Day 18: Newquay to Perranporth

Weather: Cloudy with cool breeze
Distance covered today: 17.4km (10.8mi)
Last night's B&B: Griffin Inn
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 33.8 %: 343.2 km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 400 m/425 m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 18 (click!)

Does danger enhance experience?

As I wander along the glorious beaches of the South West, I am impressed at the extent of the safety precautions and indeed the warning signs that advise the public how to behave. One is constantly advised to swim between the flags on an impossibly narrow strip of beach with a Land Rover staring at you as if it will erupt if you deviate by half a metre. Further on there are black flags that say you shouldn’t swim here because there are surfboards that will slay you, when the evidence of your eyes suggest that they are moving so slowly that they are more likely to bore you to death.

The cliff edges groan with signs warning you not to approach the edge for fear of toppling over, even as the flattened grass suggests that few in quest of a good view heed the advice. Along the path, signs warn of uneven surfaces as if people walking along the coastal path might have strayed there thinking that they were on a promenade stroll.

Sensibly, you are warned to keep your dog on a leash in case it chases sheep or birds and you are informed in the most stentorian terms possible that if you don’t pick up your dog’s poo right now, all dogs will be banned from this beach forever more!

In our Health and Safety culture, these things are not unexpected, nor are they in any way wrong. I have absolutely no doubt that obeying these warnings has saved many lives and saved the taxpayer lots of money. There is no going back, nor should there be.

Yet I remember too many years ago, riding my Honda 450 in flip-flops and a helmet, with my impossibly beautiful Veronica behind me in a bikini and a helmet on the lovely slopes of the Cape Peninsula. We would find a deserted beach, go for a swim and then jump back on the bike to air-dry in the wind. At nights we would skinny-dip off darkened beaches, aware that there were Great White Sharks in that sea, and they prowled at night. The excitement was intoxicating!

Many years before, I remember being driven 1,000 miles down to a place on the coast called Oyster Bay, with my parents and two other families who were good friends. Somewhere in the bush, one of the cars had a blowout and the convoy juddered to a halt. Out came the whiskey and milk, and by the time we were back on the road, the party had started. There were regular stops for more whiskey and milk, and when, as an eight-year-old, I asked why we weren’t there yet, it was explained that the whiskey and milk helped the drivers stay awake!

During that holiday, my sister, three years older than I, went alone for a walk on the beach. Later, after she hadn’t returned home, her towel was discovered on the beach with footsteps heading for the surf. A major search was initiated and ultimately she was found in the care of some local residents. No harm done, though my parents were naturally beside themselves.

Still, one would have to ask oneself, what self-respecting parent would allow an eleven year-old girl to go out alone on a deserted beach today? Don’t even ask about the whiskey and milk!

So things have changed for the safer and therefore, presumably for the better. Certainly all the statistics I see show fewer accidents and injuries, which is good. That said, the effect of the health and safety culture and modern medicine is that people are living much longer than they used to, yet there have been few developments to cope with the huge number of elderly people with chronic disease, in need of care and for whom a long life appears to be their only option rather than a good death, free of pain, with their loved ones, and at home or in a hospice.

My younger daughter broke her collarbone falling off her bike in London last week. Veronica broke her collarbone falling off her horse many years ago and she broke her neck a couple of years ago also falling off her horse.  I wrote off two cars in accidents before my twenty-first birthday. These were all avoidable accidents.

Yet, as I viewed all those admonishing signs on the coast path today, I couldn’t help wondering if a life hermetically sealed from the risk of accident might just be a little bit boring. Let’s hope I never have cause to rue these words…..

Holiday fun on the streets of Newquay

Me 50 years ago? Not so much the surfing (I was useless!), but the rest was regrettably very true, even down to the baggy shorts and long hair!

The famous Headland Hotel, once a Victorian masterpiece which then declined almost to destruction, but has now been restored to its former magnificence (or so I'm told!)

Fistral Beach. When Richard and I first landed on English soil off the Cape Town Castle in 1974, we saw an Aussie hitching a lift with his surfboard in tow. We asked him where he was going. "Fistral Beach, Cornwall!", he said and he was gone. Its taken me 43 years to get there!

You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!

Crossing The Gammel required care. This, the obvious access, is flooded at high tide, but I timed it correctly and made it to the southern side,

where I was able to follow the river bed all the way to the sea, considerably shortening the route

Despite being warned!

Soon I was in a maze of paths in the dunes. I am surprised that this highly sensitive coastal environment doesn't receive more conservational care

Beautiful yellow job

Crantock Beach

Porth Joke ( I kid you not!)

Veronica, hurry up! The flowers are fading, though there are still some explosive displays

Holywell Beach

Beautiful grasses beside the path through the dunes

Some sort of military installation. The sign warns of non-ionising radiation. No-one I spoke to had the faintest clue what that meant (it means electromagnetic radiation with a frequency below ultraviolet, presumably in this case, radio waves? They weren't saying!)

The number of mine-shafts is increasing daily

Another flower explosion!

Suddenly, an army camp: desolate and deserted

Point taken.....

These guys buzzed me nine times. The pilot seems to be looking at me! Just when I was starting to take it personally, I realised they were practising reducing altitude to almost ground level to load or unload men and materiel, just out of sight of the path 

Fair enough.....

OK...

A cave right through the cliff

Another explosion!

Magnificent Perran Beach, at low tide. The beach is almost flat and the high tide mark can be seen right next to the dunes. Again, my timing was perfect for a stroll along the beach for almost 4km

The famous Penhale Sands. It has been used by people for more than 5,000 years, for mining, agriculture, religious worship and military training. Buried beneath the sands is the ancient oratory of Cornwall's St Piran, and visitors come to the dunes to celebrate him on St Piran's Day, 5th March. St Piran is one of the patron saints of Cornwall and the patron saint of tin miners

They say"Take only pictures, leave only footprints", but at this end of the beach, there were no footprints at all, Incredible!

Looking backwards, the only footprints are mine. The tyre tracks belong to the local RNLI lifesaver, who seems under-employed....

Arriving by beach at Perranporth, which is more substantial than I imagined

and still growing. The blue smudge on the right is my hotel

The view from my bedroom window