stayed ago!!!
Later in the afternoon I sat on the beach eating apple pie and cream while waiting to get to the B&B, then had a wonderful hot shower once I was inside. The only drawback is that Norky bike has to live outside chained to an old ladder.
These £15-20, B&Bs are pretty worthwhile when I consider that most hostels are around £10, with breakfast typically another £3- £5. A very different clientele that they’re aiming at though, a few times I’ve had the B&B operators look down their noses at a single person on a bicycle.
Spent the evening sitting in a pub having a pint and then another pint… Sitting and watching the bay and the old video clips from the early eighties on the juke box. The Jam came on and brought a smile to my face. Then an old Carly Simon clip of “You’re So Vain” from years ago. The Jam ended and a song started that I knew I should remember but I just couldn’t place it. Finally it twigged, “Teenage Kicks,” the Undertones, another that seems to haunt my visits to the UK.
Where?
Sennen (50.0666667, 5.7W), Lands End, Penzance, Falmouth (50.15, 5.0833333W)
