Monday 06 July 2009 - Launceston to Redruth

Launceston - Bodmin - Redruth

The showers had persisted throughout the night and this was the only morning of the trip that I set off wearing my bright orange rain jacket. I felt nothing but apprehension about our route for the day, which lay almost entirely along the A30 for over fifty miles.
The A30 may well be the worst road to cycle along in the whole of Britain. It is a screaming, stinking hell from which there is no escape since it is the only viable route west through inland Cornwall. No special provision whatsoever has been made for cyclists, for whom it is a thoroughly dangerous place to be with extremely large vehicles continually whistling past, often far too close for comfort. I knew that several fatal accidents had befallen end to end cyclists on this awful road and that the sword of Damocles would hang over us all day, with instant annihilation only a mistimed blink away. For much of its length the A30 consists of long, tiring uphill grinds, and it doesn’t even offer the compensation of fine scenery, as the interior of Cornwall is mainly composed of barren, boring upland with none of the grandeur associated with its coastal areas. My sole source of entertainment lay in looking out for Cornish place names on signposts, breaking them down into their Brythonic elements, translating them into Welsh and then into English.
As we climbed on to Bodmin Moor, the weather deteriorated and the rain became heavier. The visibility began to diminish and we were grateful to arrive at the turning for Jamaica Inn. We were already wet and cold by the time we arrived at the famous hostelry, where we had two cups of coffee amidst the Du Maurier memorabilia before steeling ourselves for the horrors to come and venturing back outside. I was pleased to hear that the parrot, who lived in a cage in the bar at the time of my last visit fourteen years previously, was still alive and well, now resident in an upstairs room. Hopefully he’s now content in a more peaceful environment. I felt sorry for him when I saw him back in 1995, as he’d pulled many of his feathers out, presumably due to the stress of being the centre of attraction in a busy pub.
After re-joining the A30, we continued our ascent to the crest of Bodmin Moor where our situation became much more serious. The rain was now torrential and we were soaked to our skins. The downpour and the spray from the heavy traffic obliterated everything from view and we realised we were invisible to the drivers. I was extremely relieved to reach the turning to Temple, where we knew we could take the old road for a few miles and thus avoid a stretch of the A30.
Paul was waiting for me at the junction, shivering because I’d taken so long to catch him up that he’d begun to develop hypothermia while standing in the rain. The old road wasn’t particularly appealing, as it was running with water and seemed to disappear into the heart of Bodmin Moor, but we both agreed it was far preferable to the deadly main road, so we followed it and stopped at a disused telephone kiosk where we sheltered for a few minutes and consulted the map, which was saturated and in a very fragile condition. We then resumed our moorland diversion until we found ourselves merging back on to the A30, where fortunately the weather and the visibility began to improve as we approached the western edge of the moor and dropped down towards the Bodmin junction.
As we turned off to Bodmin, the rain abated and chinks of blue sky began to appear. We squelched into a tea room and sat there dripping as we devoured Cornish cream teas and pasties. Once again, we had difficulty finding our way out of town, but before too long we located the A391 leading to Lanivet and back to the A30. With the rain now behind us, the cycling conditions had improved from horrific to horrible, but the final thirty miles to Redruth seemed endless. Our misery was compounded by the gusting wind from the south west which at times almost stopped us in our tracks. We were appallingly exposed and vulnerable, and at one point a lorry passed so close to Paul that his bike was sucked sideways towards its wheels. I found the slip roads particularly terrifying, and dealt with them by keeping left and then waiting for a gap in the traffic to regain the main road, thereby avoiding being caught between two lanes. The only relief came in the form of the occasional lay-by, where for a few precious seconds I could distance myself from the death zone.
The name of one of the villages we passed, Indian Queens, grabbed my attention in a way that only chess players would understand. Paul stared at me with a mixture of pity and blank incomprehension when I attempted to explain its similarity to the name of a major opening system, the Queen’s Indian Defence.
Between the junctions with the A39 and the A390, the A30 became single carriageway for about 10 miles, but this had the effect of causing a bottleneck, resulting in slow moving nose to tail traffic, at times stationary and so near to the kerb that we had difficulty getting past. It was however pleasant to regain the feeling of being in the countryside and to have wide verges and farm gates available for rest stops, rather than being on a conveyor belt hemmed in by embankments. A field near the junction with the B3285 was occupied by a group of travellers who were selling assorted carved wooden objects, including five feet high Psilocybe semilanceata. Much as I’d have loved a giant ‘shroom for my garden, I decided it would be a little too cumbersome to carry about on my bike.
The last five miles or so to Redruth were again dual carriageway, and the A3047 turning to the town had been placed at the furthest possible point in order to maximise our suffering. I felt an immense surge of relief as I left that infernal highway, which I will never cycle along again. It is difficult indeed to find words to adequately express my distaste for the A30. It is the very anus of obscenity.
Our B&B turned out to be some distance along the A3047, mid-way between the centres of Redruth and Camborne. Our host was a retired police officer who had served in Derby in the 60s and 70s, and was an experienced cyclist himself. He reassured us that we wouldn’t have to use the A30 again until we reached Hayle, by which stage it was an ordinary rural road.
Most of Paul’s spare clothes had got soaked in his panniers so I lent him a dry pair of socks, which he hasn’t returned, probably because he hasn’t changed them yet. We walked over the road to the local pub where we had steak pie, chips and carrots and three pints of cider, comfortable in the knowledge that we had only about 30 miles to go the next day.