London to Penzance/St Just: do we really need to drive through the night to get there, now the schools have gone back?

[OfftoPenzance]

Hi All,
On Saturday – the busy, busy change-over day! – DH and I have to drive to Cornwall for our (pre-booked) holiday.

We’re starting from London, so it’s M4/M5 then the A30 all the way to Penzance, then St Just near Land’s End. We’ve been before, so we’re familiar with the route.

Reading posts from earlier this summer, it sounded like we’d have to avoid the roads completely from 10 am to 4 pm. It takes us about 7 hours to get there usually, so this would have meant leaving about two in the morning. DH is pretty keen on this idea, but I’m not!

Frankly, neither of us see so well in the dark these days, and leaving so early means we’ll arrive exhausted 9 am then not be able to get into our accommodation until 3 pm. (We’re working on Friday, so can’t leave then.)

So now that the schools are back and the main tourist season is over, does anyone who knows the area/the route think we might be OK leaving London at 7-8 am on Saturday morning?

As soon as we've recovered from the journey to St Just, we’re looking forward to stomping across the moors, where we’re going to try and locate the Tinners Way (there must be a decent map of it somewhere!), buying lovely stuff to eat from the local shops (I hear there’s a new locally made Cornish ice cream parlour in St Just) and watching the sunsets from Cape Cornwall. We've got the Minack theatre booked for the 39 Steps.

Do you live in/holiday in the St Just area? What are your favourite things?

@TheChosenTwo

We are usually on the road at 5:30 by the absolute latest to do that journey, usually do it in about 3.5 hours rather than 6/7 hours if we accidentally oversleep and leave at 7! So much to see and such nice places to walk when you get there.

3 and a half hours from London to the end of Cornwall? In a car?!

@TheChosenTwo

We are usually on the road at 5:30 by the absolute latest to do that journey, usually do it in about 3.5 hours rather than 6/7 hours if we accidentally oversleep and leave at 7! So much to see and such nice places to walk when you get there.

Really? If you're driving even from west London (I'm being kind and imagining you in somewhere like Chiswick which has almost direct access to the M4) to Penzance in 3.5hours you have an average journey speed of around 80mph . You're not going to be able to drive 280 miles in less than 5 hours, without significantly breaking the speed limit.

I live in Cornwall. It is considerably quieter now than it was in the summer holidays proper, though still fairly busy with preschoolers/older couples.

We did the journey yesterday as it happens. Set off from NW London at 1pm, back in mid Cornwall by 6.45. Bit of traffic around Bristol but nothing major.
I'd have thought a 6am start would be a safe bet and a far nicer start to your holiday!

New ice cream cafe in St Just (Moomaid of Zennor) is fabulous and the co-op there is pretty good. There's a nice butchers if you eat meat too.

We found at the height of summer you needed to be in the really popular car parks (e.g. sennen) by 10am, but probably a bit easier now.

Do you know about the Lands End Coaster bus route? Might be useful for a trip into St Ives if you don't want to drive. Or one way coast path walks...

@EmeraldGreenVelvet we’re actually in Hampshire so not in London but use the same motorways and roads as OP, just join further down.

@TheChosenTwo
I was going to say you must be coming from outside west London as I regularly go to Torbay, and it takes 3 1/2 hours, can be a bit less if there is no traffic. I try to leave by 6am if going A303. Otherwise I delay and go M4 timing to pass Bristol just after 9am as the traffic is lighter then on a weekday, but Saturday I always leave by 6-6.30am regardless of route.

Friend drove to st just Friday and described absolute hoards still going into cornwall. I know st just v well and while peninsula. Personally I regret the ice cream parlour in st just makes parking for Clemos and other essentials (firewood/diy) a nightmare. St just basically avoided all summer now. Tinners way very well mapped online. Blackberries at peak (some pickable for weeks but now bursting!).

Be aware of m4 closures at weekends. Diversions not always well signposted and adds time.
Done this v regularly for decades. Used to be 5.5 hours or so from central London. Has crept up. This year have had two journeys of over 7 hours.

I am going to try the ice cream place in St Just in a minute. Hope it’s good!

Well it is good. Its moo maid. from zennor - used to be a tiny stall up in the moors near eagles nest. Just kind of taking over the square in summer. Enjoy !!

The espresso martini ice cream was lovely!

I love Moomaid. My favourite is Shipwrecked. The Zennor cafe is lovely and has a great little gift shop alongside.

I thought the same about St Just @HeronLanyon, never seen it so busy, but they’re turning it into a bit of a ‘destination’ now…

autumnally hmm yes. This year local friends have largely given up on it. Jeremy’s got a new lick of paint though - in July - good to see it still holding out.

Thank you so much for all your travel help and recommendations. I didn't expect such an amazing response!

It's thirty two years since I picked up some chap in a Bristol nightclub who asked me if I'd like to go 'on holiday' with him, hitched down to St Just and ended up staying with hippies in their 'Iron Age' encampment on Kenidjack cliff... The end-of-the-world, peaceful feeling stayed with me, so now with DH I've come back again and again to experience the beauty and tranquillity of West Penwith.

Here's a few photos from previous visits...

The brisons! Or ‘giscard d’estang in the Bath’ good luck getting there

We live in Cornwall now but when we used to do the London-Cornwall drive it was always loads easier and quicker if you get on the road at eg 5.30. We'd be in Cornwall by 10ish that way with a nice day ahead of us, instead of sweating our way down the M4.

I'm in Devon and the roads (M5 / A30 / A38 etc.) were still busy last weekend (in both directions) and lots of things are still fully booked up for a couple of weeks which suggests it's still going to be busy, but probably not quite as busy as during the school holidays.
Could you break the journey? Stay overnight at a services Premier Inn / Travelodge and hit the road for the last 2 hours or so at 7-8am on Saturday?

This brings back happy memories of setting off from the Midlands at 2am as a child, and arriving in Newquay 7ish. I used to find driving through the night so exciting.

Well, here we are after a seven and a half hour drive. Left at 7 am, arrived about 2.30 pm. The M4 and M5 were mostly OK - things only really got bad on the A30 after Bodmin.

The road was lined with electronic signs telling motorists to stay on the A30 for West Cornwall "as our local roads are not suited to holiday traffic". However, we were a bit shaken up after narrowly avoiding being part of a nasty smash in the queueing traffic near the Newquay turnoff, and seeing the orange and red lines all down the A30 from Redruth to St Ives on the AA Traffic map, we decided to turn off and go through Truro and Helston instead, which was much nicer.

It's beautiful here this evening!