Halfway to Zen: South West Coast Path – Day 24

Ruan Minor to Porthallow

31,000 steps

“I have never thought so much, existed so much, lived so much, been so much myself, if I may venture to use the phrase, as in the journeys which I have made alone and on foot…” Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Les Confessions, 1782

I’m up early and away, fuelled by muesli, fried eggs and coffee. It’s been raining, but that stops just as I set out.

I walk into Cadgwith Cove. It’s a quaint fishing village, tightly packed with thatched cottages, lobster pots piled high.

I climb out the far side, onto gorsey cliffs under a cloudy sky, with small patches of pale blue struggling to break through. There’s a refreshing cool breeze. I can feel my blister, but it isn’t too painful.

As well as cattle, there are horses on the cliffs, eating heather.

At Poltresco, I descend through woods to cross an attractive wooden footbridge, amid abandoned cottages.

 

 

 

The Path to Coverack switchbacks a bit, as it follows the corrugated coastline. But it is not as severe as Penwith or north Cornwall.

There are some pleasing patches of vegetation, reflecting the late summer season, and the milder climate on this southern side of the peninsula.

 

After a strenuous climb up to Beagles Point, there is view clear back to the Lizard Point.

I get irritated with my guide book. It has Ordnance Survey maps, but they are shrunk to fit the small pages. Although I know this, I repeatedly underestimate distances, and get frustrated when it takes too long to get to my next destination.

I stop for a foot inspection. The blisters are multiplying, jumping to other toes. I apply plasters. A fellow walker, coming the other way, stops for a chat. It’s his first time in Cornwall. He’s sceptical about the chances of reaching Lizard Point. I say, “That’s it there.” But if his guide book is like mine, he’ll have no way of knowing how long it will take.

Approaching Coverack, I get too smart. My map shows tantalising inland field paths, offering a flatter and more direct route into the town than the interminably fiddly coast Path. Inevitably, I get lost and end up scrambling across fields to find a road.

Lunch in Coverack cheers me up – pizza and coffee at Archie’s Loft cafe, overlooking the harbour.

When I resume walking after lunch, refreshed and rested, frustration with my guide book, and all other agitation, falls away. Perhaps it takes a few days out of London to relax. I accept that I will reach the end of the day’s walk when I have walked enough steps to cover the distance, and that number will not be affected by worrying. I should just plod on and enjoy the walk. It is, after all, a privilege to be in such a glorious place.

It strikes me that walking is like writing. When you’re writing a novel, each sentence and paragraph can feel a struggle. If it is so hard to fill a page, how on Earth can you complete eighty- or ninety-thousand? Walking the Path, it feels too far even to the next headland, let alone think about completing the 630 miles.

Yet, in both cases, the thing to do is stop stressing about how far away the end-point is: just focus on the next step; the next paragraph; the view from the next peak. Forget how far away the end of the book is, and immerse yourself in the scene you’re writing now and make that as good as it can be.

If you plug away, there comes a time when the day’s walk is over, the chapter is finished, the first draft is completed. 630 miles is made up of thousands of individual steps, and each can only be taken separately. A novel is thousands of words, which you write one at a time.

I keep this new philosophy of mindful walking with me as the Path winds round an unattractive headland dominated by a disused quarry. And heads inland from the grey and uninteresting Godrevy Beach, to approach Porthallow By an inland road route.

And the Path rewards me for my new-found level of Zen. I trudge into Porthallow and there by the beach car park is a sturdy monument marking the halfway point of the South West Coast Path. And the Five Pilchards Inn is close by, for the modest celebration.

Over dinner in the Five Pilchards, I reflect on my 24 days on the Coast Path since I set out from Minehead (see 11 April 2016). At this rate, I may reach Poole some time in 2021.

One day – one step, one page – at a time!

Detours and Blistering Pace: South West Coast Path – Day 23

Porthleven to Ruan Minor

43,000 steps.

“An eskimo custom offers an angry person release by walking the emotion out of his or her system in a straight line across the landscape, the point at which the anger is conquered is marked with a stick, bearing witness to the strength or length of the rage.”

Lucy Lippard, quoted in Rebecca Solnit, ‘Wanderlust’

I don’t know about that. What I do know is how I feel when I set out on what will be my longest day’s walking. To discover after half a mile that a short section of cliff between Porthleven and Loe Bar has collapsed.

Requiring a diversion inland.

Of nearly three miles.

“Funky Little Boatrace”: South West Coast Path – Day 22

Penzance to Porthleven

28,000 steps

It’s five months later. France have won the world cup. Britain is still leaving the EU. And I’m back yet again at Paddington station, starting my long journey to reconnect with the Path. This time, it’s late on a Sunday evening and I’m getting onto the sleeper train to Penzance. My intention is to arrive refreshed at the start of Monday, and launch straight into the walking.

I make a new friend at Paddington Station

It’s nearly midnight when the train leaves, and we rattle into the night. I’m already in my bunk and I appreciate the way the train pulls away very gently, as if the driver is conscious some people may already be asleep.

Without the Prof’s distracting sleep noises in the top bunk, I sleep much better than on my last trip. I wake up around five and peer out at a deserted Plymouth Station, then sleep again until 7.15, when I awake to find trees and rolling green hills outside the window, as we approach Bodmin Parkway, in a gentle, almost invisible, misty rain. My breakfast is delivered, and I feel very smug for a while, drinking coffee and eating my pineapple and papaya muesli.

Until I notice the train has not moved for twenty minutes. It has broken down at Par, requiring a decant of passengers to a late train, and a ninety minute delay.

Finally at Penzance, the early part of the walk is easy but a little dull, along a paved path between the Bay and the railway line, with only the grandeur of St Michael’s Mount – which dominates the Bay – to relieve the humdrum. As usual, I have packed light, and the warmth of the morning makes me regret my lack of sunglasses and hat.

St Michael’s Mount

At Marazion, it’s obvious today is a Bank Holiday. The car parks are full, and there are queues of cars. The tide is out, so the tidal causeway is open, and crowds of people take advantage. I don’t. I stop to send a postcard, get coffee and cake, and buy some cheap sunglasses. The sky immediately clouds over.

There are many interesting things about St Michaels Mount. Its Cornish language name is Karrek Loos yn Koos. This apparently means “the grey rock in a wood”, and may be linked with the time before Mount’s Bay was flooded (which may have happened around 1700BC). The name suggests a hillock set in woodland, and tree remains have been seen at low tides following storms on the beach at Perranuthnoe.

More interesting is the fact that the Mount is one of 43 tidal islands that one can walk to from mainland Britain. Wikipedia lists only four in France and a poxy two in Germany. Meanwhile, there’s another one right here in Mounts Bay – Asparagus Island in Kynance Cove. So we’re ahead on something in Europe.

Even in Marazion, I can’t escape reminders of my other life…

Marazion has some attractive houses

Leaving Marazion, there is an irritating diversion along the road, owing to cliff erosion, and then I’m out onto a low succession of headlands over boulder-strewn beaches. The Mount begins to fall behind.

The walking is deceptively easy, and the Path pulls a trick on me. It leads me down onto the beach, where I find myself clambering over a lunar landscape of grey boulders.

It takes me too long to realise this cannot possibly be the coast path – it would be impassable if the tide wasn’t low, for example. I check the guide book, and find I should be enjoying a gentle route through field gates and gorse bushes. I also find that I should “avoid dropping down onto the beach”. Fortunately – after twenty minutes on this beach assault course – I find a steep path back up to the route I should be on.

A little later, I look down at the beach below and see some singular sand art…

One of my problems on these walks is my tendency too go to fast, to plan too many miles for each day, and thereby miss the glory of the landcape and seascape. Starting my day’s hike an hour and a half late didn’t help me quell that instinct, and again I push things a bit too much. By the time I stop for lunch at the Sandbar, on Praa Sands, I’m feeling weary.  This is unfortunate, because the Path has been lulling me with the easy terrain so far.

More familiar terrain returns

After lunch, the walk becomes more demanding. More like the Path of earlier stages in the walk, with frequent climbs and steep descents, skirting deep gorges and insisting on pedantic twists and turns to around fenced-off clifftop field. I also lose the Path again near Prussia Cove, going too far inland and having to retrace my grumpy steps.

There are old mine buildings scattered over the hillsides, looking like ruins of an ancient civilization. Which I guess is what they are.

For some reason, I get thinking about Overend Watts, the bass player from Mott The Hoople, who walked the Path a decade or so ago, and wrote a book about it*. Once I’ve thought of him, I can’t get the song ‘All The Young Dudes‘ out of my head, singing it under my breath as I plod the last monotonous miles into Porthleven. I don’t pass many other walkers, but one guy looks at me oddly as I shuffle past, muttering, “Is there concrete all around, or is it in my head?”

I’m pleased to see at last the pretty fishing (ie. touristy seaside) village of Porthleven, where I check into the Harbour Inn and clean up and recover. Porthleven has a local custom of a torchlight parade once a year, on August Bank Holiday.

Serendipitously, today is that very day! As the sun goes down, several hundred people for, up behind a marching band carrying flaming torches. They then march off, looking for all the world like they are about to put an end to unnatural practices at the local equivalent of Castle Frankenstein.

No one seems to know why they do this, but they appear to enjoy it.

---

*The Man Who Hated Walking, by Overend Watts, Wymer Publishing, 2013