Land's End

Post your pics from rideouts and relive the days antics.

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dannymassive
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Joined: Jun 22nd, '11, 22:07
Location: Torquay, Devon

Land's End

Post by dannymassive »

I've now collected my new bike after selling the CBF last week. Yesterday a friend and I embarked on a journey from Torquay to Land's End. We were going to join the now postponed Run To The Bun, but being Father's Day today, I could not get a pass!

To make the trip more intersting, we studied maps and planned our route on all the back roads, avoiding duel carriageways. For the route down we travelled the north coast line and on the route back the south coast.

Bumped into Si at McDonalds in Newton Armpitt before we left and he mentioned that he thought toda'y RTTB would be postponed - so maybe I'll be able to make the new date!

We had a few stops during our trip and took a few photo's of which I can share with you.

To get to the north coast we travelled through Dartmoor National Park. Part way through I spotted an old quarry. It wasn't the famous Haytor quarry - it was "Merrivale Quarry". Alike Haytor, Merrivale was quarried for it's Granite Stone although it closed quite recently in 1997. The main buildings at the quarry are still standing although they have been vandalised.

Here is the entrance to the quarry : (Don't know what happened here, but my bike looks squashed!)
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Inside one of the buildings :
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Electric's look safe?! :
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Note the machinery has been removed - here's where it once stood :
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Not quite sure what this is?!
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Where the Granite was quarried now leaves a lake :
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Next stop was quite some ride away, on the B3301. We stopped off at a cafe that was recommended to me called "Hell's Mouth Cafe".
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Hell's Mouth is a beach below the cliffs opposite the cafe that is not accessable without proper climbing gear. It's a bit of a drop, but one "hell" of a view! Excuse the pun!
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The food was good and the coffee was great - as it was recommended to me, i'd not think twice about recommending it myself.
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Next stop was not that far away in St. Ives. Again, great scenery.
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One word of warning to anyone planning on visiting this town though...... not one single petrol station! Rode around frantically trying to find one, resorted to asking a local who advised that the nearest one is in Hayle (about 5 miles away). There used to be a few in St. Ives, but they have since closed.

As we were there, by bike reached a milestone 13k miles!
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Finally arrived at Land's End.......
Parked up and had a look around:
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The well known Land's End / John O' Groats sign is severly commercialised - you have to pay to stand next to it and have your photo taken by a "professional"!
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Needless to say, the crafty option was taken and I was snapped from behind the railings!
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Took another "crafty" photo on our way out at the entrance:
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Enjoyed the ride back and caught the Higher Ferry from Dartmouth to Kingswear before heading back to Torbay!
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A great day's ride!
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billinom8s
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Re: Land's End

Post by billinom8s »

looks like you had the weather and a good days rideout, might have to pay a trip to that cafe as the food looks pretty nice.
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badgerKDD
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Re: Land's End

Post by badgerKDD »

me and the kids can recommend it :D , and its only 5 minutes from where I live ;) !

Oh and fuel, can be purchased at either end of that section of coast road, Redruth or Hayle, or cut through to Connor Downs from Gwithian and there's a petrol station there too!


And finally Google 'Hells mouth Cliff Collapse', its pretty impressive! B-) B-)
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Smiler
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Re: Land's End

Post by Smiler »

Nice write up Danny, I love hearing about other peeps travels :)):

Its fab when there are only two of you riding, the opportunity to explore is easier and you can find some real gems in either location or route :wink:

I too got caught out in St Ives, along with the dozen or so others who were with me that day :oops: haha, at least I know for next time!! :)):
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