Devon and Cornwall

The final leg of my UK tour was through Devon and Cornwall. It began with one of the best train trips in Britain. Getting on the train at Tauton I first had a great ride through the hills of Somerset and Devon. For some reason, (it might just have been the bright sunshine), I found something really appealing about this landscape. It seemed strangely irregular in a very beautiful way. As often happened I got on a train looking forward to a snooze but didn´t feel I could justify sleeping through the scenery. Beyond Exeter though there was no question of sleeping. Between Exeter and Totnes the train line runs down the river Exeter, along the coast and up the river Teign. For much of the journey it runs right beside the sea, sometimes you literally can´t see the ground under the train, only water. The coast there is very rocky and has some great sea cliffs but the train runs along the bottom, so you have an excellent view. It was really quite exhilarating, even on a calm day. I heard one story later of how a train was forced to stop in a storm due to the waves breaking over the train and track, now that would be exciting!

Totnes was another great servas visit, clicking easily with my host Pamela who took me walking from Hay Tor to Hough Tor (Tor means peak) on Dartmoor. Its beautiful rugged landscape is supposed to be the setting for Conan Doyle´s ´The hound of the Baskervilles´
From Totnes I trained to Plymouth where I had a couple of hours to look around the magnificent harbour where one my great grandfathers had first departed from for the then colony of New Zealand. The rest of Plymouth seemed pretty ugly to me, although I was fascinated to find an old bombed out church left standing in the middle of a roundabout as a reminder of WWII. From Plymouth a train took me as far as Par, where I had to change for Newquay but the next connection was not for another five hours! It was too cold to sit and wait so I cycled into the village where after talking to a couple of locals I discovered it was only 20 miles to Newquay. So I just rode and arrived just before sunset, and what a sunset it was, one of the best I´ve ever seen. Half the sky was a brilliant bright pink and lasted for sometime. The receptionist at the surfers hostel was out on the balcony watching it when I arrived and said, ´I´ll be with you in a minute mate, I´m just watching the sunset´ ´me too` I replied, so we stood watching for at least 10 minutes and then I introduced myself.

The rest of Newquay didn´t seem of much interest, a nice beach sure, but it was too cold too swim. I rode on to St Ives the following day, a nice stretch of coast line, similar to Pembrokeshire but not quite as good. St Ives is a little maze of a town, with old cobled streets on some steep hills (not a good place for riding) but a nice atmosphere for a walk touring the incredible number of art galleries. I did a night walk as well and was enjoying life and travelling so much I pondered spending my whole life just trotting ´round the globe.
My last long day on the bike in the UK took me from St Ives around the coast to Lands end and back to Penzance. Nothing very spectacular and it was getting pretty cold so I was happy to be on the final leg. Land´s End is not much, just a tourist sinkhole but it´s easy enough to avoid the hole and there are still some great cliffs to explore and it seemed a fitting place to get to on my last UK bike day.