Cornwall 2009: Bruce and Elly go up and down too much

Thursday 3rd September

Charleston into St Austell, then east to Tregrehan Mills, then north to Eden Project. Our first map-reading mistake (as all others until Sunday caused by not having proper OS maps) took us further into St Austell than necessary, up the first steep hill of the day. This was where I discovered the joy of 21-speed low-geared touring bikes.

We tried to return by an off-road route we'd been told about. In hindsight, this was a mistake: the route was longer, had surfaces with very proof traction and involved more hills than anyone could enjoy. It was also poorly signposted - and lack of decent mapping had us confused several times.

The scenery around old clay pits was spectacular but we had little time to enjoy it. The weather and night were closing in and by the time we'd reached a major road which we were due to cross before taking other tracks back to St Austell, we were too wet to appreciate the purity of off-roadness. Fortunately, the A391 which screams down into St Austell from the northwest, has a cycle-path along its west side.

So, dripping from every possible prominence and half blind from the spray we dropped back down into civilisation. I think we blundered our way back to our B&B just before darkness finally fell, then eventually recovered enough to stagger down to the Rashleigh Arms for dinner.