539 to Penzance

I'm a little behind in my posts, but I thought I would give you what I have so far... I still intend to write about our time in Granada, Capiliera, and Alicante, but I have to find a bit more time! Here is the writing from the first part of our bicycle ride, named 539 to Penzance in honor of our outbound train ticket which left at 5:39 PM on July 24:

July 20, 2010


Joshua's alarm went off at 4:50 in the morning. We grabbed toast and bananas for breakfast and wheeled our bikes out the door. At Charlton Station, we caught the train to Charing Cross where we disembarked and then rode four miles through the heart of London to Paddington Train Station in Notting Hill. This would have been absolutely terrifying if people had been awake and driving, but as it was, most people were still in their beds and the roads were fairly free. At Paddington, we waited for 45 minutes until our train to Exeter arrived. On big trains like this one, you can reserve a space for your bike for free, and we were able to stow our bikes in the last car.


The train ride from Paddington to Exeter is about three hours long, and although the seats in the train are relatively plush and spacious compared to other forms of public transportation, they do not recline. No worries. I am exceptionally talented at sleeping in awkward positions, and I slept the entire distance.


We arrived in Exter at 10:30 AM. Having decided the night before that we would need to purchase new panniers, we headed into the heart of the town with our Googlemap directions to find The Bike Shed. Joshua commandeered the selection and purchase of the extremely large and waterproof panniers while I avoided the checkout counter and the final sum. Luckily, once Joshua had purchased the panniers, The Bike Shed was kind enough to let him affix the racks using their tools inside the shop. Running out of time to meet Eric, I left Joshua to the panniers and headed back to Exeter St. David's Station, and I arrived just as Eric exited the station with his brand new Sirrus Sport bicycle and back panniers.


I don't know if it's a part of growing up or just a part of living all over the country, but it feels like I only get to see my closest friends and family in short, intense bursts that occur at infrequent intervals. The greeting is almost always the same. The familiar face and smile makes me remember: yes, this is what I have been missing, and it is so good to see my friend. I big part of me wishes that I could gather these people close to me all the time. I wish I could always be surrounded by such loving and easy company, but like Ashlee says, we live our lives and those lives don't always live in the same place. You take what you can get, and you enjoy it. (I, of course, take some poetic license, but Ashlee IS an exceptionally wise lady.) I still dream of that place surrounded by people I care about and who care about me, but until then, it's not so bad hopping planes and trains and bicycles to spend time with family and friends around the world.
Eric and I waited for Joshua for a few minutes, and when he pulled in, we had another round of greetings. It soon became apparent that neither Joshua nor Eric really had any idea where we were headed next, and I waited patiently while the two pooled their many maps and guide books in an effort to ascertain the next best course of action. It was almost noon, so they decided that 30 miles would be a conservative goal. We set our sights on Two Bridges or Princetown in the heart of Dartmoor, and then we went back into Exeter to purchase foodstuffs. At Marks and Spencers, Eric and I rounded up bananas, a baggie of vegetables, rice, butter beans, and chili dipping sauce for dinner and bagguettes, salami, and humous for lunch.

With all of our food packed into our now very heavy panniers, we made our way to the Cathedral for a pre-trip photo, and then we headed down towards the river. Using a combination of bike paths and highway passes, we circumnavigated the business intersections. Exeter seems to be a pleasant, well-populated town, and it took about two miles to fully exit the city. It was at this point that we started biking up.

Let me preface the next part of this entry by saying: I am very fit. In my last semester of teaching and in the three weeks before we left for Minnesota, I was working out eight to nine hours a week. As I have also mentioned, I was taking serious thigh and butt-burning classes, and I am no stranger to breathing hard and sweating like crazy. Even in the past month, we've been running, hiking, and walking nearly every day for many hours. After the intense run in Capiliera, I had even convinced myself that I was in the best shape I had been in since high school.


Then came Dartmoor. Let me also preface what I'm about to say with a little disclaimer; in order to fully express this experience, I'm going to need to use some colorful language. If this offends you, then you may want to fast forward for the next couple of months of posts.

Holy mother-fucking shit. We went up and up and up and up. By the second hill, my legs were already burning, I was breathing hard, and my t-shirt was soaked with sweat. You might ask me: was the scenery pretty? I would answer: how the fuck would I know? After 30 minutes of climbing, I'm pretty sure that I didn't move my gaze from the ten feet directly in front of me for the next two hours. I am aware that we were climbing, and therefore, I'm pretty sure that the scenery was pretty, but if you want to know what it looks like, you're going to have to look it up for yourself.


After about an hour of climbing, it started raining. It started with a drizzle, gentle enough to lull us into a sense of complacency. It might pass over, we thought. Then it started to ran a little harder. By now we were basically soaked, but we put our rain jackets on anyway, and it was a good thing: now, it started pouring.

I have a prediction: by the end of this journey - or actually, more likely near the beginning of this journey - I'm going to run out of words that describe the quantity and quality of precipitation falling from the sky. On July 20, it started raining at 1 PM and it didn't stop raining until 7 PM that night. It drizzled, it poured, it shit, and it fairly dumped all over us, the whole way, the whole time. At Moreton-hampstead we stopped beneath an ugly little underpass to eat lunch and question our wisdom. Why the fuck, you might ask, did we decide to bike from Exeter to Lands End? Why the hell, you might ask, did you not just begin in Lands End with Eric? The answer, my dears, is highly classified information. It belongs in a little manila envelope labeled, "Marital Strife." You might also be curious to know if this is what we can expect for the next 60 days. So am I, but I sure as hell hope not.


Moreton-hampstead is, I'm sure, a very quaint, cute little town, and it claims the distinction of being "The Gateway to the High Moors." Excuse me? The GATEWAY? Are you suggesting that I've only begun climbing massive mountains?

Yes indeedy. The next seventeen miles took us through heavily misted high moors with free-roaming horses, sheep, and cows. Like the Wicklow Mountains, the land was exposed and quilted in heather. It was beautiful, surreal, and thoroughly under appreciated by me as I panted and swore my way up hills and over moors. At one point, I'm certain an over-size cow shared my dismay when he hoarsely brayed, "For Fuck's Sake." A horse also whinnied, "Christ Almighty." At times, we could barely see 50 yards ahead, and livestock crossing the road appeared to be walking through air. It was a bit ghostlike, and I will refrain from drawing any more parallels to hell. It really was very pretty, I'm telling you.


At some point, we started hopping off of our bikes and walking them up particularly steep sections of road. This is probably why my back and arms hurt like I've been bailing hay for 12 hours. At Princetown, we took the first exit to camp in the field outside of a pub. It don't know what the field or pub were called. This is not because they weren't well marked. This is because I've already blocked out part of this experience from my memory. Eric can explain this to you: there's something called your experiencing self, and there's something called your remembering self, and nary the two shall meet.

ANYWAY. We payed a little less than 7 pounds apiece to pitch our tents in a sodden field. While Joshua and I own a very small, lightweight Mountain Hardware two-person tent, Eric - attempting to save money - had purchased a tarp for the journey. His shelter consisted of a tarp, two poles, and six stakes. We put up our stuff as quickly as possible to avoid getting our sleeping surfaces completely soaked, and when we had finished, I retreated to the shower to warm up. The water was pleasantly hot, but unfortunately, cleanliness just isn't the same when you have to don damp, smelly clothing afterwards. By the time I had finished with the shower, Joshua was sitting in the beer garden of the restaurant cooking dinner with our new camp stove. Thankfully, rice with vegetables and beans don't take very long to cook, and we were almost ready to eat by the time the pub owner came over and kicked us out into the rain. I will refrain from making mass judgements about the English race, and instead inform you that we ate our basic dinner inside a little hovel meant for washing dishes. There was a very nice corrugated plastic roof that was kind enough to keep the rain out and an even classier drain in the cement corner to dispose of our liquid wastes when we had finished.


After dinner, we stuck it to the man by walking a distance down the road to another pub. Eric ordered a beer while Joshua and I ordered two cups of hot tea. Joshua seems to think that real men don't drink their tea with milk and sugar, but I've grown to appreciate the finer things in life, and I say, bring it on. For the next two hours, we talked about the past two years, what's sucked and what hasn't, and Eric's upcoming research in history, economics, and human welfare.

Usually, a discussion such as this would bore me to tears, but I actually find this stuff pretty interesting. Eric is looking a data sets from different periods in history to determine different peoples' quality of life. He does this by looking at height. Throughout history, whenever societies have experience periods of relative wealth, their communities have grown taller. Data such as this can show how certain areas developed and even how different members within their communities benefited from food availability. For example, underdeveloped countries have lower average heights than more developed countries, and the average heights of men tend to be taller than women because historically men have had better access to the benefits of wealth. This is a vastly over-simplified summary of course, but hopefully, you'll be able to read all about when Eric publishes his dissertation and becomes fabulously wealthy (and tall?).

At eleven o'clock, we bundled up in every item of clothing we had carried and headed back for the camp site. Joshua and I looked on dubiously as Eric assured us that he would be fine under his little tarp. To be honest, I didn't worry for long, because as soon as my head hit my sopping wet pillow, I was fast asleep.


July 21, 2010

The next morning, I woke up to the sweet sounds of my husband hocking phlegm into the grass next to the tent. It was 8:30, and I figured we should probably get going, so I began stuffing our now only slightly damp sleeping bags into their stuff sacks and rolling our sleeping pads into their compact bags. When we're camping, this has always been my job. I like the straight-forward tasks that are the same every time, while Joshua prefers the spacial math-game of finding a way to stuff all of our crap into a small space.


For breakfast, we ate chocolate-covered flapjacks, oranges, dried apricots, and croissants. By the time we finished breakfast and breaking down camp, it was nearly 10:30, so we hopped on the road right away. We covered the first four miles in less than 20 minutes. Clearly, we were out of the high moors. Within the hour, we reached the Tavistock where we pulled off to the side and the men chose the next part of the route. After another uphill, we descended even further to the village of Gunnislake, sitting on a narrow brown river. For the next three miles, we switched into first gear and climbed back into the hills. In Callington, we stopped for lunch purchased from the Spar, and we ate our pasties and fresh fruit in a little courtyard just beyond a lovely stone Medieval Church. Joshua, having lost our bike pump, spied a bike shop and went in to see what was available. When he returned, he told us that the bike shop owner had done the Lands End to John O'Groats trip a couple of years ago. To his memory, Cornwall and Devon were by far the most difficult stretch of the trip. While other parts of the journey are also hilly, the road tends to make a more gradual ascent via switchbacks or circumnavigation.

This was good news indeed, and we took the next 8 miles by storm. Actually, Joshua and Eric took the next 8 miles by storm, but I conveniently got myself caught behind an old-fashioned steam car. You might ask me, what the hell is an old-fashioned steam car doing chugging through the steep-ass hills of Cornwall? I would tell you, why, there's an Old Fashioned Steam Car Festival in Buconnic! What great timing! Really, I can't think of a more enjoyable way to spend a four mile down hill after laboring up thousands of hills. Who doesn't love holding on to their breaks with white knuckles and breathing in the belching smoke of steam engine? The men engineering this pre- 19th century feat were positively charming, but I hated them nevertheless.


In better spirits, Joshua decided that he would christen our arrival into Liskeard by going number two in the middle of a field just beyond a busy roundabout. He is so classy.
The next few miles into Lostwhithiel, our port of call, were a bit less enjoyable. We headed onto a main freeway for a couple of miles, clinging to the shoulder the whole way. At our exit, we breathed a sigh of relief a bit prematurely, for the road simply narrowed, but the traffic seemed to maintain a steady pace. At one point, we took a little breather next to a car dealership, and we ate the rest of Eric's sliced ham along with the raspberries growing nearby. Tired and a little bit crabby, we hopped back on for our last few miles. It rained for a little bit, but it soon let up, and as we approached Lostwhithiel, we descended into another steep valley. Looking at the town's welcome sign, I considered how the name sounded a lot like a speech impediment.

At the tourist information center, we stopped for a potty break and directions to the nearest campsite. The woman behind the counter was optimistic about everything, and we predicted a campsite and a warm meal within the next 30 minutes. It was not to be. At the co-op, we loaded up on more beans, pita, humous, spinach, and pastries for breakfast, and then we headed out of town. Naturally, "out of town" also means "up a big fuckin' hill." Psychologically, we were all a bit down, so we slowly made our climb, crying into our gears.


We crested the hill, and Joshua and I spied our exit for the Eden Valley Holiday Park. Eric did not. We're convinced he just hadn't had enough cycling for the day, and he went on, climbing the next hill. Neither Joshua or I were about to cross the busy road with a blind curve again, so I dumped the bike and went running after him. After a quarter of mile, I realized the error of my ways and flagged down a car to play telephone with Eric. The nice elderly couple who stopped invited me to sit in their backseat, and we went in search of the lone rider in his orange jacket.

Once Eric had been corralled, we headed into the camp park. The man from reception was very nice, and he thought we were completely ridiculous. We exchanged a few stories, and then Joshua and Eric set up the tents while I made dinner. After 44 miles of hilly road, we inhaled our dinner of rice, steamed spinach, and beans. Once our bellies were full, we changed into warm clothing and headed out for the pub in Linlivery. To get there, we walked up a steep hill and into the courtyard of another Medieval Church. The small graveyard surrounding the double-naved stone building was full of ancient tombstones covered in lichen and moss, and on the other side, we spied our pub, filled with light and people drinking.


For their nightcap, Joshua and Eric ordered pints of beer, and again, I ordered my cup of doctored tea. The boys played Rummy 500 while I tried to catch up on some of my writing, interrupting them at odd intervals for suggestions on word choice, spelling, and fact-checking. At eleven o'clock, we called it a night and walked back through the dark country lanes to our campsite. Once again, my weary body succumbed to sleep within seconds and we slept through the night toasty warm and oblivious.

July 22, 2010


I woke up to the sound of my husband farting loudly. When I objected to this wake-up call, he heaped the blame back upon me, saying that I was feeding him too many beans. What to do? We're trying to wean ourselves off of meat and dairy, but how else are we supposed to get our protein? Beans, m'dear.

This morning began as the morning before, and I rolled up our camping gear as Joshua began packing. For breakfast, we ate muffins and bananas as the sky got darker and darker. Then it rained. It rained really hard, and then it rained some more. We continued loading our panniers onto our bikes and then soldiered on. At the top of the next hill, we caught our first glimpse of ocean through the gloom, and within six miles, we entered the larger town of St. Austell. After another four miles of busier road, we exited onto a smaller B road heading toward Tregony. All of sudden, the sun came out, and our entire landscape changed. For the next few miles, we pedaled through pretty country roads lined in brambles and pink and purple hydrangeas. The villages we passed had pastel painted homes with thatched roofs and overflowing gardens, and the air smelled of cow manure and sea breeze. At Humphrey Farms just outside of Tregony, we stopped for a little snack of fresh strawberries and chocolate covered shortcake. The farm shop was stocked with all sorts of farm-fresh produce and locally baked goodies, and we sat outside on their picnic table while we gobble up the berries that still tasted warm from the sun.


After a few more miles of biking, we descended into St. Mawes, a beautiful beachside village complete with a castle and picturesque cottages overlooking the sea. Hopping the ferry for Falmouth, we hoped that the village across the inlet would be just as pretty.

Too be fair, it began raining on the ferry ride, and by the time we arrived in Falmouth, the sky was dark and overcast, and the air was damp and cold. At the tourist office, we asked for information about camping sites, and the woman forlornly informed us that we would have to go uphill a couple of miles to find the shelter we were seeking. When we asked if we would find a pub nearby, she shook her head sadly.


Giving up our dream of a hot meal and shelter with ambiance, Joshua and I walked to the Marks and Spencers up the cobblestone lane. We purchased ready to eat Mexican salads and more humous for lunch, and for dinner, we settled on some canned curry (yum). Restocked, we joined Eric on the pier and ate our lunch in the drizzle. Perfectly miserable and completely fed up with English weather, we hopped back on our bikes and headed for Pennance Mill Farms.

The ride out of Falmouth contained a few climbs at steep pitches and just as many abrupt downhills. To our left, the fabled Cornish coast unfolded in fits and starts. One bay had pretty white sands with a pastel blue beach. Up above, the road wound past a grey-brick cottage with hydrangeas spilling out of the hedges. We climbed one more hill at a 17 percent grade and then descended into the valley containing our campsite.

Pennance Mill sits in a sunlit gully, and the friendly woman at reception informed us that they had received none of the drear that had effected Falmouth just an hour earlier. Judging by her sunkissed and smiley face, it wasn't hard to believe, and we enjoyed light breezes and sunlit for our entire stay. In our camping meadow, we stretched out our damp clothing to dry in the sun and took showers to rinse off the grime. Joshua cooked our canned curry and rice which wasn't half bad, and all of us decided that biking from Lands End to John O'Groats wasn't such a bad idea at all. In fact, we might even enjoy some of it. We sat up on our knoll watching the moon rise over the next hill; night fell, and we grew sleepy. Saying good night all around, we crawled into our tents and slept for hours.


July 23, 2010

After some discussion over our top secret folder labeled "Marital Strife" we have made a mutual decision: today we will ride to Penzance, and tomorrow, we will leave our panniers at our campsite and make the short 20 mile round trip to Lands End. Then at 5:39 PM, we will join Eric on the train back to Exeter. We have not scraped our E2E (End to End, for those of you in the know... I am not. I just learned this tacky abreviation today.) dreams, but we have revised the wisdom of biking the hills of Cornwall and Devon twice. We can now re-label our top secret folder "Marital Bliss."


Mornings have sorted themselves out already. We wake up, we pack up, and we roll out. I don't mean to suggest that this happens with any amount of speed, but happen it does, and we were on the road again by 10 AM. The night before, Eric had poured over the map looking for a route to Penzance that avoided the worst uphills. As a result, we found ourselves on obscure little country lanes winding through Mawnan Smith, Constance, and Gweek (yes, Gweek.), tiny villages with epic churches, brick homes, and flowers lining the road.

As a side note, I'd like to share with you our incomparable wit: when I shared with the boys that I though that Lostwitheil sounded like a speech impediment, we started refering to it with a slight lisp. Once again, I couldn't help but draw the same conclusion with Falmouth. As Joshua says (with a slight lisp), "I lost my fuckin' whistle, and now I'm in fuckin' foul mouth." It's become a bit of mantra, and now we've added, "bwing me to the Gweek!"

After we pedaled through Gweek, we climbed another steep hill into the hedge-lined countryside and made our way to Helston. At the Sainsbury's in Helston, we grabbed ready to eat sandwiches and ate them in the parking lot (al fresco?). The next 14 miles to Penzance were on a busier A road, but the lanes were wider and we had a beautiful view of the sea to the south.

The sun that found us in Pennance Mill Farms followed us throughout the day, and by the time we reached Marazion, I was feeling positively optimistic. Like St. Mawes, Marazion sits on a hill beside the sea, and it's quaint brick buildings have pastel colored shutters and enviable views of a castle island just off shore. We stopped just after the village on a stretch of sandy beach to lay in the sun and look at the crazy people strip down and dance in the sea. There may be sun, but that sure as hell doesn't mean it's warm enough to prance around in ice water. To our right, the German tourists in speedos industriously engineered a sand and driftwood dam through a freshwater stream running into the sea, and just beyond them, the French began stripping off their underclothes for an even tan. I guess some stereotypes exist for a reason, no?


We cycled a few more miles into Penzance were we found both the Tourist Information Office and the Railway Station in the same parking lot. Joshua and Eric purchased our tickets to Exeter, and we found a campsite nearby. While our new camp is not nearly as lovely as some of the others we have enjoyed, it is centrally located, and we will be able to bike to Lands End and back tomorrow with time to spare in Penzance before our train leaves. Once we had set up our tents, we dressed in our least smelly clothing and headed into Penzance on foot.

Penzance is a nice sea-side town, and in all honesty, it's probably very much like Falmouth. The sun, of course, makes all the difference. The cobblestone lanes and big stone buildings seem more quaint than drear with a little splash of sunlight softening their edges. Right now, we're sitting in The Turks Head, a pub with good grub. I ordered a Goat's Cheese Tart drizzled in aged balsamic resting on a bed of greens which was absolutely delicious (if a bit small), and Joshua ordered an enormous plate of Fish and Chips with his first helping of mushy peas (to which he tasted, screwed his brow, and then rated with a thumbs up). Eric ordered something with Ham and Egg and Fries. He ate all of it, so it must have been good.


While the boys drink pints of Bombardier, I'm sipping my tap water and writing on the laptop. It may seem a bit anti-social, but I've received their blessing. Without having to worry about femme tastes or sensibilities, the conversation has wandered from Battle Star Galactica to Joss Whedon's Greatest Hits, the Wire, teaching, and inevitably, race and New Orleans. In a few minutes, I'm sure they will finish their beers and we'll all go in search of "something sweet."

Then, weary from 138 miles of hilly road in 4 days, we'll head back to our tents to sleep it off and do it again.