After a hearty YHA breakfast and heartfelt farewells, off I plodded up the Coll valley to join the coast path. The first full day was to be just 11.5 miles, so I only took half rations of water and felt that the YHA packed lunch probably provided more fuel than was strictly necessary. The weather was brighter than forecast and, it being half-term, there were plenty of other walkers around, quite a few doing circulars to take in Pendeen lighthouse. One very serious young lady had made it thus far on the SWCP from Minehead, with a pack weighing 30lbs including camping gear. I was doing my level best to keep my pace down to 2.5mph to ease my nagging heel, and was rewarded with a few pain-free stretches. I’m no twitcher, but I’m sure it was a cuckoo I saw fly past at pace, accompanied by an unidentified bird – I’d heard its distinctive call in the distance, then get rapidly closer just before it appeared. I also heard what might have been a nightingale, to judge by its mellifluous and varied warbling.
My accommodation was at Boswednack Manor, a fascinating place and with an interesting hostess. Half a mile away was a gastro pub, the Gurnard’s Head – not too far to venture out after a day’s walk.
Friday started dull but dry. Liz, the lady of the manor, recommended the direct path to Zennor as the easier option but, masochistically, I opted for the rocky coastal route. Acknowledging that rocks are harder than my bones, I trod very carefully on the uneven surfaces, and clambered even more carefully where necessary. I met a cheery young woman doing Newquay to the Lizard, and another amiable one installed on a stool, armed with all manner of kit – she was observing a colony of about 30 seals out on the rocks. Soon there were many more people on the path as I approached St Ives, which I was relieved to escape after refuelling on a coffee and a pasty.
After 14 miles, I found my accommodation in Hayle to be different again, a single room with en suite, but with a noisy family in the next room. I used ear plugs again, having inserted them the night before on account of an extremely vociferous bullock in an adjacent field. Come the next morning, I could only find one ear plug, despite looking in every conceivable location, so assumed it must have dropped into the loo and been flushed away. Last year it was hankies being lost at every turn, now earplugs!
Day three soon found me walking along a vast expanse of sand, tedious but easy enough. Having been demoralised by constant discomfort yesterday, which hadn’t improved when I tried removing the heel inserts, today reassured me no end. I took a couple of Ibuprofen at breakfast, after which I had no pain at all throughout the day. I can’t tell you how that improved my outlook; in the back of my mind had been lurking the question of when, not if, the heel would force me out of the game. Now today, suddenly, I began to believe reaching John o’Groats might be possible. On the other hand, Liz and I had already been apart for three days and it’d be another 20 before we’d be together again, during which I’d have have walked 300 miles. The enormity of it all weighed in upon me.
It was such easy walking now that I’d left the rocky paths behind, I began to wonder if my master sheet was wrong; this was all pretty much along a clifftop contour – where were all the climbs that were supposed to exceed 3,000 feet? Sure enough, the switchbacks started about a mile before Portreath, leaving me pretty tired after 17 miles as I found my way to St Agnes.
This time it was a cluttered double room in a guest house that had seen better days, but it was great to stretch out in a full-length bath. Combined with warm-down exercises each day, a soak in the evening removes all trace of stiffness. The combination also brought a revelation – the missing earplug turned up stuck to the hairs of a shoulder blade!
Day four gave me the chance to test my wet weather gear. I’m delighted with the Berghaus Hyper 100 jacket for summer wear – really light, really breathable and I stayed completely dry underneath.
There was another long beach of hard, wet sand after Perranporth, which makes sense if the alternative is to wade in ankle deep dry sand up and down dunes. Doing a coast path might seem a strange choice for someone who hates sand as much as I do but, for the most part, you look down on the stuff rather than trudging through it. Not so at Holywell; if you try to escape the dunes by dropping down to the beach, you only have to climb back up a near vertical scree of sand, slipping back a foot for every two feet of progress. That was the hardest thing I’ve had to do yet on this gig.
After 16 miles or so, I’m sampling different accommodation again – a surfer bunkhouse in Newquay. Luckily I’m the only occupant of an 8 bunk room, so I won’t need the earplugs tonight.
There’s an easier day ahead tomorrow, with fewer than 13 miles to walk to Treyarnon YHA. Beyond that, some very daunting days lie in store, with 4,000+ feet of ascent!
White Acorns 
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