Monday June 9, 2014

We started the day with a good breakfast which was worn off pretty quickly with the steep hill out of St.Ives.  Straight up.  We cycled to Hayle on the A3074 and then joined the A30 to Blackwater – dual carriageway most of the way.  It was a busy and fast road, but we did have a narrow shoulder on the A30. We crossed over a couple of stunning bridges, but unfortunately could not stop to take photos.  The road was too busy.

We took the A3075 off the A30 all the way into Newquay.  This was also a fairly busy road but narrow.  The cars were impatient and most exceeded the speed limit.  Ralf said they gave us more room on the A30 than they did on the side roads.

It was another fairly hilly day today, but nothing we couldn’t handle.  It is so good to be on the road again, although Ralf took that literally.  He came close to the hedgerows and caught his front pannier and went down with a clatter.  He has a big owee on his elbow – two big eggs, poor guy.  The bike is o.k. though.

We arrived in Newquay before noon and was settled into the camp site, showered and ready to investigate Newquay by 1:15.  We walked the ten minutes into town and discovered it to be a very ugly town (sorry Newquay).

It had one nice beach with colorful beach huts.  Not all Cornish Towns are picturesque.

The Communities in Bloom Committee need to come to Barrie to learn from our excellent gardeners.  This is so sad.

Our camp site is typical of English campsites, not at all like New Zealand and Australia.  They generally have a grassy pitch, shower and toilet block and a place to wash dishes.  No kitchen facilities, no power and no place to sit or talk with other campers, pretty boring really.  Everyone tends to keep themselves to themselves.  If we stay at campsites, we will have to work out how we can get power, as we have our cycle computers to plug in and the computer so that I can update the blog.  I have internet because of my dongle but limited to the power usage on my laptop.   I can power two garmins and update the blog two times with 100% power on the laptop, it then reduces my laptop to about 15% power.

Of course the first time we decide to camp in weeks, it rains.  Hopefully it will be clear and dry by the morning.  I was hoping to have a view of the night sky tonight, but it is cloudy and it is cool.  It is 9:45pm and still quite light outside.