LEGEND 1 – Lands End for Breakfast and home
OK, here we go. I arrived at Popham at 04:45, & was joined almost immediatly by Callum – who wasn’t even going! Fine effort that man. Just before 05:00 Mark & the crew arrived & fuelled up, ahem see later. After the customary two ciggies & chat watched with expressions of curiosity by the cashiers & comments from other customers we set off, with a cheery “what could possibly go wrong”.
Within a couple of miles Mr G was pulling into a side road on three cylinders. We shone torches, we gave the engine several hard stares, we cursed the barking dogs, but to no avail, so four of us set off. a few miles later the ITN was set to take us into the first fuel stop – done this way to keep it to 100 miles between stops as had been requested. However the waypoint (I had checked it) seemed to have wanderd & our new leader had already refueled, so I was treated to the sight of 1/2 our number sailing past as I refuelled while waving frantically. They blatted off, the leader trying to catch me, his wingman (who had seen me waving) trying to catch him.
What could possibly go wrong……..
So Callum & I set off after them, but there was no sign by the time Callum tuned for home & in fact I got all the way there unescorted. As has been said, the trip over Bodmin Moor was pretty dire, had to stop to wipe the inside of the screen. Just before I arrived at Land’s End I saw a blue seven parked up & thought I’d found them, but as I later discovered it was our new friend from LCB. On arrival I asked the chap on the gate about taking the car down to the signpost for a photo op, he asked if I was doing the “end to end”, I replied “something like that” – well it was almost side to side – & he let me park up free, what a nice man. Mr LCB arrived shortly after & we chatted while waiting to see if anyone else arrived.
….. & waited & waited. After a bit there was good news from Mrs LCB, presumably now manning the village look out post, a blue & a black kit car had just passed thier house, so we waited & we waited (you guys just can’t catch a good crossflow can you) …. and then the phone rang, It was Mark calling from Land’s End Airport, he’d caught us up! After another couple of minutes the crew where all together. We took all the cars down to the signpost & did the photos – as did a whole hose of trippers from various nations, then it was time for breakfast. This was provided in good SKCC approved portions by the nice lady at Land’s End Airport cafe, I’m not sure she’d ever cooked for so many at one sitting. At this point we reduced back down to four as 2kwink & son headed straight for the A30 & home.
As a diversion from the long straight roads, I’d planned a trip round the coast to St Ives, I remembered it as being an entertaining strip of tarmac from a family holiday in the Zafira, & Mr LCB (sorry, useless with names) said he regularly drove it & it’s known as the “Cornish Nordschief” (useless with spelling too) & it didn’t dissapoint, the best road I’ve driven in the Fury by some margin, 9 miles of smooth twisting, turning tarmac climbing & descending with the sun (yes, the sky was now all blue) glinting off the sea at each turn. But myself & Mr LCB arrived in St Ives alone. What could possibly have gone wrong? The phone rang. Somehow Mark had got in front of us, & Neil had broken down. We searched St Ives but couldn’t find Neil, so my local guide led me to Mark & then departed. We were now two.
The plan had been to drive to Porth, rest up for the afternoon & then head back across the moors in seach of more twisties, but niether of us felt in need of a rest & Mark wanted to see the Rugby. We did stop in Porth briefly as I wanted to check the coolant, Mark was chatted to by a couple of hippie chicks, who either had a thing for facial piercings or who’d had a nasty accident with a stapler.
Then we headed for home. Mark’s car gave problems from time to time & had to be left to cool it’s heels before it would run nicely, but that just gave us time to top up our caffene levels (never known a car fault cured by drinking coffee before) & after a while we arrived at the M3 & I left Mark (at the wrong exit – what could poss…..).
I arrived home pretty elated, it all seemed a little dream-like, I couldn’t drive that far in the Zafira, but somehow the Fury doesn’t tire me in the same way. It should be worse, constant full-on concentration & wind buffet doesn’t sound very relaxing, but maybe that’s the point.
Anyway. We did it, we all got there & back under our own steam, we all had breakfast, not pehaps the way we’d intended, but the SKCC triumphed over adversity. Hoorah!
Land’s End for breakfast – Been there. Done that. Got the tee shirt (and the stickers).
OK…nice write up Tony. I haved to say that i was less excited about the trip than i was back in July – darker, less folks going etc etc. So goodness knows why i couldnt sleep the night before. The M25 at 04.00 had few miles with no traffic, does that road ever sleep? But it shows how much progress can be made when there’s nothing in the outside lane clogging things up – no wonder its possible to cover so many miles on EU roads…….Seevenoaks o Popham took 55 minutes and as T says there was a green Caterrham waiting alongside the yellow Fury – uhmm thought i, who the heck is that fool…..ah that’ll be Callum then. Top marks mate for draggig yourself out of bed considering you didnt have time for the full event.
Waiting for the RAC man just a few miles later thoughts ran around my head, would he fix it, if not what time could i be home in bed, and how to silently quiten 2 killer dogs that were doing my head in…..please be quiet i need to doze!
As the car was being looked at ( it was now running fine wthout so much as a ‘tweak ) i decided to press on and try and catch up…..but the reality hadnt sunk in……i’d still got about 225 miles to cover, the others would have had clearer roads for that 1.5 hours that i was out of service…..and of course i’d never catch them……..but with helmet on ( it had cme over totally black when Mr Rac had turned up, and with the mp3 providing a suitable soundtrack ( bit of DC Thunderstruck got me moving ) i gave it a shot, and after about an hour of hard running a lull in the music gave me a chance for some mental musings – so if i’m travelling at x, and they’re travelling at y, bollocks, ……yep i’ll be seeing them at LE. I know many folks do long runs solo, but it generally isnt a bit of me, i like the pack mentality……so telling my bladder that i didnt need a wee, refusing to look at the fuel guage so i wouldnt need to make 1 more stop before LE i crcaked on and for miles found a wingman – an Aero Saab and i tok on the black suff, interchanging the lead position as we transited single and dual lanes…..before he finally left me somewhere around Exeter. Now i dont know much about UK geography, so after Exeter i was presented with names that meant little and i draged every inch of my brain trying to place them on a map – the only useful titbit i came up with was that Redruth is where Rory McGrath is from, but that didnt tell me where the feck it was in the scheme of things.
I chewed the miles and the miles and more friging miles, surely ii must be getting close……then i spied LEnd Airport, ah ha and went on for about 4 miles wondering where the little signpost would be that says Land Ens – furthest point West…..turns out that i’d deleted a few waypoints ‘en blat’ – where Tony had plonked one in a garage forecort and had deleted Land End itself, otherwise i’d have been there a tad earlier.
Banter levels were high and i didnt thank Neil = Nigel for actually waiting for me somewhere around Pensanze
– allegedly they were waving frantically as i sailed past….sorry chaps, no time for checking phone messages ( of which i had a fair few ) – just pedal to the metal.
If you havent been to Lands End, google it, google earth it – its weird. a lovely setting, rocks sticking proudly from the water, paths snaking along the coast and………..a mini amusuement area: a mini stonehenge ( spinal tap stlylie ), an aquairium, a pirates thingy for kids and goodness knows what else…..,.and that famous sign, which as you see above you can have what you want written……we mused later about whether the man that rents the sign and who takes the photos would be happy to do a group swingers piccie with a suitable slogan ‘ Cambs Swingers and Doggers did her, her and him here’
teh blat after brekkie was bang on, but i should have told T that i wanted piccies, i like to get a snap when visiting new places like that and the scenery was stunning, as was that road, smooth enough and sooooootwisty, mind you it narrowed soooo often through what seemed like peoples farmyards that i’m glad i wasnt in the lead! a car coming the other way at the wrong time woudl be erm….costly. I was mindful of time but am sooooo glad that we did that road and also the later one that i did with Tony after Neil had had his issues.
I had a slight shock when after we’d been driving for about an hour and a half i decided just to set the sat nav for home so i could calculate fuel – it was still telling me i had 305 to go…..’king eck’……fortunately the m3/m25 were running well enough – that would have been a killer, to get on either of those and get bound into a stop / start , but no, it flowed and i was back around 7.45.
Today ( so far ), back is stiff/aching – but that’s likely to be because i was in bed for about 9 hours- anything over 7 hours or so brings that on, right ankle is a tiny bit stiff and left shoulder area also is telling me that it is a little achey……cant believe how comfortable thsoe Triton seats are – given that they dont have pads.
fuel…..not sure mine gets distorted from adding cigs to the total, started with a full tank and now have 50 miles or so left so call that 3/4 tank used + £130 ish, so about £160-165 total. considering it was full blat mode on the way down that isnt too shabby.
https://picasaweb.google.com/mattthinka … directlink
Nash
I left my house at 2.50am, which was actually an hour before I went to bed (no I’ll stop before I break into a Monty Python sketch about “the kids of today don’t know they’re born”).
So I arrived at the Clacket Lane East Side Rallye Point at 3.30am and eased into the day with my first bucket of coffee. Mark, Nige and Matt arrived at 3.40am whiched presented the first photo op of the trip
Once the mandatory chat had taken place we saddled up and headed west (must refrain from references to dodgy bands) where we ate up the motorway miles to Popham airfield and the main Rallye Point to start the run. I echo the words of others in thanking Callum for being there to say he wasn’t going to do the journey…. but would tag along to the first fuel stop.
The first fuel stop….. Let me explain my take (see excuse) on the events around the first fuel stop. Mark had dropped back at this point to have a chat with the RAC man as reported elsewhere and I was leading the pack. SATNAV declared a waypoint coming up ahead and I counted down the yardage (thats metres for Mattijs) and decided the waypoint wasn’t actually in the petrol station but the juntion after it and I duly followed that road for 300 yds before I decided it was a dodgy waypoint and in the good words of my TT I turned around where possible. A “on the hoof” conversation with Nige who had followed me concurred in words of Anglo Saxon origin that I had indeed taken the wrong turning so given Tony and Callum were not behind me I decided they had realised the mistake and continued on the A303. So I set about deleting the waypoint on the TT while driving back up the country lane. Note to self, be aware of your surroundings while correcting the SATNAV as I missed Tony and Callum in the petrol station filling up and waving frantically at Nige and I and in particularly me looking at my dashboard and “masterfully removing the waypoint before I got back to the main road.
Now how do I describe what happened next? I set off in pursuit (at a healthy pace) of two guys who were behind me while the guy on my tail was trying to signal to me that at this pace the guys wouldn’t catch up but I mistook that message as hurry up and catch up
Eventally Nige and I got into our next fuel window (one of many) and While we refuelled (out of sight of the main road) Nige was convinced he had heard Tony fly by at pace. The whole situaltion was compounded by the schoolboy error of Nige and I not having Tony’s mobile number. Bottom line is Sorry Tony.
While refuelling Matt had a text from Mark saying he was sorted and in pursuit about an hour behind us. We decided to push on and sent a text to mark saying we would rallye at Penzance Heleport as there is a McDonalds and a Petrol station in sight of the A30 and it would allow us to arrive at LE together.
We set off towards Penzance Heleport and this part of the journey has been described in words, pictures and video well elsewhere. The weather was not great during this stint and the miles were long. We finally arrived at said rallye point and Nige, Matt and I settled down to wait for Mark with a coffee and a natter.
within 30 minutes we saw Mark thunder by in full blat mode trying to catch three guys who were now behind him……. hhhmmmm I feel a theme coming on So we saddled up and scrambled in pursuit of the bloke pursuing us… if you see what I mean. We arrived at LE car park where Tony had been for some time, Mark A from LCB (a local chap) who popped over to meet us but no Mark? A quick phone call established he was just down the road stuck behind traffic and we had took a slightly different road and passed him. You couldn’t write the script could you
we headed to breakfast at the local airport and once suitably refreshed we took stock of times, routes and made plans for the afternoon / return leg. Nige and Matt decided given the time they were heading directly back and we bid then adue (speeling?) while Tony, Mark A (LCB Local), Mark G and I pushed the windy route towards St Ives. Cracking Road actually and light relief from the point and shoot mileage of the day so far.
As we reached and started to exit St Ives my car spluttered and stopped on a junction. As previously reported I lost about 40 minutes while RAC arrived, lent me tools and I set off again. I won’t dwell on the breakdown but I will say the people of St Ives are very friendly and the offers of help and chats while I waited for the RAC man where a pleasent distraction.
Anyway once sorted I decided I would make up some time and point for home. The journey was both uneventfull and peppered with fuel and rest stops. I was getting about the same mpg as the car in terms of coffee and the weather was good until about 40 miles from home when it was both dark and proper wet and I was tired so those miles I can declare were officially tough.
Got home at about 8.30 pm having covered 817 miles and 119 litres of Super Unleaded (thats about £165). Add that to what I consummed in coffee and food and the day cost me about £200. The challenge and the experience are however priceless and will remain with me for the rest of my life