Apologies for the lack of postings of recent. What can I say? Mundane things go on, however amazing things also happen as well. I refer to my walking expedition in Cornwall. We would cover a distance of 42 miles, from St Ives all the way round to
Penzance. To say I was confident would be
stretching things a little, however I
was looking forward to seeing some of
the magnificent scenes and of course the
achievement would be great.
After setting off at 7.30 am we walked through the town of St Ives and found the nearest pastry selling shop and stocked up, we were always thinking where the next meal would come from in order to keep the strength up. Clearing through St Ives we started the
Coastal path, which we would stay on for the next 42 miles, some of the scenery around this section was amazing. We carried on to
Zennor where we would have
our first meal stop, after completing 6 miles.
After a
fulfilling meal we carried on and passed through
Pendeen Sands where we made the fatal mistake of walking down to the beach to go in the sea, fatal because you have to walk back up to the path, but it was worth it. We also walked through the spookily
abandoned Tin Mines near to
Botallack, which was the location of a our first camp
site. I was relieved to get there as we had covered about 16 miles and feet were beginning to ache.
Day 2 began very overcast and misty, after a good nights sleep mainly through necessity rather than comfort, and soon
enough we reached Cape Cornwall, or so the sign said as I couldn't really see it due to the fog (see below). The morning session of walking seemed to go pretty
quickly and we seemed to reach
Sennan Cove really quickly. Feet were still in tact at this point, but this would not last forever.
After leaving
Sennan Cove, Lands End was in sight when the pain began in the feet. I really doubted whether I would finish the whole
walk at that point, however after
stopping for what seemed an
eternity I carried on, and eventually met up with my co walkers who had carried on without me, great mates I know. We made it to
Porthcurno Beach after
seemingly going up and down about 30 hills at just the right time, its the first beach in this really great photo I took.
Having reached
Porthcurno we had another mile to go until we stopped at
Treen at another campsite, where we ate as much as we could to re energize. The feet were in pretty poor order by the time we stopped, however we had covered about 14 miles and I was told the
third and final day was the easiest so spirits were high. The next morning we started early again and had to crack on further than we had previously to make it to
Mousehole, where we would be about 3 miles from our finish line.
Mousehole was reached after
about 5 hours, both feet and right leg was beyond damaged by now and so a well deserved break was had and of course the obligatory Pasty.
After leaving
Mousehole we started on the last 3 miles. Feet were beyond painful but it was the thought of finishing that kept me going, that and wanting to get the huge rucksack off my back which I had been
carrying for 3 days. After about an hour and a half of walking along what seemed to be the longest road in the
world, we made it to
Penzance and eventually made it to the train station ready to get the train back to St Ives. We finished with time
to spare and got back to St Ives at about 5pm, it was
incredibly hot, and even though my feet were covered in blisters and I was
burnt to a crisp I still felt that I had
achieved something that I had never done before.
Heres the
parting shot from St Ives, what a brilliant adventure!
