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.