Polzeath to Padstow - walking the South West Coast Path

Considering the pain in my legs last night, I felt surprisingly refreshed this morning when I awoke. I had already decided to take it easy today and I lay lazily in my tent, idly eavesdropping on the conversations of other campers. This was a surfers place and a surfers campsite. 'How was the water?' I heard a young man ask a couple of others who had obviously just returned from a bout in the sea despite the fact it was barely eight am. 'What's the surf like?'
'Not bad. It's a bit sucky though,' came the reply. (What were they on about?) 'Are you long board or short?'
'Oh long board.'
You'll be fine then.'

The day started fine

None of this conversation made any sense whatsoever to me. I lay for a while longer before getting myself up and packing the camp away. For some reason it seemed to all pack away much more neatly today and it was with a jaunty 'I'm an expert backpacker now' air that I set off down the road. Ten steps later I pulled up short. I had spotted the Galleon Beach Cafe. Aside from the crusts of bread I had sucked on as I fell asleep I had not eaten since the expensive cream tea in Port Isaac the previous afternoon. In I went.

Fabulous Galleon Beach Cafe

I loved this cafe. I ordered a traditional breakfast  - two sausage, two eggs, two bacon, two toast - and a coffee. Additional refills a pound each. They were very relaxed about using the electric so I sat there for over an hour charging my laptop, my camera and my phone. No one seemed to mind and it was only with a determined effort that I finally got up and made my leave.

I plodded back up the hill to Lundy Bay and the point of departure the previous evening. I know you are thinking I am being a bit retentive about not missing any part of the path - but once you start there is no end to it - chop a bit here and a bit there and next I'd be thinking- 'well Land's End is a long way down, why not cut it off and go across Bodmin?' And then where would I be?

The path wound around the promontory of Pentire Head. At the end is a knobbly bit known as the Rumps where a heart-lurching, narrow path clings to the edge of the cliff as it winds around the headland. Just offshore was the small islet, The Mouls. 'Blimey,' I thought, 'this is a bit dicey even by Coast Path standards.' At the end, a couple were lying on a rock studying the sea with binoculars. They turned to say hello and we fell into conversation. I explained I was walking the coast path. 'Well, you're very keen,' the chap said, 'to come all out here, beyond the official route.'

Off route on the Rumps

'Oh yes, well I didn't want to miss any of it,' I said, pretending I knew perfectly well it was not part of the coast path route. 'It's so beautiful.' Saying goodbye I sauntered off and climbed the steep path between the rocky outcrops, just to prove I knew what I was doing and wasn't lost. By the time I descended down the other side I was already feeling weary. Carrying the heavy, too big tent (see previous posts) was taking its toll. A thick mist had suddenly rolled in from the sea, obscuring the view until suddenly a gap in the mist revealed the dramatic rocky outcrops of Pentire Point.

Still, I enjoyed the solitude and took the opportunity for an impromptu, one-woman karaoke, using my walking pole as a microphone. It was great fun.

From here it was a steady downhill path back to Polzeath. The tide was going out so I decided to walk across the beach. I climbed down into a small cove which a local chap informed me was called 'Stinky Bay'.
'Does it stink? I asked. I sniffed the air, it smelt fine to me.

Stinky Bay

'The seaweed often leaves a stinky smell here,' he explained.

After Stinky Bay was Baby Bay and then Hayle Bay proper where the lifeguards were blowing on hooters and calling through megaphones asking people to leave the water until the mist had cleared; it was impossible to see more than three feet from the shore.

The Doom Bar

John Betjeman's grave

The walk around Trebarwith Strand was busy with strolling holidaymakers and the occasional walker who marched past me at quite at a pace, clearly taking their coast path walk very seriously, much more seriously than I was.

Between here and the opposite bank is the infamous Doom Bar, the sandbank at the mouth of the estuary feared by ships and site of hundreds of shipwrecks over the years. Sharp's Brewery which brews the successful Doom Bar beer (now owned by Molson Coors) is just up the road in Rock.

 I detoured across the golf course to little St Enodoc's Church sitting in the dunes and famous as the burial place of John Betjeman. Fleur Lombard, the first female firefighter to die on duty outside of wartime, killed while attempting to put out a fire in Staple Hill in Bristol is here too, and the actor Michael Harbour.

St Enodoc

I especially liked the inscription on one grave, John Turcan Melvin 1916 - 1999, the last stanza of Longfellow's poem The Day is Done:

And the night shall be filled with music

And the cares that infest the day

Shall fold their tents like the Arabs 

And as silently steal away.

Rock to Padstow ferry

Around the dunes brought me to Rock. I didn't bother going into the village, I hear it's not what it was, and has lately become an attraction for undesirables. Instead I waited on the beach for the ferry to Padstow. It was low tide so we were landed on the beach north of the town. On the other side of Padstow, at the start of the Saints Way, I booked into the very fine Dennis Farm Campsite, who offered me a pitch in the 'hiker's section', a small area with lovely views over the river and a handy bush behind the tent for use when the walk to the toilet block at the far end was too much.

Beach at Rock

That evening, on the recommendation of a fellow camper I paid a visit to the London Inn who were serving a fine range of ales including one of my favourites, St Austell's Proper Job, a fine way to wash down lasagne and chips. I liked the pub very much - five ales, a bar as well as restaurant menu, wifi, low lighting and nice music. Why can't more pubs get this right? And why is this one not in CAMRA's guide? It will be soon, I am sure.

I was finished - in more ways than one. I booked two nights, on Monday I would catch the bus(es) back to Ilfracombe and have a few days visiting family before resuming the walk at the end of next week It was maybe just as well - by now my clothes were so rank that if I decided to have a lie-in they would be perfectly capable of getting up and going for a walk all by themselves.

Distance: 6 miles
Total Distance: 167 miles
Accommodation Ranking: 8/10
Accommodation Cost: £9.50 per night.

South West Coast Path :-)