wheelieharro: Sunday 9th July- Lands End to Perranporth- 70kms

Sunday 9th July- Lands End to Perranporth- 70kms

After a good night of sleep at the Longboat Inn at Penzance it was up early ( 7.00pm) for breakfast and on the bus for a short trip to Lands End to start the ride.

We have a group of 24 riders mostly from the UK with 2 Aussies, 1 Kiwi and 4 from the US. we have 2 leaders rob and John who look after all our luggage transfers and ride with us to make sure we are "on course" and do not get lost.

In the mornings we have a briefing from the leader of the day who explains where we are going, wher to have morning tea, lunch etc and where the dangerous roads are. This morning the briefing was done at Lands End.

After photos to celebrate the start of the ride it was "on the road" and Chris ( the Kiwi) and I were first to get going. The roads were very good and generally not very busy, even though it was Sunday and the start of the school holidays for private schools. we passed through some wonderful country and the Cornish coastline is certainly very picturesque. This part of the UK was a mining region in the early part of the20th century but mining here is now not cost effective.

Now it is very much a farming and tourist destination based economy.

The towns here are very pretty much like you see on the Doc Martin television series with roads leading in to the towns with steep descents and reasonably big climbs out again.

We managed to get off the track a little but the directions we are given are very good. Lunch was at Hells Mouth which is a very picturesque spot and Chris and I had Cornish Sausages and Mash....

Made for a good ride for the afternoon where we struck the steeper hills ( max was 18% for a short period)

The interesting towns worth noting were St Ives, Hayle, Gwithian, Portreath, Bridge & St Agnes.

Tonight we are staying at Parranpporth which reminds me a bit of Fairhaven with sand dunes, surf beach and families sitting on the beach near what seems to be a surf club.

The weather has been perfect for riding at bout 25 degrees, slightly cloudy and very little wind ( any wind was behind us on the road)

I arrived at Perranporth at about 3.00pm and look forward to a beer or 2 to celebrate the Dees win over the Blues!!

Briefing by John at the start of the ride