Day 12 - The best shower we have had!

Firstly I must apologise for the delay in updating the blog over the last few days. My excuse is that where we have been staying each night has not had the connection for me to update. I can honestly say it is nothing to do with the fact that my alcohol intake has increased each day and that a very fine Cornish beer called "DOOM" something or other has taken over my life! Anyway, on with Day 12. Day 12 started very early; we awoke at 06:15 and were on the road by 07:05. We wanted to make an early start and a good inroad into the mileage today. After I wrote the blog for last night the landlady of the pub gave Dave his money back for his dinner which, given that he did actually eat most of it, he has donated the total to the cancer research fund. I think I mentioned it already, but the Dolton campsite was truly awful and for the first time in history Damian didn’t have a shower (nobody else did either for the record) ...purely based on the fact that you came out dirtier than when you went in! What I forgot to mention was that in the pub last night we decided to scrap the planned B-road route and go for the A30 road all the way which meant a 12 mile shorter route, with it now being 110 miles to Lands End although a very fast and boring road. We set off and after about 10 miles Steve (The Puncture Man) Ball suffered his 1st of 3 punctures for the day - just unlucky really but good fun taking the Mick - not sure he appreciated it though. The big issue with today was initally the terrain as it took us twice as long as normal to cover the 17 miles from Dolton to the A30 and the rain...this was no ordinary rain - this rain was the worst of the challenge yet and was torrential, relentless and bouncing. We then had to ride through it on the A30 with serious visibility issues, soakings from lorries as they went passed us and floodings in places which really don’t suit road bike tyres. As you can tell, the weather wasn’t good! We had this for 65 miles of the 84 miles we covered today and the roads were very dangerous ,and just as we decided to call it a day at 65 miles the weather started to change and we decided to continue as far as we could either before we ran out of energy or when it started raining again.

Due to the violence of the weather we skipped stopping for lunch just eating what we had in our frame bags which isn’t normally the best of decisions, but based on the fact that we were drenched and cold it worked out OK. Apart from Steve’s punctures and the weather, today was very uneventful due to being on one road all day. We eventually called it a day, after 84 miles, at Redruth and headed to our base and luxury accommodation at Watergate Bay just outside Newquay. The accommodation is fantastic here and although quite expensive the location, size and quality of it really does justify the cost... which is a first for me in saying this about UK accommodation. We now have less than 30 miles to complete tomorrow to get us to the finish line.

All of us have drunk more tonight than the last fortnight.... pretty much like we finished today... I hope our heads don’t bang too hard in the morning. See you soon.

The Smiley Milers.

1. See the spray from the car

2. At Redruth