10 hours later 

After 10 hours of rail travel, stage one is complete. A smooth journey, with only one minor delay which luckily didn’t result in a missed connection. We passed into Cornwall over the Taymar bridge thinking we were nearly there; wrong. It takes a long time to get to the end of the earth. Our journey was most pleasant (trying to sound like Michael Portillo and his great British railway journey) and shared with some most delightful fellow passengers with one kind lady donating to our cause: maybe she felt responsible for the weather which seemed ‘set in’ as we left Bodmin. If the lady in question happens to read this, please drop us an email so that we might keep in touch. 

So. The rain WILL clear by tomorrow morning and as it’s not stopping it’s dinner and beverages in the hotel.