Padstow to Porthcothan - walking the South West Coast Path

Back on the path again and the weather is set fair for the week. I've parked the car discreetly in Padstow and headed down to the harbour, past the Lobster Hatchery. Last week I adopted a lobster here. Well, it was only £2.50 and didn't seem to require much adoptive parental input save checking on the internet every now and again to check how ones adoptee is faring. If only child rearing were so easy! As you would expect on a sunny Saturday in July, it is absolutely heaving. Padstow has been Padsteined of course - and they were queuing up in his fish and chip shop and the deli as I went by.

I strode out through the park past the war memorial. I had only been walking for about three minutes past the memorial and the crowds thinned to nothing. Most people don't bother to walk more than about 500 yards from a) shops b) the car, in my experience.

The path wandered along above the beaches of the Estuary, affording beautiful views across the River Camel to Trebetherick and Polzeath. Unlike my walk along the opposite side the previous week, there was no mist and barely a cloud in the sky. The path meandered around a spring marked on the map as St George's Well before passing Gun Point where a small marker shows the date 1868, although it seems this was a defensive sight long previous to this and up until the Second World War. I picked my around them for a bit before heading off down an overgrown path. Most coast patters, I suspected, took the beach.

A sign on a stile advertised cream teas at Lellizzick Farmhouse. I had been walking for half-an-hour already so a cream tea was long overdue. The farmhouse was at the top of a long track but I plodded up anyway. On the way up I imagined a plump Cornish farmer's wife, face pink from cooking scones all day and with flour on her apron. We would chat about the weather and how she loved farming although things had not been the same since the foot and mouth outbreak and they were diversifying into teas and bed and breakfast. It wasn't like that. The woman who served me was an employee and although friendly enough, I somehow doubted very much that she knew one end of a cow from another. I was directed to a garden with high walls and no view and was served a 'Rick Stein' scone. I was the only customer. It was hardly their fault I had allowed my imagination to run away with me, and although the large crack in the toilet seat was a shame, the cream tea was actually very nice. But still, I felt a little disappointed as I trudged back down to the path.

But who could be downhearted for long on a day like today! It was perfect. Blue sky, warm but not oppressively hot, a gentle breeze keeping the temperature just right and creating little white horses on the waves as they lapped gently ashore onto the golden sand of the estuary. Through the pretty hamlet of Hawkers Cove, home of Edward Woodward until his death, and then up to Stepper Point and the Daymark, a stone tower built in 1830 to provide a waymarker for ships in these treacherous waters,

The section from Stepper Point to Trevose Head was sublime, with contorted cliffs and fractured rocks creating formations of breathtaking beauty.

Just before Trevone I came to the first 'round hole', a dramatic circular cliff at the bottom of which the sea pounded in, the remains of an ancient sea cave, now collapsed. At Trevone I went down onto the beach for a paddle. It was bliss altough I knew I would pay for this 15 minutes of pleasure dearly, picking sand out of every item of clothing I owned for weeks, if not months.

The exit off Harlyn Bay beach

Harlyn Bay next door was a bit of a balls-up due to some uncharacteristically poor coast path  signage. As a rule I found the signing for the coast past very good - but this time it was lacking. I traipsed up and down the beach, which when you are lugging a rucksack is no mean feat, sand sliding away and legs slipping akimbo - I went into two gates which ended at signs marked private - I was sent back the way I came by a well-meaning person who thought I was heading north - and then a chap saw what was happening and took pity on me. 'You need to go farther down the beach,' he said. 'The steps are in a cove. Loads of people do what you've done. I'm thinking of putting a sign up there myself.' I hope he does as the official ones are pretty hopeless. Even at the cove there is no obvious sign telling you to get off the beach here. I'm posting a picture of the way up in case you should find yourself there.

I had been wondering whether to stay at Treyarnon. I knew there was a campsite and a youth hostel there. But the campsite was a massive holiday park and the youth hostel was £12 per person to camp in a grass car park with no facilities. And they were charging £3.50 a pint (Betty Stoggs). I've had it with youth hostels to be honest. I thought it was supposed to be budget accommodation - yet they were charging as much as the most expensive site I had been on so far.

So I carried on to Porthcothan and pitched up in a lovely little campsite for £8.00 a night.

This was my first night with the solo tent. It is so small it is not possible to sit up inside it and you can only lie one way, with one's head next to the entrance. It was a cold night and I woke up in the middle of the night shivering, with aching legs and pins and needles in my feet. Why the fuck am I doing this, I thought blearily, pulling the hood of the sleeping bag over me and trying to go back to sleep.

Distance: 13.5 miles

Total Distance:  180.5 miles

Accommodation Ranking: 7/10

Accommodation Cost: £8.00 per night.