Remembering Overend: South West Coast Path – Day 26

Falmouth to Portloe

34,000 steps

Here we go again.

More than half a year since I last set foot on the Path, I’m heading back to the south west. Will the Path have me back? Will we be able to pick up our old relationship?

The Night Riviera sleeper train is definitely the way to travel to Cornwall. I turn up at Paddington station at around quarter to eleven. I find my cabin, ditch my bag and go for a cheeky glass of wine in the bar. I then turn in for a fitful night’s sleep in the narrow bunk, until I lift the blind on the window and – like magic – I’m in Cornwall. At first, thick mist fills a narrow valley, but this fades within minutes, with the early sun laying shadows across a steep frosty hillside, and colouring cottage rooftops with honey.

Early Morning, Falmouth Waterfront

It’s easy to complain when transport goes wrong. But it sometimes goes right. Within minutes of finishing my coffee and muesli, I step off the train in Truro, walk twenty paces across to another platform for the train to Falmouth. By eight in the morning, I’m sipping coffee at Prince of Wales quay in Falmouth, waiting for the ferry to St Mawes.

The St Mawes Ferry

The air is chilly and clean-tasting. The only sounds are the slap-slap of water on the pier, and the distant laughter of gulls. A group of children are waiting for the ferry to their school in Flushing. The St Mawes embarkation point only has me and a serious-looking cyclist. We’re joined, just before sailing, by another man, and a woman, both of whom look like they could be commuting to work in St Mawes. Neither looks up for walking to Plymouth.

The views from out on the water are glorious. I’d been worried about having to cross two bodies of water before being able to start this section of the Path, but I can’t think of a better way to begin.

My luck continues. When the ferryman comes to collect my fare, I ask him how I might get from St Mawes across the Percuil river to Place to pick up the Path, which starts by winding round St Anthony Head, the tip of the remote Roseland Peninsula. I’ve read that the Place Ferry does not start operations for the summer until the day I aim to reach Plymouth (note to Walk Planner – how about some planning?).

St Mawes Castle

Ferryman kindly offers to ring someone called ‘Mark’ to see if he could take me. He comes back a few minutes later – Mark is on, in exchange for £15. Well, it avoids a long detour.

At St Mawes, the two ferry guys point out Mark’s dinghy, moored in the harbour, and tell me to wait by the slipway for him to turn up. They tell me to look out for somone who looks like Tom Cruise. I think this must be a wind-up, and fully expect to meet a crusty sea-dog with barnacles in his beard.

I hang around by the slipway, and to my surprise a Midlands cousin of Tom Cruise introduces himself. He kayaks out to the moored dinghy, brings it to the slipway, and I get on board.

One of the many people who’ve walked the Path before me (and written about it) is Peter Overend Watts, erstwhile bass player with Mott the Hoople. I’ve written about his book* before (see August 28th 2018). While I’ve been walking the coast path, from time to time I check my progress against his.

As we’re crossing the Percuil, Mark says over his shoulder that he had a friend who walked the Path, in 2003, and wrote a book about it. Called “The Man Who Hated Walking”.

“I’ve got that book,” I say. And I was a big Mott the Hoople fan, back in the day.

We chat a bit about Overend, and when I get off I ask if I can take Mark’s picture for my blog. As I set off along the floating pontoon to find the Path, he says, “May the spirit of Pete go with you.” It’s the most uplifting thing anyone’s said to me in 300 miles.

Mark, Friend of Overend

All this, and I’ve only just set foot on the Path. Luckily, the Path brings its A Game. The first bit, from Place, is unbeatable. When I was at the Falmouth pier I could see my breath in front of me, and the Carrick Roads held clumps of mist on the water. Now, the early chill burns off in the sun. There’s a subtle scent of wild garlic, and the Path makes its way through a riot of wild flowers – daffodils, wild primrose, yellow gorse, dandelions and daisies, white blossom, and some purple flowers, name unknown to me.

Place House

The Path circles round Place House, a former priory, now owned by the Spry family (no link with the lard, so far as I know). The house looks like something on the outskirts of Versailles, and is located in a setting so pleasing that it could pretty much patent the word ‘bucolic’.

The Path continues through woodland, onto St Anthony head. It is hard to imagine a more beautiful and peaceful spot. There are gorgeous views back across the calm, blue estuary to Pendennis Castle, and beyond that to the mouth of the Helford River, which I passed in August last year.

I soon fall into a rhythm, and the morning passes quickly. It’s a steady walk along a series of gentle headlands from Killigerran Head, gradually encountering more hikers and dog walkers going the opposite way. Then, suddenly, down some steps and into the tight streets on the edge of Portscatho.

I like to do more than half the day’s walk before lunch, but that isn’t practicable today, with no significant settlement after Portscatho before Portloe. So I don’t linger long over food, and soon set off again.

As well as being a longer distance, the afternoon’s walk is more up and down. Ahead of me, looming slowly closer, is the rocky promontory of Nare Head, which, every time I look at it, seems to adopt a posture that says, “Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.”

I toy with the idea of cutting across the headland, walking by road, to shorten the afternoon. I’m still tempted by the idea when I shed my pack on a grassy hillside close to the point where the road diverges inland from the Path, and have a short nap on the grass, the sun warm on my face.

The nap refreshes me, and I resume the coastal walk, sticking to the proper Path. After all, if I have to take short cuts today, how will I ever cope with tomorrow’s much longer walk?

You just know it’s going to be called “Gull Rock”, don’t you?

Nevertheless, I’ve had enough when I finally descend into Portloe and find my night’s accommodation: the Ship Inn. Which is closed when I arrive. I go for a beer in the Lugger Hotel, down at the harbour. A group of walkers come in for a drink and I hear them talking about their walk. They’ve come from Mevagissey.

“That’s a fair old walk!” the barmaid says. They agree, saying it took eight hours.

I reflect on the fact that my (ambitious) schedule involves aiming to reach Mevagissey by lunchtime tomorrow.

(Note to Planner – arrgh!)

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