Today would be the last leg of our epic adventure as we walk from Penzance to Land’s End. We are joined today by Gareth, Andy and Chris for the final (glory) leg – Mike is walking instead of driving as well.
The weather was truly awful as we left the hotel in Penzance – heavy rain and strong winds in our faces. Penzance is the base of the pirates in Gilbert and Sullivan’s Comic opera, The Pirates of Penzance. At the time the libretto was written, 1879, Penzance had become popular as a peaceful resort town so the idea of it being overrun by pirates was amusing to contemporaries. Penzance—Pennsans; “holy headland” in the Cornish Language —refers to the location of a chapel nowadays called St Anthony’s that is said to have stood over a thousand years ago on the headland to the west of what became Penzance Harbour.
This would be a short walk today (only 18kms) but as usual started with a steep hill out of Penzance in the wind and the rain. A nice church in Saint Buryan and an old gun emplacement in St Levan were the only things of note. Fortunately, within about 5km of Land’s End the rain and wind stopped – even offering glimpses of blue sky as we finally reached the A30, a view of the sea and the Land’s End marker.
Sue had organised some of the visitors to applaud us as we crossed the “finishing line” which was a very nice touch. The Land’s End signpost is privately owned so each photograph costs £11 (unlike John O’Groats where it is free to all). The long queue for photos very generously let us jump the queue – while we wait for the emailed official photo, here are the unofficial iPhone versions.
This has been an epic, once in a lifetime adventure that would not have been possible without the support of Helen & Sue; Mike, Graeme, Mark, Greg, Darren & Louis who drove our bags around the country and generally looked after us and of course the 40 friends and colleagues who joined us for one of more legs.
Tomorrow’s final blog entry for this walk will be some statistics that cover the last 33 days.
Fantastic achievement and massive congrats to you both and the support team which helped you. Great to have been able to share some of the journey with you. So what’s next? Quite a challenge to top this journey? Appalachian Way – can see you two replicating Bill Bryson’s Walk in the Wood Can just see you both as bearded Hill Billies in the Smokey Mountains 🙂
Just amazing!
I’ve been following the blog daily willing nothing to go wrong, and you guys are literally superheroes!!
Amazing achievement! Congratulations and hope you are enjoying some well deserved pampering.
Clare x