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Published: April 20th 2013
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. Getting our luggage through customs and to the airport train station, on the first train and through the change in Reading for the 5 hour ride to Penzance went much easier than expected. Still, it is difficult when each of you has a duffel bag with two full panniers, carry-ons, and another case with a bicycle packed in it. Our mound of baggage was
Karen and Kathy getting ready to take bike cases to post office
There were the two big cases and two large suitcases (for Kathy's and my Bike Fridays) altogetherquite a sight piled in the middle of the busy airport or stacked and stowed at one end of the full express train car. Jim and Karen's full sized bike boxes stood out especially, but we pulled it all off, arriving late Thursday evening at the windy Penzance train station.
A few blocks away we found the Cornerways guest house where our host, Matt, recently immigrated from Germany, had stayed up to welcome us. Matt allowed us to drop our big bike cases in the small dining room for the night, and we gratefully assumed horizontal positions in our beds, about 26 hours after leaving home. After a sumptious full English breakfast (we'd gotten up early enough to remove the packed bikes from the dining room before the breakfast preparations started) Matt allowed us to assemble the bikes in his small courtyard. This also went surprisingly well, with only a few mishaps (more on that later). While Jim and I completed the bike assembly, Kathy and Karen took the bike cases, packed with duffel bags and a few other things that aren't going with us on the bikes, up the hill to the post office through cobbled streets filled
with pedestrians to mail them to St. Bees where we will be staying at the Abbey Farm with Steve and Janet Pearson in about two months. By mid-day Friday we were done with all this, we thanked Matt for his graciousness in accomodating us and our bikes, and moved on towards the hostel we had booked for the rest of our stay here. We definitely recommend Cornerways as the place in Penzance for first night end-to-enders, especially if you are arriving by train.
On the way to the Penzance Backpackers Hostel we visited a local farmers market that Karen and Kathy had discovered and treated ourselves to local smoked fish, local cheese, a Cornish pasty (definitely a local product, and be sure to pronounce the "a" like the "a" in "man"), and a delicious lemon-polenta dessert concoction. The cheese and fish woman educated Karen on the difference between clotted cream and butter (clotted cream is skimmed, not churned like butter) and explained to me that the season for mackerel fishing has been greatly shortened here "because the Scots are overfishing them up north." So, it is as true here as anywhere that the perceived cause of people's fishery problems
is always someone else, preferably strange and far away. At any rate, the mackerel season had recently opened, and the fish were fresh and deliciously prepared. We had some for our picnic lunch today at Land's End.
Yesterday afternoon, after further adjustments to all the bikes, Jim and I headed for the local hills to seek out the Chysauster Ancient Village, an interesting ruin within 5 miles of Penzance. We arrived just too late to get in before closing, but the ten mile ride gave us a good introduction to what we will be facing daily, including remembering to ride on the left side in town and on very narrow country roads, keeping to the left in roundabouts, and, at least for this part of the country, why Cornwall and Devon have the reputation as the hilliest part of the UK for bicycling. Coming down from Chysauster back to town we had a long descent with beautiful views of Mounts Bay and the western English Channel below us, including St Michael's Mount, the English counterpart of Mont Saint-Michel. Towards the bottom of the hill, though, the first equipment mishap occurred when my right pedal started to wobble. When I
"Hole Foods" in Mousehole
Do they only sell donuts, bagels, Cheerios, and Swiss cheese, Kathy wondered. stopped and tried to tighten it up, the pedal come completely out because the screw threads had entirely disintegrated. So, all of a sudden, the day before we were to start our two-month odyssey, I was relegated to tying to pedal my bike with the left foot only that didn't work out very well) or walk my bike back into town looking for an open bike shop at 6:00 on a Friday evening.
Fortunately, the potential crisis was averted this morning when I found the Cycle Centre, another Penzance business we highly recommend, open at 9:00 AM, a half hour ahead of the advertised opening time. They found me a substitute crankset on one of their for sale bike and had it installed within the hour. So, we were able to keep on schedule and do the loop ride to the starting point at Land's End today. And that's a good thing, too, because today was one of the most glorious ones you could imagine for a ride through the Cornish countryside and by the sea to the southwestern extreme point of England.
We chose a loop route from Penzance, south and west along the coast through the
Church with cross of surfboards
Earlier in the day I remarked that all English churches look the same. Then we saw this one. old and picturesque fishing village of Mousehole (pronounced "mouzle"). The day was clear and brisk, and the seascapes were glorious. We definitely had our share of long hills, especially heading up from Mousehole, but we accept the fact that this will part of our reality for the next little while and we plan to enjoy it. In Mousehole we saw the grave of Dorothy Pentreath (1692-1777), supposedly the last native speaker of the Cornish language. Actually, people still speak Cornish today, but it was fun to come across this in the churchyard at the top of the long hill nonetheless. As we approached Land's End we started to get views of the sea to the north, the opposite side of Cornwall from the English Channel which was really exciting. Then, nearer yet to our destination (i.e. the starting point), there was a beautiful sandy beach full of surfers, not something that one normally associates with the UK, yet a common activity here. The little amusement park at Land's End was really not so bad, and we were able to enjoy our picnic of local smoked fish and cheese on some of the large soft rolls that they call "baps" here,
on top of the cliff overlooking the rocks off of Land's End and the wide Atlantic.
On the way there we had one more equipment mishap when Karen tried to shift into high gear and discovered that Jim and I had put her rear derailleur on backwards when reassembling her bike yesterday. But Jim fixed that, and now we think we have all the bikes assembled and adjusted properly. Time will tell, I guess.
Tomorrow, the plan is to head north and east towards Falmouth and the Roseland Peninsula. The good weather is supposed to continue for awhile, so we want to take advantage of that. We are calling tomorrow "Day 1" for some reason, but we finally reached the starting point today and we feel as if we are already on the move.
-- Kit
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Laurel Rawson
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Good stuff so far. Can't wait for more entries adventures. Hope all of the bike problems get worked out. Did you see Jack Sparrow or any other pirates in Penzance?