The Cornish weather was a little overcast this morning as we packed the bike in preparation for our run up to Bath to meet our new furbaby, Skye. Since arriving in Bugle we’ve been treated to Cornwall’s mixed bag of weather. Lately it’s been raining in the morning before clearing to a sunny day. Then in the afternoon the clouds roll back in and it rains again. It probably explains why the countryside is so green and the locals always dress for rain.
We managed to dodge the rain a bit for the first part of our journey, however we couldn’t dodge the roadworks. Lines of traffic stretched out for miles along the A30 and A38 in what appears to be the only way in and out of Cornwall.
Luckily being on a bike meant that we could get ahead of the queues as much as possible.
Breakfast at Woodys
After an hour we hadn’t travelled very far at all but stopped anyway at Woody’s, a typical English roadside eatery. I love seeing these in the parking bays along the A roads. Woody’s is set in a portable van with a kitchen at one end and tables at the other. It reminds me of the Food Vans in Auckland. The food is cheap and it’s simple hearty fare. Reading the menu we were amazed at Woody’s Wonder Breakfast. It consisted of 6 Sausages, 6 Bacon, 4 Eggs, 5 Hash Browns, 2 Tomato, 4 Toast, 3 Fried bread, Mushrooms and Baked Beans. It’d be a wonder if you could still walk after eating all of this.
The rain started as soon as we left Woody’s and headed towards Bath. It wasn’t heavy, just annoying. As we neared Taunton, Michele suggested we take a ride around to check out the town where our family originated from. It was pretty depressing. Once again I was in the town of my ancestors but didn’t have an address to check out. I should never have pulled off the main road.
Bath
Arriving in Bath we were quite surprised that a city so grand would have such a modest welcome sign. We soon discovered the thing which apart from grand Palladian buildings Bath is best known for “Traffic Jams”. It seems that despite millions of pounds spent on planning, focus groups and designs the plans for a Bath bypass have amounted to nothing. As such the A36 and A4 still wind through the narrow one lane streets.
Crossing Bath outside of peak hour on the bike, cutting through traffic took the best part of 30 minutes. Eventually after much cursing we made it out the other side of Bath and headed towards Bathford.
After a Cook’s tour around the countryside we discovered we were nowhere near where we were supposed to be. Michele eventually discovered that she had misread the name of the area. Satnav’s are great but in the UK the postcodes give a general area and when you’re looking for farms it soon becomes pot luck. Luckily we saw a sign for Warleigh and were soon gingerly picking our way down the narrow country lane to our destination.
Meeting Skye
Once we were on the right track it wasn’t that hard to find and we soon were arriving at the farm, where we met Tish and Skye our charge for the next three weeks.
