Bruce's Bike Ride Journal - Lands End to Lowestoft
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Chris Staines (last year's President of Bungay Rotary Club) and I took on this bike ride for two reasons. To raise money for the Skateboard Park and to enjoy the challenge of a very long ride and experience the countryside that we had never ridden over before. People said to us "You're not taking a backup vehicle???? It's awfully remote travelling through Cornwall and Devon." |
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Coming from Australia, there just isn't a place in England I'd call remote. Remote is not having a house for something like fifty or sixty miles. Others said "You're going to ride on the laneways through Cornwall??? Have you any idea of the hills you are going to encounter?" The answer was no, but these days neither I nor Chris Staines refer to anything around here as a hill. Not any more. |
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We drew a line from St Michael's Mount to Ness Point in Lowestoft, and determined to ride as close as we could to that line, using whatever laneways, canal paths, tracks, ridgeways or roads we could find. So, after gathering our sponsors we set off on the June 7th 2004. Jonathan Watts, proprietor of Charlish's Garage and fellow Rotarian, drove us over to Land's End and we set off in the late afternoon for the first leg of our trip, a short run from Land's End to Marazion, to find a B&B for the night. It was in this short run, just five miles from the start, that I had our first and only puncture. |
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Marazion is just next to St Michael's Mount, a monastery set on an island and for the most part we were following what is known to some as the St Michaels lay line, a line drawn through St Michaels Mount, The church of St Michael de Rupe on top of BrentTor, Glastonbury Tor and a series of St Michael churches that are very closely in line with those landmarks. |
We did encounter hills such as one does not find around Bungay. Only two beat us. One, as we came out of a place called Bickley and another when we had decided to climb a very steep laneway leading to the beginning of the Wessex Ridgeway. |
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Chris had decided to ride his Mountain Bike. I only had my road racer. It is not a good idea to ride a racing bike off road on a ridgeway. The "Wilkinson Sword??!!" racing seat is not conducive to the jarring, the narrow tyres are not conducive to the loose surface and the handle bars which are designed for leaning forward to cut wind resistance are not conducive to the spinal cord's survival. But mine did survive. The less said about the effects of the racing seat the better. |
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In Cornwall, there are many reminders of the days when the tin mines were the wealth of the community but the good fortune did not come to everyone. We met a man near one of the old ruins of a chimney who told us that in his opinion "They be nothin' but graveyards." Many of his ancestors died in the mines and he still carries the bitterness of their death, even though it is generations back. His family died in the mines whilst others became rich on the proceeds. I remember reading in John Wesley's journals of his anger at the conditions in the mines. |
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We rode through Cornwall, and into Devon climbed up Brentor, and cycled on into Glastonbury. Again we found this odd predeliction of the folk from centuries past to build churches on top of great mounds. This has two disadvantages. It means that all the material has to be dragged up some inaccessible great hill and it means that we had to walk up the hill after having ridden 80 or so miles during the day. |
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But the view of the tower, which is all that remains of the great church built on the top of Glastonbury Tor meant that there was no option but to climb to the summit. From there, a wonderful view of Glastonbury and Wearyall Hill, the place where, in legend, Joseph of Arimathea brought the Holy Grail and where the legendary Avalon used to be. |
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Amongst the most spectacular scenes was the sight of Silbury Hill. It is a man made burial mound of absolutely massive proportions and it is only made the more fantastic by the stone circle at Avesbury that is so large that the town is built within the circle and the road runs through it. |
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One of the highlights was our visit to Thornham Parva Church with its wonderful old thatched tower and a magnificent medieval screen, passed in at an auction in 1730 where it was being sold as fencing panels, buried in a disused hayloft and not gracing the altar of this unique little church. |
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On Monday, seven days after we left, we rolled into Ness Point to met by members of the Rotary Club of Bungay, Emmanuel Church and our families. Never was a soft seat more welcome. |
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We travelled in all 514 miles, some of the journey being along the Kennet and Avon Canal, some of it along National Bicycle Routes and some of it on major A roads. We hugged rocks on stone circles and forded rivers over roads. Finally we arrived in flat country again, passing just north of Stanstead Airport and south of Cambridge, then, finally back to Suffolk. |
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June 7th to |
 June 14th 2004 |