St Austell; Friday, 22 September, 2006

I finished work at lunchtime and headed up to Paddington. An eventless, but slow journey later, I arrived at Paddington with enough time to have a largish lunch before catching the train.

The train left on time, but managed to loose 5 minutes before it even got to Reading. For most of the rest of the journey it was OK, but beyond Exeter it was held up for another 20 minutes as one track was closed through Dawlish due to storm damage. It is easy to see how. The line not so much hugs the coastline as goes paddling in it. The wind was quite light, but with high tide the waves were crashing over the sea wall and onto the Cornwall bound tracks. The previous evening the storm had managed to wash away part of the foundations for the Cornwall track, which was causing the delays to get through.

The ride down is very scenic, made even more so by the speed of the journey beyond Exeter. Leaving London at 3pm we reached Exeter in a little over 2 hours. The rest of the journey through the remainder of Devon and down into Cornwall was scheduled to take another 2 hours, but in the end took almost three as the line meanders its way across the countryside.

By the time I arrived in St Austell it was already dark and I was tired, so I was a lazy git and instead of walking the mile to the hotel (all down hill!) I got a cab.

After checking in I went up to the room, collapsed onto the bed and decided that it was probably best to get changed for bed now as the chances of still being awake in a hours time were limited. I was right, I never heard my watch bleep for 10pm.