- Day’s Distance: 55.57 Miles
- Total Distance: 107.62 Miles
- Travel Time: 5Hr 23Min
- Average Speed: 10.3 Miles/Hr
- Max Speed: 40.0 Miles/Hr
- Punctures:0
Today was a day for meeting characters. I set off to St Austell to find something to eat. St Austell is an old town with a now pedestrianised narrow high street. It’s also on a hill side which means you are unwilling to cycle up and then have to come down again. I did cycle up and found that I had passed the high street, so I did the only sensible thing, got off and walked. I quickly found a baker selling some nice looking bread and freshly baked pasties. I bought some buns for later and a steak pastie for immediate consumption. The high street had a number of seats and so I made myself comfortable to allow the pastie to cool. This was just in time to catch the attention of the town drunk/tramp. Seeing somebody who equally stood out, he walked over to ‘greet’ me, sat down and began to talk. His name was Hector and he was 60 years old. He described himself as a “crazy old man” an alcoholic and a street philosopher. He had no money and his only comfort at night was an old sleeping bag he had hidden in the churchyard. He cheerily waved hello to nay ‘likely punters’ passing, especially young women. His beard was encrusted with the outpourings of his hairy red nose. He disappeared for a short time and just as I was finishing my pastie, he returned. He suddenly began quoting poetry about a daffodil which he said had been written by somebody approximately contemporary with Chaucer. A Scot, he was a real life Rab C Nesbitt character. Having now finished my pastie I made my excuses and left.
Bypassing Lostwithial and Liskeard, the town where we were so rudely dumped by Great Western Railways, I began to head for a camp-site at St Anns Chapel, just a few miles west of Tavistock. I found the place and turned in, but to my dismay it was only a field with no facilities. Iwas turning to come out again and look a little further when a man came running up asking if he could help. I explained that I was after somewhere with showers and shop, etc. and he apologised that, as yet, he did not have those developments in mind. We continued talking, with him telling me about some Germans and Dutch who had also stayed there and were keen cyclists. I told him of my trip to John O’Groats and he remembered about a young girl who was doing the same thing about six years ago on a three wheeler. I asked him if it had a seat in front and he said it did.
“Was she 5’2” with spiky blonde hair?”
“Yes, that’s her. Tiny she was, we thought she’d never make it, it took four blokes to push her and her bike off the campsite. But she did have this air of determination.”
I explained that I thought she was Josie Dew and quite a famous travel writer (in cycling circles at least). He couldn’t believe it when I told him of all the places she had been to. “I’d often wondered what happened to her. I’m really pleased you’ve been able to tell me.”
In the end we were talking for three quarters of an hour and it was starting to get a little late. Dartmoor was visible in the distance but becoming less so as the mist descended. I bid farewell to the camp warden, promising to return when more suitably equipped and set off for Tavistock. Fortunately it was not too far to the camp-site and I turned in only to find the shops already closed. I looked in and asked if there was any chance of getting any provisions. The warden agreed to open the shop for me and I bought some milk, eggs, fruit and cheese so I could have a reasonable meal that evening.
Picking a likely looking spot I began to pitch the tent but after all the hot, dry weather, the pegs were not keen on being buried in the hard baked ground. Several times I had to go to the brook that ran along the back of the tent to straighten bent pegs with suitable rock hammer and anvil. I was struggling with another peg and pulled it out almost bent double when a man came up offering a loan of his hammer. He saw the state of the peg and offered me some spares. I said I had enough and could straighten the bent pegs but he refused to take ‘no’ for an answer. We returned to his tent where he showed me a bucket full of different types of peg. “Take what you want” he offered. I gratefully took two metal pegs at which he gave me a couple of plastic pegs as well. I thanked him profusely for his generosity and returned to my half erected tent. It now took only a few moments to finish off with the help of his hammer. I’d showered, laundered my clothes and just finished off my cheese omelette when the man returned to check I had food. I told him I had just eaten and showed him the Trangia meths stove I was using. He was very interested since he had not seen anything quite like it in his fifty five years of campling, since he was 16/17. Again we were talking for an hour or so and it was quite dark by the time we returned to our respective abodes. He told me of his working years as an electrical fitter working on power stations for the CEGB (Central Electricity Generating Board). He also told me of the devastation of industry in Cornwall since all the tin mines had closed down. Not just the mines but all the ancillary industries had disappeared leaving unemployment and despair. Many of the miners had moved abroad and there are now Cornish miners all over the world. He told me a local saying: “When you find a hole in the ground, if you look deep enough, you’ll find a Cornishman down there”.
As I turned in to bed, rain began to fall, which it continued to do right through the night, stopping only as I was finishing my breakfast.
Day 2 map (approximate route)
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