First two hikes in Falmouth, if all goes according to plan.

Working out bus transportation can be a crazy, complicated process involving multiple bus schedules and maps; decisions about how long to hike; exact timing of transfers and connections; and pinpointing the exact locations of the dang bus stops themselves, a tip we cleverly picked up in 2015 after trudging up a punishing hill to get to a specific bus stop, catching the bus just as door was closing, and then—after all that— watching as the bus slowly meanders down the hill we had just climbed and stops at the bus stop we'd just been in front of. 

This map shows bus routes in the Falmouth/Lizard area.Our big goal is to walk the corner of coastline called the Lizard, connecting up with where we ended in 2015 and witnessing—and hopefully touching or standing on—a super rare geological phenomenon called Mohorovicic Discontinuity, which I explain here using all the geology words I know.

You can see that there are no buses directly from Falmouth to Mullion Cove, which is where we ended the 2015 hike. There are frequent buses from Falmouth to Helston, however, where we can change to another bus that will pass relatively close to the trail. After an hour or so of intense back-and-forth timetable and map work, it looks like we can take the 9:45 #2 from Falmouth to Helston, arrive at 10:30, take the 11:30 #37 from Helston to Mullion and arrive around noon, depending on where the bus will drop us. From Mullion we walk to Lizard Point, then up to the village of Lizard, where we take a bus back to Helston and another back to Falmouth. It works on paper.

The hike on the other side of the Lizard is a bit trickier to plan, as there are few bus stops in the area, and buses run only a few times a day. In fact, there's really only one reasonable plan: Leave Falmouth again at 9:45 on the #2 to Helston, arriving at 10:33, catch the 11:15 #36 to Coverack, arriving at 11:56. This time we'll walk to the Lizard from the other direction. Then bus to Helston and another back to Falmouth. So that's the plan; if all goes well, it will work.