Day 12: Bude to Crackington Haven

Weather: Sunny with a cool breeze, clouding later

Distance covered today: 19.6 km (12.2 mi)

Last night's B&B: Grosvenor Guest House

% Complete: Cumulative distance: 22.9%: 232.1 km

Total Ascent/Total Descent: 895 m/ 785 m

GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 5 (click!)

I’ve taken to eating children’s portions! The sheer quantity of food provided in the average Cornish pub is so overwhelming that I have found myself sending three quarters of it back. Heretofore, I have found the reaction of the bar staff to this childish behaviour slightly intimidating, but it is a sign of my relaxing into my walk that I am finding their reaction more interesting than any opinion they might have of me!

My experience in Bude yesterday in any case reinforced my intention to celebrate difference. As I walked to the pub, I passed a five-a-side soccer game in which one side had just scored a goal. It might indeed have been an important goal, but the celebration exceeded anything the Premiere League has to offer, if mostly because the celebrators were completely unconscious of their audience, definitely unlike the overpaid professionals. They whooped and cheered and ran up an avenue as if the result of the battle of Trafalgar had suddenly been announced!

There is something child-like, and certainly not childish, about Cornwall. On the one hand there is the obvious, commercial incentive to provide value for the punters, which can lead to a certain tackiness, but frankly, it sells and I am in no position to judge. On the other, there is a natural authenticity, not to say naivety, in the attitude of the locals. Last night, as I was ordering a beer in the pub, the barman was arguing with the waitress that his salad diet wasn’t working. He was eating such copious amounts of salad while still feeling hungry, and as a result having treats on the side, that it wasn’t making any difference to his weight. The solicitous waitress was advising persistence, and this conversation might have taken place anywhere, but the difference was that they suddenly wanted to know my opinion! That wouldn’t have happened in a hipster bar in London in a million years. (OK, hipster bars are unlikely to persist for a million years, but you know what I mean!).

Given the above, it is clear that the good weather today is playing tricks on my mind. Thank goodness the weather was good because the walk was murderous! It was one of those sly, cunning walks that start out by lulling you into a false sense of ease, and then get progressively tougher until you are begging for mercy. As the data shows, I actually climbed more today than on any day of the trip so far and second only to the difficult Lynmouth to Coombe Martin stage a year ago. It wasn’t what I was expecting!

This is because I’ve discovered another flaw in my planning system, and those of you bored with Kevin’s incessant technical drivel, look away now. It turns out that when you plot a route on an internet OS map, the route logically only measures straight lines, but does so in three dimensions. I previously explained that the consequence was that on cliffs, the algorithm can over-estimate climb and fall. because the end-points are at the end of straight lines, whereas the cliffs are curved. The other astonishing conclusion which my dull brain finally understood today, is that if there is a very steep valley between the end-points, the algorithm assumes that you will just fly in a straight line from peak to peak, without descending into the valley at all. I haven’t come across this before because the valleys have been gentler, but I did with a vengeance today. The truth dawned as I was looking at the profile screen on my gadget which showed an agreeable horizontal amble to the next way-point, while the evidence of my eyes revealed a descent to hell and back! This happened repeatedly during today’s walk. The real sting in the tail, and my gadget did predict this, was that once I had reached my destination in state of exhaustion, I still had to ascend a further 150m over two kilometres to reach my out-of-the-way B&B!

The two gentlemen who run their beautifully presented B&B, seeing my distress at the thought of having to repeat the uphill trek from the pub in the village, have very kindly offered to collect me after my children’s dinner, which I am combining with a very adult intake of beer to anaesthetise demoralised limbs. To cap it all, I’ve just noticed that tomorrow’s walk is itself no pushover, even according to my gadget, so it may well be even worse!

Fortunately the weather should still be good and at least I have the consolation that I will be heading for King Arthur’s castle and I’m sure he will welcome me as a chivalrous knight, having performed brave deeds for king and country in the style of Paul Revere and Dick King (or, indeed their mediaeval English equivalent)!

Would this work in Birmingham or London?

Perhaps the punters will like sailing in swans?

The rather elegant and old-fashioned Falcon Hotel where I had the children's menu

Red sky at night.......

My beautifully elegant and minimalist B&B, with charming host and hostess and their 5 year-old son Jimmi

The Bude Light, of which more later, with Bude Castle behind

By the time I left the B&B, my host had gone surfing. He is one of those in the picture

Surf school Bude. Who needs an academic education anyway?

A view down the coast from Bude

And another!

This being Cornwall, nothing is as it seems. How to pronounce this: "Widmuth Bay"!

My first step onto beach sand since this time last year

Tuesday morning fun in Widmuth Bay

Leaving the lovely Widemouth Bay

This looks like Kevin McCloud and Grand Design's material, but not so...

The coast beyond Widemouth Bay

A simpler house in a classic setting. How did they do this?

Looking back towards Bude. If you look carefully, you can still just see GCHQ Bude on the left horizon. 

Now the difficult bit begins. You have to descend to sea-level in the valley ahead and then climb the path you can see up the far cliff. Repeat this after me....

A gentler view of the coast

Is that Land's End? Not yet!!

The bay at Crackington Haven comes into view

Crackington Haven, with my B&B at the extreme top left. First I had to descend to the beach

Is that the Island at Tintagel on full zoom? I'll find out tomorrow!