We got up at 7, knowing we had to be at Birmingham New Street at 10 to meet Caroline.

If you haven’t read the earlier posts, you will not know that by this stage Tom had problems with his knee, and so was having a few rest days in Birmingham.

From Wins’ parents house we cycled to Bournville train station, where we picked up the canal and cycled into the center of Birminham. We met Caroline at Birmingham New Street train station, and continued on the canal towards spahetti junction.

When the towpath got too off-road for my road tyres, we left the canal and headed in slightly the wrong direction along some roads, until we met a small town and were able to find out where we really were. The 4 miles to an inch atlas that we were using to navigate was not really meant for navigating round canals, and so they were not well marked on.

We had lunch near the entrance to Sutton Park, then continued on small B roads towards Rugeley. From there we headed for Uttoxeter, and then found small roads leading to Ilam hall.

Caroline left us near Mayfield because she lives on the other side of Ashbourne to where we were staying, and me and Hazel continued to Ilam Hall youth hostel.

Ilam is situated down a very large hill, and so it was easy cyling down towards it, but the thought of getting out the next morning was not a nice one.

Once at the hostel, we made a pasta & tuna bake type thing, and then had a look round the hostel and chapel nearby.

Distance: 65.6 miles (Cumulative: 344 miles)

We got up at 7.30 and had breakfast from the last of Will & Heph’s breakfast cerial, bread etc. Tom’s knee was feeling much better, and so we set off around 9.30.

The weather was very warm so we made sure we put plenty of sun cream on.

When we arrived in a Glouster, Tom bought a knee bandage, but a few miles later he found it made matters worse and removed, it.

We continued onto Tewkesbury, at which point Tom was in too much pain to continue, despite taking painkillers. He got the train to Birmingham to meet some friends who we were staying with for the night, and I cycled the remaining 40 miles alone.

i stopped at Evesham for lunch, then continued very fast up the duel carrigeway upto Kings Heath in south Birmingham.

Despite my lack of a sense of direction, I found Wins’ parents house without any problems, and once there Wins and Hazel made me some food.

After eating, we played the Great British Train Game or something, which somehow I managed to win.

It was decided that Tom would stay in Birmingham for a few days to let his knee rest, and get medical attention if neccessary. Meanwhile, I would continue to my parents house in Manchester with a couple of other friends, Hazel and Caroline.

Distance: 63 miles (Cumulative: 278 miles)

Thanks to Hazel and Wins who cooked us food, and to Wins’ parents who let us stay for the night.

We got up as usual, and had porridge for breakfast. This time we decided to be civilised and so ate it ouf bowls rather than straight out of the pan.

We set off at 9.30, and cycled to Wells – Britain’s smallest city apparently. I should have got a photo of the cathedral, but we didn’t go past it, so here is a picture that someone else took.

From there we cycled on to Bath, where we found a park and had lunch. We had a go on the swings and zip wire, and there are plenty of picures in the photo gallery.

After playing, we set off out of bath towards the Stroud on the A46.

Towards the end of the day Tom was complaining about his left knee hurting, so we had more stops than planned, and took it slowly, knowing we had plenty of time.

We arrived at our friends house at 5.30 where we were staying for the night, and Tom spent a while with an ice pack on his knee. After tea of spag bol we had showers and were also able to check our emails on the very slow dial up connection for the first time since we had set off. Thanks to all those who have sent me emails offering their support.

We looked at the route for the next few days, but between Manchester and Edinburgh the youth hostels are not well placed for 60 miles days.

Distance: 65.5 miles [14.6 mph average] (Cumulative: 215 miles)

Thanks to Heph and Will, who let us stay for the night, fed us, and did our washing for us.

We set off from Exeter with a clean set of clothes, a good fried up breakfast inside us and fairly decent weather. We stopped for lunch just outside Ilminster, where we had a fairly long rest sat on a bench.

The afternoon of cycling was fairly easy, with some downhills included in the package.

We arrived at Street Youth Hostel at 4.30, so sat outside playing with soggy cards on a bench until the hostel opened at 5. Then we made some decent food comprising of pasta and sauce, and met some cyclists who are also cycling e2e4e that we had also met in Golant youth hostel a few days earlier.

From the youth hostel, there was supposed to be a blue butterfly walk, where you follow blue posts on a 5 minute walk around the surrounding countryside to see some rare blue butterflies. We followed lots of blue posts, and found a walk much longer than 5 minues that seem to go anywhere, and we didn’t see any blue butterflies. We did however get our ‘indoor’ shoes dirty.

Later in the evening we played cards, and ate some cerial that someone had left before heading off to bed fairly early.

Distance: 81 miles [12.8 mph average] (Cumulative: 149 miles)

This was the biggest and probably the hardest day, going via Liskeard, Tavistock and Okehampton.
We set off at 9am from Golant Youth Hostel after getting up at 7 and eating a breakfast of porridge oats out of a large pan.

When we set off, it was raining lightly but we soon got very wet because the rain had got harder. We found that the uphills were not too bad because at least you were kept warm, but the downhills were very chilly because of the wind, rain and thin layer of wet clothes that clung to our bodies.

After about 40 miles we had crackers and jam for lunch in Tavistock in a bus shelter. There were a number of old folk in the shelter who were quite chatty and offered advice in terms of route to Exeter. The bus station also came complete with a much needed toilet and ‘hand’ dryer – very userful for making the feeling return to limbs.

Out of Tavistock, we had a decision to make – either 35 miles over a foggy wet Dartmoor or 40 miles along A roads and duel carridgeway. We chose the latter because it involved less climbing, and visability should be better.

The A road was up and down all the way and the traffic very fast, but the gradients were not too steep so we could keep up a decent speed.

The rain subsided after lunch, and visability improved, although it was still very wet. I managed to get a few photos of the scenery, looking towards dartmoor.

We arrived in Exeter at about 6pm, and went to Sainsburys to buy some food. After stocking up with sausages, bacon, pitta bread and Jam we headed for our accomodation – Globe Backpackers, Exeter.

The People in Globe Backpackers were very friendly, but the rooms were not spacious. We had massive portions of pasta, tomato sauce, sausages and bacon for dinner, and then headed off for bed.

Distance: 59 miles [13.2 mph average] (Cumulative: 68 miles)

We got up at 7.30, and ate ‘unlimited’ breakfast cerial and toast at Penzance Youth Hostel. After getting ready, we set off at 9.30 and had a couple of snack breaks before lunch at Tesco’s. The terrain is much hillier than I expected – I thought that Cornwall was on the coast, the coast being at sea level, the sea being flat an’ all, therefore Cornwall should be flat?

After lunch we continued towards Golant, stopping off at a Social club in Tywardeath to watch the England vs Equador (1:0) match – not a bad game. England having a few good 5 minutes, and their boring patches too.

Finding Golant youth hostel was harder than we expected because the instuructions that we had must have been copied down wrong, and so a 0.7 mile distance should have read 1.7 miles. We took the ’scenic’ route and arrived there a bit tired. We attempted to make some food, but a portion that said on the packet ‘Serves 2′ should have really said ‘Serves 1/2′ so after eating what can only be described as an appitiser, we went into the hostel restraunt and ate a proper cornish pasty. The chef got my order wrong, so after eating half the slighly wrong meal, he gave me another plate of what would have been correct – so I got 2 plates of food. Now I am not one to complain about free food.

We were pretty tired, so after washing our clothes and finalising the route for tomorrow we headed to bed.

Distance: 9.0 miles [20 mph average] (Cumulative: 9 miles) 

After eventually packing all my stuff in a couple of panniers, I cycled the 7 miles to Manchester Picadilly. Caught the 11.54 train to Birmingham New Street, where I was meant to mean Tom – but due to a navigational error on his part he missed his train. I got the train to Penzance anyway – a pretty boring 5 hour train journey. I really should have taken a book to read.

Once there, I cycled to Penzance youth hostel and then back to the station to wait for Tom. Whilst waiting I took a few pictures, which you can see in my gallery.

When Tom arrived at about 8.30 we cycled the 10 miles to Lands End, and there took a number of pictures, signed the vistitors handbook and then headed back to the youth hostel in the dark, rushing somewhat because we had to cycle 9 miles in 10 minutes as the hostel closed earlier than we had expected.

We did arrive before the youth hostel closed, and left our bikes in the damp bike cellar.

Me and a uni friend, Tom Ryder are cycling from Lands End in Cornwall to John O’Groats In Scotland. Setting off on 24th June we are each cycling the almost 1000 mile trip to raise money for charity.

I am raising money for Operation Mobilisation, who are a Christian charity that have just purchased another ship called Logos Hope (http://www.logoshope.org). When the revamp of the ship is complete, it will bring knowledge, help and hope to over one hundred countries around the world.
If you would like to sponsor me (100% to charity), please email me via the web form with the following details:

Name
Address
Email Address
Contact Telephone Number
Amount
Whether or not you want the donation gift aided.

If you wish to keep track of our progress via email, please send me your email address requesting addition to the list. Otherwise, keep checking out this page as it should be regularly updated.

Thanks
Andy Deakin