We left Sam's house in North Somerset at around 8:30am in bright sunshine convinced that we were going to need plenty of sunblock during the day. A climatic turnaround occured around the Devon/Cornwall border that set the tone for most of the trip - after thinking we may just get lucky with the weather it became overcast and windy at the exact point of the country we were in. For some reason Cornwall was entirely covered in cloud during the 2nd and 3rd of June this year while the rest of the country scorched, the evidence is above - jackets on, grey skies, hint of rain. Not much complaint about the wind on the first day, it certainly wasn't helping but it came from the south-west, as winds are wont to do here, and buffeted us about without really slowing us down too much.
As we left Land's End at about 1pm into a foreboding greyness we had already set in motion another couple of trends that would remain throughout the trip - Sam's constant complaining and my own stubborness. An argument had developed before we even got started, not surprisingly it was orchestrated by Sam and based around equipment. It was an argument that served as a perfect example of our difference in character - Sam wanted to buy another set of panniers in which to put the thermarests and sleeping bags. I didn't. Mistakenly Sam believed that he could badger me into agreement by repeatedly suggesting the exact same thing. By 11pm I was annoyed by this gibberish and had decided that regardless of whether it was a good idea or not we would certainly not be getting panniers now. Besides which it was extra weight and extra expense and I had some perfectly good bin bags and bungy cords for the job of attaching equipment to the bikes. I had a strong feeling the less weight idea would be of great importance later on and after months of planning and organising on my part there would be no kneejerk reactions to non-existent problems at this stage.
Cassie, Sam's girlfriend (and Somerset to Cornwall taxi-service), and Sarah (Sam's sister) passed us a couple of miles up the road on their way back home and we headed north on our way around the coast of Cornwall. It felt good to finally be going after what felt like an eternity sorting things out beforehand. We took the B3306 from St Just and occasionally saw the sea, which was only 50 yards away some of the time, but mostly we saw the piece of road we were on and a host of Dutch and German tourist, mainly in camper vans, some in cars, a few on motorbikes. I reckon there is some scenery to be had in this area, but we didn't have it. On the plus side we did find a couple of magic roads (see Father Ted, episode - Holiday, for explanation) where despite the fact that the 'cline' was almost certainly of the 'in-' variety rather than 'de-' we found ourselves accelerating upwards quite easily. The wind, obviously, but a few hundred yards further on a similar incline would cause struggling and puffing of the lungs. Spooky!
An early photo stop near an old tin mine.
Fortunately these miracles of gravity and physics were enough to keep us entertained most of the way to St Ives where I nearly crashed into an Alsatian coming down the hill. (I was coming down the hill not the dog). St Ives was our first pit-stop of the tour and it came in the shape of a Beer festival, which seemed fitting. A few months earlier I had trawled through the excellent www.quaffale.com website finding as many brewery email addresses as possible. The reason for this was an idea that had sprung up about visiting as many real ale breweries as possible on the trip, learning a bit about brewing, beer, business and other things beside. I reasoned that it increased our chances of making this trip interesting and simultaneously raising some cash for the charities. As it turns out I was utterly correct, a fact that has led to confusion in many areas, not least my own brain.
One of the 30 or so brewers that had replied to my emails (I sent out over 200 and for anyone thinking about doing something like this bear in mind it takes ages!) was Steve Wilmott, the owner of Dog House brewery based near Scorrier. Steve set the tone for the next 5 weeks by being very kind to us, something that would be repeated by all of the breweries we visited, giving us free tickets to the festival and including a couple of free beers when we got there. Our visit to his own brewery would come 38 days later in not dissimilar weather conditions. We wandered around the venue, drunk a few beers, at pies and pasties, listened to a set by Jenny Bishop (www.jennybishopmusic.com), spoke to Steve Wilmott and then left in order to get to Lizard point before inebriation and apathy set in.
This is me enjoying the beer festival immensely:
Note in these photos the shortness of hair and lack of beard growth, something which would be rectified before the end of the trip.Then an odd thing happened as we left St Ives..................
Don't worry, it was a brief bout of sunshine, in actual fact it looked better than this photo suggests but at least we could see more than 20 yards ahead and it was appreciated nonetheless. As I took out the camera to record this event we bumped into a woman who stopped to sketch the bay that we see above. She had travelled from John O'Groats on a heavy looking bike doing 40 miles per day and keeping an excellent diary of the trip including numerous sketches and drawings of whatever took her fancy at the time.
The rest of the day was decidedly average, through Helston and to a campsite near Mullion. We checked in at the site, dumped our kit and headed to Lizard point unladen. It didn't seem that easy despite the lack of weight, but the return journey confirmed that the wind was definitely from the south. Lizard point was predictably unexciting and we took photos and scarpered back to the campsite from where we would be able to head out for food.
I don't actually look like that all the time but had got bored of posing for photos already, after 1, and took a bit of a 'yokel' pose for some reason. The constant booming of the lighthouse made us glad we weren't staying in the youth hostel at Lizard point.
We found a pub in Mullion at about 8:30, walking from the campsite in drizzle, and ate a well deserved meal. I ate a perfectly adequate Sweet and Sour chicken, Sam ate a Gammon melt that on the face of it seemed fine.................
50 minutes later, back at the campsite, I was treated to the sight of a man desperate to get to a toilet who was running slower than I can walk, the result of having a mole at the counter (for those of you not of a crude disposition please don't consider what that term means). I found myself laughing harder than I normally would while taking a shower due to the range of noises Sam was able to make without using his mouth, but it became less humorous as the aftermath of the dodgy Gammon melt became airborne. How he had the energy to get up the next morning I will never know.
Day 1 review
Mileage = 56
Breweries visited = 0 (1 beer festival)
Pints drunk = 4
- Indiana's Bones - Summerskills
- Bucaneer - Wooden Hand
- Doom Bar (x2) - Sharps
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