Journal: |
I had a bad night's sleep, with my right knee painful under the
weight of a heavy doona. I woke with a headache and
indigestion (something I ate last night?) and forced myself to eat
the English breakfast that came with my room. I appeared to be
the only guest and had a nice chat with the host before leaving
around 9:20am, still not feeling well.
The first part of the day involved 1.5 hours of road-walking to
get around the Hayle River estuary. The guidebook panned the
section, but I still found it interesting watching the world go by
and enjoyed the easy road-walking in my fragile state. After
Hayle, which was obviously proud of its main street flower gardens,
the Coast Path returned to the coast. After a kilometre behind
the dunes, I descended to the sweeping flat sand beach. The
water looked clear and cold and across the bay I could see St Ives.
For a while, a military helicopter passed back and forth, low and
just offshore, on some kind of exercise. The sand was softer
than it looked, making walking a bit more of a challenge but, on the
whole, it was quite pleasant strolling along in the fresh sea
breeze. Near the end of the beach, I had to negotiate some
rocky outcrops and was lucky to make it through one passage which
would soon be flooded by the tide. There were a few people
surfing (in wet suits) and some kind of lifeguard training program
was in progress.
The coast then changed to sea cliffs and the Coast Path climbed
to follow the edge. The walking was easy, much of it on
virtual "lawn" with the sheer cliffs just to the left and farmland
or heath to the right. The wind had dropped a little and the
cliff-top was quite flat, making the walking very pleasant. I
was gratified to find that my troublesome right knee was causing me
little pain after the exertions of yesterday. I still didn't
feel very well, but happened on a remote cafe, serving tourists on
the nearby coast road at around 1:30pm, and decided to get some
lunch. Homemade vegetable soup and some white bread was all
that I could face, but I knew I needed to have something to see me
through the afternoon. I took an hour for lunch reading my
book at an inside table.
I set off after lunch with only 10km to go to Portreath, my
target for the day, and the path continued to follow the spectacular
cliff-top. At times, I feel like I am over-dosing on superb
scenery. I worry that I'm already getting blasé. My
reverie was halted by the discovery of a deep blister on my left
heel, which I cut open and drained with my pen-knife.
Tomorrow, I'll put some Vaseline on friction points on my feet.
There were a few other walkers out and some bird-watchers, lying
perilously close to the cliff edge, trying to identify or photograph
the soaring seabirds. Sadly, I couldn't identify a single
bird.....but do enjoy "the big picture". For the last hour or
so, I saw no walkers and had the spectacular coast to myself,
including a couple of very steep descents and ascents to cross
narrow valleys.
I reached Portreath at 4:30pm. I had called in the morning
and booked a bed at the Youth Hostel, but it was 2km inland and I
had been advised to get dinner in town before walking out.
After some vacillation, I decided to have fish and chips (again),
since it was the only hot food available before 6pm in town. I
used the time in the cafe to log into an online website with UK maps
to work out exactly how to get to the Hostel. I'm not carrying
maps for the Coast Path, instead relying on the guide book which has
strip maps in it. Unfortunately, these never show much that is
inland.
I finished dinner with an ice-cream recommended by the friendly
teenage waitress in the cafe and then walked to the Hostel along a
beautiful old footpath through some woodland, arriving at 6pm.
The Hostel is the best value £18 I'm likely to get on the hike.
Apparently there is one other guest (Dutch), who I haven't even seen
yet. I have been given a room to myself with an ensuite and am
writing this in the recreation room which has a large flat-screen TV
and a table tennis table, all to myself. It's part of a
cluster of farm buildings and the owner has gone out of her way to
make sure I feel at home.
Tomorrow is the UK elections. I have been following them
closely on the radio and am looking forward to hearing the results
come in tomorrow night. It should be close. I mistakenly
thought I would be a day ahead of schedule tonight. Actually
it's half a day, which is no problem at all. The 28km today
was easy, especially considering the late start. Tomorrow, the
path will be more challenging, but I'll make an early start and
maybe get as far as Newquay. Some rain is forecast for the
morning.
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