Days 16 & 17 - Trudgery

Day 16 saw me revisit the coast path section between Lansallos and Polruan. I say revisit, because Mags, Lisa and I did the same walk in the last week of May. There were questions raised in some quarters as to why I was doing the same stretch again, but as I pointed out - The challenge is to walk the entire Cornish coast path, twice between June 01st and July 31st. My family have decided I'm mad.

Parking at the NT car park in Lansallos, a three quarter of a mile track leads you down to the small cove shown below. Upon reaching the cove, turn left for Polperro, or as I did, Right for Polruan.

An entirely unremarkable trudge today, apart form the noticeable increase in traffic along the path (leading to social distancing problems when caught on a one foot wide path between a sheer drop and a steep upslope), so considerable time was spent going backwards or waiting!

The hardest part of the walk was around Lantic Bay, where the path goes up and around the steep sided bay. In the picture below, Lantic Bay is steeply down on the bottom left corner, the path shown leads on to Polruan.

Polruan is a quaint traditional Cornish fishing village that sits opposite Fowey. As a deep river port, there is some small ship yards, but the main industry is now tourism. The picture below is the view from the Harbour across to Fowey.

On getting back to Lansallos NT car park, 9.3 miles had been trudged today, I was lacking energy and perhaps a full fry up this morning was not the best choice of pre-walk meal!

Day 17 was a North coast venture from Crantock Beach (Newquay) to Perranporth, 16 miles round trip across relatively easy terrain (yesterday was graded as strenuous).

Once again today, I wasn't feeling at all "up for it" but trudged on regardless.

So, as you can see above, Crantock Beach is a wide expanse of sand, backed by sand dunes. The River Gannel runs down one side of the beach.

Around the next headland, you arrive at Porth Joke, a very long and thin cove, where the sea gets squeezed in between two headlands and crash onto a very long beach. A popular spot with surfers, the undercurrents are strong, so swimming / surfing is not advised unless you are an experienced participant.

In another couple of miles you come to Holywell Bay, another beach that is backed by huge sand dunes with a beach that the tide retreats a long way on. The Coast path leads through the dunes, making it heavy going on fine sand.

On the next headland sits a military training camp and firing range. The site is dotted with all sorts of strange looking masts and antenna, before the coast path comes across a collection of huts.

You are then kept on the right track either by fencing and barbed wire, or by white poles placed at intervals along the path, venture in land of the poles and you could find yourself part of a training exercise (or worse!).

The Penhale military training area continues all the way along the dunes at the back of Perran sands for quite a way inland, so the sensible move is to descend from the dunes and walk the sands all the way to Perranporth (a two mile walk). The picture below is taken about halfway along the sands, looking back towards Ligger point and the Penhale training area. At around this point you can ascend back up the dunes to the follows the coast path, but to disprove the theory that I am mad I didn't bother (You end back down on the beach and will have to climb a total of 213 ft up the dunes).

Perranporth is unremarkable apart from it's beach which draws masses of tourists during the peak summer months. I enjoyed a sit on the promenade and drank some water, before heading back.

Tomorrow I trudge onwards and will pass the 200 mile mark.