Wednesday, May 25, 2011

It's the journey, not the destination

Well, in the case of Bedruthan Steps and the Scarlet hotels' Sustainable Travel press trip, the journey was as important as the destination.

We wanted to show journalists and bloggers from up country just how accessible Cornwall can be and encourage them to promote sustainable forms of travel.

And as champions of simple pleasures, we wanted to make the journey itself a part of the holiday experience, rather than something to be endured until reaching the hotels.

So what did we do?

We invited various members of her majesty's press to embark on a good old fashioned adventure. They boarded their train at Paddington at 5am - early, I grant you, but the immediate administration of hot coffee and croissants helped to ease their pain, and besides, there's something exciting about being up and about at that time.

After watching out the window as the home counties galloped by and the seeing the sea reached right up to the train tracks at Exeter, the group arrived at Bodmin Station at noon.

Waiting on the platform to meet them was Timo, of Cornwall cycling specialists Mobius Bikes, with mountain bikes for each of them.

Timo guided the bloggers and journalists along country lanes and back roads to the start of the Camel Trail at Bodmin, then along the trail itself past Camel Valley Wines.

A fudge stop helped everyone to enjoy their journey that little bit more, followed by a fish and chip lunch in Padstow. The cycling element of their sustainable journey was rewarded at 7pm with a well deserved hot tub on the cliffs outside the Scarlet.

Then a Biotravel green taxi whisked them back to Bodmin for their train back to London.


Bodmin station has rarely - if ever - seen so many bicycling bloggers and
sustainable travel journalists.



With the free, fresh wind in your, life comes without care when your biking.






Stopping for a breather.

A well deserved glass of wine wouldn't go a miss, but there is such a crime as being drunk in charge of a bicycle.



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