Off the rails
Waiting for the train the never comes and then all your plans get derailed
Good morning from St Just in Cornwall on day one of my LEJOG 2026, and a note mostly about the nightmare journey to get here yesterday.
Everything has been preplanned for this trip and most importantly the trains tk get to the start and back from the finish. But waking up on the hottest day of the year, the met office are dishing out health warnings while thd rain operators are dishing out delays.
I booked via the train app so I get alerts for these when they happen, I had 2, the first said ny train was 5 mins late, the second said 45 mins late. So I waited at home feeling anxious and when the time neared I headed to the station, it's only 15 mins away. On arrival I was met with ‘10:05 to Exeter CANCELLED’.
Noooo! I have a connecting train, I've reserved a bike space and it's a GWR train which are the worst for bike storage.
So I set off to Exeter on the bike and gave up on South Western Railways. This is a journey that would normally take around and hour on my bike, on a bike loaded with panniers it was more like 2 hours. I arrived in Exeter in the midday sun and in a bid to stay hydrated I stopped at Broadclyst post office for cold drinks before heading into the city to find food and then an alternative train as I'd already missed the first one. Riding in through Exeter's suburbs was like riding into a fan oven.
I've never even known it this hot in the part of the world and in fact at the steps outside Exeter Cathedral it actually reached 41°c.
I was there because this weekend on the Cathedral Green there is a craft fair and some fellow travellers I follow Julie and Andy (Vauclusedreamer) on bluesky and WordPress had a stall there so while I was there I popped by to say hi and grab some food from the selection of food stalls
I'd left my bike with the care of Julie's and Andy and had a little wander around the market while I waited for my food and then found a cool shady spot in the eves of Exeter Cathedral to eat it.
After lunch and feeling a little calmer I said goodbye to Julie and Andy and headed for the station to find out the next train available.
A 14:52 service from the Birmingham was due with a bike space apparently, so I headed for platform 4.
A cross-country train arrived with only 4 carriages, 2 bike spaces and packed like a sardine can. One bike space has a 27k Pinerello Dodma in it, the owner I met later in the journey. A northern chap who was also heading to Penzance to ride a LEJOG but he was part of a group with a,support vehicle with the aim of riding 100 miles a day.
Prior to meeting him and a few others that were curious to rhis guy on the train with a bike ladden with panniers that was stood with it for the entire trip all 3 hours and more of it, because the other bike space was full of luggage. So mych for a relaxing trip to Penzance with an early lunchtime arrival with time to chill in Penzance before the big day today, and just to make things even more uncomfortable the air-con on the train was broken.
Eventually after even more delays I arrived in Penzance, hot, stressed and exhausted at around 6:15pm.
I set out to find more food to save doing it in St Just and found the Old Lifeboat House bistro for fish and chips, it was Friday after all. I sat outside in the slightly cooler evening air with a view of the harbour and first first time that I could actually relax.
Now fed and making sure I had enough water I set off for St Just and my bed for the night. Now for those that don't know Cornwall, it's famous for it's hills and this journey was not lacking in that department. Of the 8 miles to get to St Just I think it was 6 miles constantly up hill and followed by 2 miles down.
The Lands End peninsula is a beautiful place and with the setting sun it gave it a magical and spiritual place. The aren't many places I call that, I'm not a religious person but there are some places that just feel sacred and this is one of them.
As I crested the top of that hill as well I got my first view of Lands End where I'm heading this morning and a view of Lingships lighthouse (excuse me if I got the wrong lighthouse)
I rolled down the hill into the village of St Just and thought what a beautiful place it was. There was more here than I remember, I've been here before by car or by bike but the one memory that's ingrained forever was the first time I cycled here, it was on a sportive in October and I remember before the event people saying “you'll love it, the scenery and sea views are sublime”. That day I was here an Atlantic weather front was moving in and it rained all day. We set out from Marizion and but the time we reached here the rain was coming in horizontally off the Atlantic and it was pea soup fog, you couldn't see a thing!
I arrived as you csn see just after 8:30 in the evening. I settled in to my B&B, had a shower abd was planning on going out to look around and have a pint at the pub.
Didn't happen, I was shattered so I had an early night instead.