The last stop on the journey, Bude town centre. The weather could not have been any better.
Gigantic satellite dishes on the far left.
These cliffs I found particularly impressive. The way they are folded is just incredible. (Click to enlarge.)
Again not the kind of beach I expected in the UK.
After reaching Lands End I decided to push on to Bude the same day. That way I wouldn’t have to take on the 500 miles back to London in one go the next day and I could spend a little time exploring Bude.
On my way to Bude I noticed an old chapel behind which I found an old tower. (This is only relevant for those of you who have played Age of Empires as you will recognize that this is a wall element that has been built there by mistake.)
I reached a little B&B pub at 10pm and finished the day watching “Skyfall” on TV.
The next day started as British as the previous one had ended, with my first full English breakfast. Bacon and eggs, baked beans, a grilled mushroom and tomato, toast with marmalade, cereal, various juices and tea. Afterwards I cleared my room and got to the bike to go take a look at Bude’s beach which was the reason for coming to this town in the first place.
Once the bike was set ready to go I started the engine and there it was. A yellow warning triangle on the dash.
First I thought the warning was related to the oil level and I feared that I would not be able to continue my journey. But after ruling out the oil which was still at MAX I decided to slowly continue my journey to the beach. Since this was Easter Monday there were no mechanic shops open and my phone battery was running out too. Needless to say I was a little concerned. Luckily the owners manual limited the number of possible problems to about thirteen different ones.. Thanks BMW. But I figured as long as the triangle wasn’t red I was going to be OK.
Exhausted after riding about 500 miles within 24 hours I arrived at Lands End in the afternoon.
I was a little bit surprised to see how touristy and crowded the place was. There are lots of little restaurants, a movie theatre, even an old helicopter on a pole.
The photos of the cliffs don’t do their size justice. They are absolutely massive and breathtaking.
The first and the last house on the west coast.
Looks like Batman has a few emergency exits here.
In a good way this is not what I imagined the UK would look like.
The weather was supposed to be clear in Cornwall over the Holidays. In the morning it was still cloudy but at least it wasn’t raining. So it was sill good riding weather. While on the road I saw a sign announcing the Eden Project just a few miles off my route. I had heard of this place but didn’t think it would be on my route to Lands End. My schedule was already tight but I didn’t want to miss this opportunity. The Eden Project is a futuristic looking scientific research facility where among many other experiments the most famous one was a completely self sufficiently living group of people in an air locked dome simulating conditions which are expected on a Mars mission. Unfortunately the experiment failed after almost two years but it was very valuable for NASA nonetheless.
Today it also houses museums, exhibitions and many other educational installations. I only saw it from the outside though because you can only buy a day ticket (£25) to gain access to the complete area but I didn’t have much time since the whole detour had already offset my schedule too much.
Packed quite a bit heavier than on previous rides (the weight makes a huge difference for the handling) I left for Weymouth in the afternoon where I spent the night.
Unfortunately I didn’t have any spare time to explore Weymouth which is famous for it’s Jurassic Coast. At around 8am I left for my main destination, Lands End.
Four days of Easter holidays (Friday to Monday) so I will finally take a little break from work and make my first bigger motorcycle trip. If everything goes as planned I’ll leave on Saturday and be back on Monday.
The plan is to go from London to Lands End, the most western point of England. I’ll be making stops in Leatherhead, Weymouth and Bude. In Leatherhead I want to get proper motrcycle gloves at a big gear shop since the ones I have are cheap short cuff summer gloves which are not very warm and don’t protect anything beyond the ankle plus they are too small for my hands.
Ideally I would make this a camping trip but since this is a last minute plan and I don’t have a tent yet I will be using lateRooms.com where you can get a relatively cheap B&B room very short notice.
Today I made my first little motorcycle trip and went to Brighton which is just an hour away from London on the south coast of England. Brighton is famous as a tourist destination because of it’s beaches an night life.
My sophisticated GPS concoction. I’m using my phone with this fantastic navigation app from Nokia called HERE. It would be a good idea to get a dedicated GPS device but this budget solution actually works surprisingly well. Plastic bag: 50p, mount 5P, the thrill of not knowing when it will break on the road: priceless. The windshield actually keeps that relevant handle bar area almost completely dry on the road during the rain anyway. The biggest problem is making the USB connection to the 12V socket waterproof and vibration proof. Currently the USB adapter slips out of the cigarette lighter socket from time to time.
My first motorcycle. A second hand, 2011 BMW F650GS. Contrary to what the name suggests it’s not 650ccm but 800ccm. I don’t know what went through BMWs minds when they came up with this genius name since there also is a true 650ccm (also -correctly- called 650GS) in their lineup. But they have since corrected the name and later versions of this bike are now called F700GS. No joke. Anyway this will be my (hopefully) reliable donkey for my trips.
