Chocolate in York Fifty years ao in York the air smelled of chocolate and cocoa dust rained down like pollen in spring. That is because York is the city of chocolate. That is what we were told and we like to believe it is true. Is it possible Willy Wonka lived here then? Maybe, but even better than Willy Wonka this is the home of KitKats - a fact not lost on this group of travellers. And even though there is a big "Closed" sign where the chocolate factory was, the city is not giving up its rightful heritage. There is a "Chocolate Trail" that can be followed through town and "Kat" and I -with lots of misguided wandering- found ourselves in the "Cocoa House". They woudn't sell us the handsome red and white "KitKat" ... read more

We rolled into York yesterday after 630 miles of riding since leaving Penzance. We are approximately half way in both time and mileage from our goal of the northern end of Scotland. The hills we encountered early in the trip in Cornwall and Devon tested us. We developed two positions for riding in Cornwall. Cornwall Position No. 1: feet firmly on the ground next to the bike, hands on the handlebars, and pushing up the steepest hill you can imagine. Cornwall Position No 2: sitting on the bike with hands on the drop bar for a white knuckled descent screaming down a curving hill. The rolling downs around Oxford were a welcome relief. Lincoln had one hill on a street named Steep Hill and the flat terrain approaching York was a breeze. Leaving here tomorrow we ... read more

How do you get to Oxford? "Study! Study! Study!" I suppose someone who knows the famous joke about Carnegie Hall would say. (If you don't know, the answer to that one is "Practice! Practice! Practice!") Anyway, it is a challenge to find a good cycle route between Bath and Oxford, as we learned by experience over the past three days. But we did it, spending one night in Avebury so we could get up early Tuesday morning to experience the ancient standing stones that surround the town, trying to make our way on via numbered cycle routes that turned out to be rough trails better suited for walking and then making a wrong turn because we had run off of our map. But we rectified that after getting the right map in the small town of ... read more

Our original plan was to bike over Dartmoor where we would pass Grimspound, the Neolithic site where Sherlock Holmes camped during the Hound of the Baskervilles. Our original timetable had us there on a full moon. The timetable was shot after several days of bike breakdowns, walking up horrendous hills, and difficulties in finding our route and running into detours. And then we heard numerous warnings of treacherous conditions for riding in Dartmoor, especially in bad weather. So plan 2 had us heading north to Bodmin Moor, another wild and beautiful part of Cornwall. As we climbed up to Bodmin on day 3 we entered a world of mist and open country that seemed like the top of the world. Picture a single track road winding through open pastures with sheep grazing freely. A lamb followed ... read more

Many signs and business names at Land's End, and throughout this southwestern part of Cornwall, reflect the theme of "start and finish" or "beginning and end" or "first and last." This is because, for end-to-enders like us, this area is either the completion of a long, tiring journey or the initiation of the same. For us, it is the start. While we still have the energy, enthusiasm, and optimism of journey starters, still it required a bit of effort, and a few adventures, to reach the beginning today, and we are already feeling a sense of accomplishment for that. The flight over from Seattle via Iceland to Gatwick went surprisingly well even though we were surprised that Icelandair did not provide complimentary meals and we had to satisfy ourselves with mediocre chef's salads at $14 per. ... read more