Day 22: St Ives to Zennor

Weather: Mostly sunny with very cold Atlantic headwind
Distance covered today: 11.3 km (7.0mi)
Last night's B&B: Little Pengelly 
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 40.4%: 410 km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 612 m/539 m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 22(click!)

Today was all wrong. I need to boast in these blogs about how hard it was and how epic I was in overcoming the obstacles. The data suggests otherwise. It shows that I walked less distance today than any other day of this series, that it took less time and that I walked almost more slowly than at any other walk. Yet I am absolutely exhausted, my knees are aching and my toes are toast!

The explanation is of course that the data doesn’t always reveal all the information. My guidebook gave me a warning and I quote, “This is a short but testing stretch.”  Normally the guidebooks, written by people who climb the Alps before a breakfast of muesli, suggest that the day's exertion is far easier than it turns out to be for me, so when I see a warning like that, I am wary!  Along the path I saw another very unusual message warning walkers that the way ahead was “wonderful, but quite strenuous”.  This is the sort of remark Scott would have made on the way to the South Pole! I should have turned back there and then!

As it turned out, the problem was not that the extremes as measured by the broad data were so difficult. It was just that there wasn’t really a path at all for some of the time. I found myself leaping over boulders and clinging to steep rocks with muscles aching and my digital armband telling me my heart-rate was an issue!

The sadists who designed the path had been clever enough to provide signed exits from it, indicating that much calmer, more sober and flatter paths lay just above the cliffs in case you might need relief. What was I supposed to do with that? Fail? No way!

The same sadists also naturally organised that there would be a number of walkers on the route who, as it turned out, mostly came from Switzerland, Germany and Austria, where I understand they have a few hills. They sailed past me as if on a Sunday morning stroll (I later had to acknowledge that it was Sunday morning and they were strolling!!). There are few more morose feelings than those when you are clinging to the edge of a cliff, trying to claw your way over a boulder when some fit, young, very stylish person flits past you as if you were going in the opposite direction while talking about some art exhibition of which you have never heard.

Ultimately, I staggered into the charming little village of Zennor, there to meet Veronica. She brightened my day by taking me to the charming medieval church of St Senara which has stood there since at least the sixth century AD, though the current church is partly Norman and partly of the 13th and 15th centuries. There we found a wonderful carving of a mermaid on the edge of a bench. A young man called Matthew Trewhella had a marvellous voice and charmed a mermaid who fell in love with him and he with her. They were last seen swimming out to sea and have never been seen since. The chair with her image on it was carved 400 years ago.

That is the kind of story that makes my day worthwhile. The bad news is that a cursory view of tomorrow suggests that things may not improve.

At least I will console myself by looking out to sea, just in case I can spot the mermaid and her Matthew!

This Swiss lady rubbed it in by passing me four times!

At first the path was serene tarmac; always a warning sign

The view to Clodgy Point (once a leper colony)

Dozens of birds following a fishing boat

Clodgy Point

Turquoise and aquamarine

Ditto

Ditto

Hor Point

Pen Enya Point

Backwards down the coast

Relics at Treveal

Easier for some!

A bridge and staircase

The rocks get angrier

That may be Pendeen Watch in the distance; tomorrow's objective

This is a path?????

I console myself with the view

Is this still a path? Enough already!

More consolation!

The Mermaid on the 400 year old stool!

Zennor Church