If our first day leaves us feeling that this ride is achievable, our second day is a dose of reality. It started with us meeting one of the ‘characters’ that popped up on our ride. 
We’d been told by our host that there were a family staying the night who were also cycling from Land’s end to John O’Groats. We’d joked about this, as we were told it was a family of four – Mum, Dad, and two boys – and couldn’t imagine what sort of boys would want to do this with their Mum and Dad. We met the family at breakfast, where they exude a disgusting level of health and jollity, and we are immediately shown up for our comparative lack of geographical knowledge, grasp of our route, preparation, and organization. The two boys don’t say anything, and sit their eating their breakfasts. They are soon nicknamed the Flanders…
We’d been told by our host that there were a family staying the night who were also cycling from Land’s end to John O’Groats. We’d joked about this, as we were told it was a family of four – Mum, Dad, and two boys – and couldn’t imagine what sort of boys would want to do this with their Mum and Dad. We met the family at breakfast, where they exude a disgusting level of health and jollity, and we are immediately shown up for our comparative lack of geographical knowledge, grasp of our route, preparation, and organization. The two boys don’t say anything, and sit their eating their breakfasts. They are soon nicknamed the Flanders…Our route today takes us along the coast to Newquay, from where we turn inland, up the hills, and then onto some busy roads towards Bodmin where we have planned to stop for lunch. I don’t enjoy these roads, and am tired from concentrating on the traffic when we stop. We can only find a service station, and don’t think much of Bodmin. We sit on a bench, eating service station sandwiches, and thinking wistfully of St. Ives harbour.
The afternoon’s roads are quieter, but with more climbing, which suits me but not Al. We head to Liskeard, then Callington, where we stop to check the map. It’s apparent at this point that while my navigation is better than we’d expected, my judgement of distance is not. We’d expected today to be sixty miles, but it’s clear that we’ll end up doing more. 
Keen to avoid cycling any more than we have to, we decide to ask at one of the nearby houses to check our directions. The people we ask go to some pains to make sure we’re on the right track, even ringing ahead to the B&B we’re staying at. Nevertheless, we’re tired by the time we reach our stop for the night at Acorn Cottage, a few miles out from Tavistock, having done about 15 miles more than we’d expected, and finally passed into Devon.When we arrive, we find a small party in the garden – it turns out it was the 30th birthday of one of our hosts, John, the night before. We’re invited to join, and after having got cleaned up drink a beer with them. With no taxis around, John offers us a lift into Tavistock to find some dinner, and some good advice on places to eat. No fish and chips tonight – we have a big meal of pasta, and another nice pint of Tribute. With still no taxis in evidence, we somewhat sheepishly give John a ring, as he’d offered to drive us back if this had happened, which he duly does. We met many people who were tremendously kind to us on the ride, but Kate and John were exceptionally so – and they keep a great B&B in a lovely part of the world. We go to bed grateful that we’d chanced upon it.
We’ve cycled just over 118 miles.
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