Day 24 - What view?

When planning a long distance walk, you accept that at some point you'll get wet. I have been lucky so far with this venture, Cornwall being such a long county and surrounded (almost) by sea, you can generally find somewhere that it's dry, today my luck ran out!

A combination of reduced options on parts of the coast I haven't yet walked, a need to be home by 17:00 hrs to get my position in front of the computer to watch Charlton Athletic's next match and a band of rain stretching across most of the South West peninsular meant I'd have to batten down the hatches and go for it in the rain. I mean you can only get so wet cant you?

The photo above shows the view midway through my walk!! Not rain, just coastal mist.

I started at Talland Bay, planning to walk to Palace Cove at Lansallos. The route was rated strenuous between Polperro and Lansallos, with three big ascents and descents. Arriving at Talland Bay, the weather was improving, the heavy drizzle turning to a lighter drizzle!

The walk round to Polperro was not too difficult, apart from the initial climb out of Talland bay. About midway between Talland and Polperro I came across another reminder of why I am putting myself through this.

The war memorial sits alongside the coast path with what must be a great view along the coast (when the weather is better than it was today).

Continuing on my way, in what seemed like no time at all I arrived at Polperro.

Polperro really is a proper fishing village, very narrow winding streets snake around the harbour, cars are a rare thing (although one road leads into the harbour, its barely wide enough). The tightly packed cottages and two (that I saw) pubs all crowd to the edge of the harbour - real pirate village stuff (Tortuga?).

The path leads right around the harbour before it turns right, up an almost hidden flight of steps, back to the coast path.

The walk from Polperro starts off moderately, before gradually becoming more strenuous. The path is maintained by The National Trust until you get to the end of Raphael Cliff, it's maintenance then becomes (I assume) the responsibility of the land owner for the next couple of miles.

It is clear that this is not a responsibility taken seriously, the path becomes more and more overgrown, making it impossible to see where you are putting your feet and meaning (in places) the greenery is chest high.

Not being able to see where you are about to put your feet is difficult, the fact that there were several sets of steps added to the peril. Progress was slow, if you looked down to try and see where you were putting your feet, you got a fern in the eye! If you didn't, you tripped often! I progressed by sliding feet forward until I felt a step or a drop!

As it had been raining all night ad morning, the greenery was saturated and progress through it was similar to walking through a shower!!

The three ascents and descents were particularly hard and made all the more difficult by the act that my boots were full of water!

As you come down off the last descent, you get back to National Trust land meaning the path becomes clear and less difficult. After one more steepish climb the path drops down into Palace Cove (Lansallos).

The walk back presented the same problems, although the weather improved so much that I was able to get a slightly better picture of the view!

9.2 miles in total today, lots of drying required before tomorrow!

As you can see from today's photos, it's not all fun and games walking around Cornwall, so don't forget to help if you can!