I started with granola and yogurt at the Pityme Inn, maybe tiring already of cooked breakfasts. Then I headed north to meet up with the coast path, by lanes and a footpath, through a caravan park and golf course. Today's section of coast path was punishing with many steep ascents and descents. Many were due to crossing valleys, but in places I thought the surveyors deliberately and needlessly took the path up and down the coastline where a more level path would have been possible. However maybe land ownership issues and historic rights of way were responsible. Overall my GPS claimed I had climbed a total of 1620 metres today, it certainly felt like it. The Cicerone guide took a different route to mine to avoid the Rock ferry and it might have been less strenuous.
I reached Port Isaac at lunchtime when filming was in progress for a sequel to the film, "Fisherman's Friend". The narrow streets and harbour of this ancient village were also the setting for the "Doc Martin" TV series. I ordered a crab salad at a takeaway at the harbour and ate it on a bench watching the film crew do things. A man in a yellow gilet was directing people here and there, it all seemed rather haphazard and a lot of work to get a bit of film.
Leaving the pottery shops, gift shops and galleries behind I headed up the hill to the Coop at the top of the village to buy some more day-to-day supplies, then continued on the rollercoaster of the coast path. Steps, held up by panels of slate or wood and metal stakes "helped" the various ascents and descents, however the drop of each step was often large making stepping down ungainly and hard on the knees. The irregular spacing and height of the steps made it difficult to achieve a rhythm as I climbed up and down. In places the path was beside a steep drop to the rocks and sea below, but nothing too vertiginous.
A drone flew over me disturbing the sound of crashing waves and mewing gulls with its metallic buzz. A man coming up the path with his wife expressed a wish that he had brought his gun with him. The image in my mind of the little drone with its flashing lights being blasted out of the sky with shot gun pellets was curiously appealing. Elsewhere, "Kernow, No English" had been scratched on a sign by some Cornish nationalist (fortunately I am not English but Welsh or British). Passing ancient, little harbours with a few houses hidden in the folds of the land I stopped to pick up an ice cream and later a cold drink. The lady at the ice cream cart had been wary of showers. A little rain fell, not enough to put on my waterproofs but sufficient to raise the scent of the flowers that lined the path. A little before Tintagel, a couple of old slate quarries had been cut into the cliffs, a sign that the granite of Land's End had long since been replaced by more metamorphosed rocks. Towers of poorer quality rock had been left by the excavations. A man stood on the edge of a vertical drop. "Don't jump!" I cried, "Not a big enough drop" he replied. The 13th century castle at Tintagel was closed. A new bridge had been built since I was last here, spanning the chasm between the different parts of the medieval fortifications. I had hoped to reach Boscastle but due to the many climbs, I had been slow, well below my usual 4 km/hr. So as the sun was turning red, I picked a hollow (manmade for some reason) and pitched my tent, hoping I would not be noticed from a nearby house.
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