Just like in my younger, more excitable days when I did the Pennine Way (three years ago), I’m awake at 5.40. Oh for a 7 o’ clock breakfast, allowing me to get to grips with an arduous day! I visit the en suite then check my washing and, finding it virtually dry, am seriously tempted to just pack up and go, foregoing breakfast. Wisdom prevails, though, because I’ve done walks undernourished before and find they’re not at all enjoyable – and besides, I’ve paid for a full English! Reluctantly, I’ll settle down and snooze as best I can for a couple of hours.
Things start off ok, in spite of the fact that, as I’ve just discovered, I’m now down to one hanky again. I’m in the bar for 8.20, soon joined by a very amiable Scottish couple who are down visiting their daughter, who’s stationed at Torpoint for her naval training. They show a kind interest in my venture and we find a mutual topic in Edinburgh, since they hail from Leith and because I’ll be taking Liz for a weekend there in October. It’s all very jolly too when the cook turns up at 8.30, because he’s Scottish too, but my mood is by now starting to sour a little at the prospect of an even later start on my 17+ miles and 3,100+ feet of ascent. I’ve also had news from Liz that my father has taken a turn for the worse, so I guess that’s playing on my mind as well. I’m thoroughly enjoying the SWCP, a fact that seems to show in my facial expression to judge from the way approaching walkers on the path are inclined to smile at me when our eyes meet, I’m in the most charming location and the weather is once again fine today, but I’m fast becoming irritable and it’s a feeling I fail to shift all day.
I wolf down my breakfast and hoof it, striding out at max rate, but can’t resist pausing for one last shot of Polperro.
I motor on to Looe, five miles away, the last mile of which is on tarmac, something which turns out to be the overriding theme of the day. Arriving at the river Looe, I’m momentarily baffled by the sign for a ferry; the tide’s out, there are mud flats, but no sign of a ferry and I have no memory of my master plan including a crossing at Looe. My confusion has arisen because I’ve had my head down and taken no time out to consult either map or plan but now, checking Viewranger, I see that the path carries on to cross the bridge a little way upstream.
I’ve never been to Looe before but it has an odd feeling of familiarity about it; it’s smaller than my home town Weymouth, but I get the impression it attracts a similar type of holidaymaker. Really, I just want to get through the town and back on the clifftops again, but figure it may be my last chance for an authentic Cornish pasty, so buy a warm one from one of a host of places selling them. Then my onward route takes me past a Mountain Warehouse outlet and I’m tempted in, not for more rubber tips for the walking stick this time, but for a lightweight shirt. In the case of the second (of four) rubber tips, I’ve been careful not to screw it too tightly onto the stick, and this seems to be the way to stop the stick’s spike from piercing it – so far, so good. No, I’ve been missing my hiking shirt, which went home with Liz for washing, and haven’t had a replacement as ‘evening attire’, so I take this opportunity to fill the gap in my wardrobe – I mean rucksack.
I leave Looe without having found a café to lure me in, so continue round the urban fringe to Millendreath, where I find a sizeable beach café. After coffee and cake and sparkling water, I set off up a humongous hill, only to find, at the top, that I no longer have my walking stick. Bugger! It was always odds-on that I’d lose it at some point and now, although it’s only half a mile away, it’s time to bid it farewell, because there’s no way I’m going back down that (expletive) hill. I spend the next hour or two in an internal monologue justifying my desertion of the stick as if it were a painful divorce. Only yesterday I was comparing mutually congratulatory notes with a passing hiker armed with a similar stick about how good they are for maintaining balance; I’ve been using it to help step down from stiles and to negotiate the many steep descents, particularly those down steps with 18 inch drops between them. On the other hand, with no peat bogs and such hard, dry paths I don’t need to use it as a depth gauge, and it really does get in the way when you’re opening and closing gates. I don’t need a stick to support either leg and, having to remember it every time I stop anywhere makes it a real encumbrance. I never take a stick on my weekend walks until I’m in the final stages of practice for multi-day hikes, and then only to get into the habit of having it with me so as not leave it anywhere. Ha! That worked well then. I suppose I have used it twice to poke the nose of small, yapping dogs as I pass by and also to wave at advancing steers, but no! it’s not essential kit and, on balance, I’m better off without it. I think. Maybe it makes me more hardcore and gives me greater justification for laughing at those with poles.
By the time I get to Seaton (Cornish version) I’m unable to resist the allure of the Smuggler’s Arms (Seaton version). I quench my thirst with a pint of ale and a pint of tap water (with ice but no lemon). Another customer asks for a pint of Bomardiyay with the quasi-French pronunciation. After he’s taken his drink away the bar staff confer: “I always thought it was ‘Bombardier’.” I tell them they’re right and that the French version is for a company that makes trains. Another chap, newly arrived, says “That’s right. I used to do a lot of business with them.” Thus does the world shrink as soon as you start talking to people.
Back on the trail I meet a couple coming in the opposite direction who aren’t very cheerful at all and bemoan the awful path as you come up off the beach at Downderry, saying they’ve been stung and scratched to bits. Now, because there’s a short path closure there I’ve read about it and know there are several paths up from the beach – maybe they just chose the wrong one. On the other hand you can also stick to the road and, as there’s so much tarmac to tackle today I figure ‘what’s a bit more?’
After Portwrinkle, where many coastal path walkers stop for the night, the red flags are fluttering around Tregantle Fort, so it’s up to the B road, alongside which, for part of the way, there’s a ‘Gold’ path. I can only think the nomenclature is a clumsy effort at propaganda by the MoD; they deprive you of sea views, forcing you to walk beside or on a busy road and would like you to feel positive about the experience. I don’t. The path by the road is overgrown – the National Trust make a better job of managing their estate – but curiously there are no nettles or thistles to contend with, so I suspect they administer weedkiller from time to time. Maybe one reason it’s overgrown is that people give up and walk on the road, at their peril.
As I climb a hill a cyclist laden with bags around both wheels, on a rear rack and on his back, in fact in every imaginable place you could fit a bag, overtakes me so slowly that we’re able to hold a conversation, starting with: “You’re carrying more weight than I am.”
“It’s bloody hard work an’ all.”
“Why so much?”
“‘S camping gear.”
“For a regiment?”
“Har bloody har”
Farther up the hill he stops for a breather but makes sure he sets off again before I catch up.
A redeeming feature of this section is the view it affords of Plymouth in the distance, reminding me that I have a short day tomorrow, just 10 miles – bring it on!
I drop off the B road onto a C road, the main purpose of which seems to be to service the huts that populate the cliffside above and below, like an enormous rabbit warren. I wonder if it’s Duchy of Cornwall land, because the chalets littering the place are reminiscent of those near Portland Bill, which look to me like garden sheds looking for allotments.
Just after 5pm I’m relieved to be turning off the coast road and rounding the bend to find the welcome sight of my destination.
The campsite lives up to its name, being something of a fortress as far as hikers are concerned. There’s a barrier for vehicles with a stone wall on either side and no alternative way in for pedestrians. With a degree of difficulty at this stage of a long day I stoop under the barrier and make my way to reception. In this part of the world the majority of employees in most establishments seem to be ex-forces, and it shows. The receptionist appears a little miffed that she hasn’t been called upon to exercise her authority by raising the barrier, but she’s most efficient in finding me a pitch and giving me directions to the facilities, together with an information pack.
I pitch the tent with military precision in a hollow behind an old gun emplacement, then climb the ramparts to take in the view.
I take a welcome shower and emerge dapper in the new shirt, ready for action – well, food anyway. The clubhouse is a pleasant surprise, serving excellent real ale and a wicked chicken curry with a side salad – as a result of military training and discipline, obviously. And what a location for a night’s kip, especially when you’re plum tuckered.
White Acorns 