Distance covered today: 20.5 km (12.7 mi)
Last night's B&B: Seiners's Arms
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 35.9%: 363.7 km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 736m/ 732m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 19 (click!)
It seems obvious, but I’ll make the point anyway: walking totally confuses one’s perspective in terms of distance. I was happily bouncing into my destination today, Portreath, when I saw a sign on the road through town indicating the distance to Redruth as being 4 miles! This seemed so unlikely that the first thing I did at the B&B was to check it out online. Surprisingly, it is true!
Why should I be so astonished?
Six years ago, on the fourth day of my LEJOG adventure, I walked from Little Pengelly (where Veronica and I will be staying for most of next week) to Carharrack, right in the centre of the old tin mining area, known in the mid-nineteenth century as the richest square mile in the world, because of its rich lodes of copper and tin.
I narrowly bypassed Redruth which also was very much part of the mining industry. In my mind’s eye, my route during LEJOG, which the following day would take me abortively to the King Harry Ferry over the Fal River in the south of the peninsula, was miles to the south of my current path. Yet it turns out that I am less than the distance across our home village from my old path. In fact tomorrow night in Hayle, I will be less than 2km from St Erth which was on my LEJOG route!
On one level this is obvious. A cursory look at the map shows that I am approaching the end of the peninsula which is any case constricted at this point, but psychologically I was in a different space six years ago. Each day was a leap into the unknown, with John O’Groats surely a distant dream. My sense of distance was completely different. I was focused only on the day’s walk and the paths and roads I would take. I had no sense of the greater geography and it wasn’t in any case relevant. Each step and then each minor waypoint was the objective. No wonder my canvas was so local!
I met Nick and Louise in the pub tonight, probably for the final time. I was trying to explain all this to them, when Nick turned to me and said he understood; enough said. It was again an interesting example of how walkers do understand each other. Nick and Louise both had accidents on the path today. In both cases they were distracted and fell over, thankfully without injury, but it is a salient reminder that as the faculties become, shall we say, less acute, it becomes ever more important to stay completely focused.
They spoke lovingly of their offspring and explained to me how these people were involved with the RNLI and how this affected their lives. They described the procedures that these people have to go through to rescue people in distress at sea, how they train for it, how they are evaluated and how they do it all for virtually no reward.
Nick and Louise run a little fishing shop in Westward Ho!, I suddenly realised that I had passed that very shop last year, and apart from being most impressed at a galleon made of matchsticks in the window, I had also seen this joke in a frame and had captured it!
Whatever else my walks may deliver, they do me the honour of meeting people in a way that I never normally would.
The tide has come in at Perranporth, right outside my window!
The Cornish flag flying on an island
Arch rocks everywhere
A large scale sundial. It told the correct time in GMT. It was a millennium project
Last look at Perran Beach
Aquamarine sea in the sunlight
"Adits" in the mines. Semi-perpendicular shafts that were constructed towards the cliff edges to let the water run out to prevent the mines being flooded
These pyramids over the mine shafts allow bats to enter and exit the shafts
More lovely aquamarine in the sunlight
That is St Agnes Head ahead!
Trevaunance Cove
What a kind offer!
A little unkempt, but still lovely
These rocks are called "Bawden Rocks or Man & his man". I'm beginning to understand that this alternative naming thing is pervasive in Cornwall!
Suddenly the flowers are gone. Its like switching off a light-bulb. Is it the soil, the plants, the moisture or the latitude? Time will tell...
They apparently undertake duties in areas where the Coastguard no longer operates. I had never heard of them
The beaches down to Porthtowen
Wheal Coates remains
The beach towards Chapel Porth
Chapel Porth in stone!
The sea from Chapel Porth
Looking back at Wheal Coates
Mountains of unreconstructed spoil. No money, or a sense of history?
Light blue!
St Agnes Head recedes. I have a feeling of achievement
No explanation, but no doubt, more non-ionising radiation! Radar?
Not more steps! Oh No!!
Dummy buildings from WW2, designed to confuse the enemy into thinking this was an airfield
Sally's Bottom (really!)
The harbour in Portreath
Hi Kevin, I enjoyed your discussion about the strangeness of perspective of distance when you are walking...certainly true! And what's more, I find it interesting to hear how your walks intersect, or nearly do. It just shows how much territory you have covered! But the cross-references are great fun, today's example being your chance meeting with Nick and Louise, relating to last year's photo from Westward Ho!
ReplyDeleteHi Phyllis, it is indeed quite a strange sensation returning to this part of Cornwall - all those strange thoughts and sensations from that highly emotive time six years ago coming back to the surface.....
DeleteMaybe leave the receipts for the fishing gear somewhere prominent. On top of the will. Although I don't think anyone believes anyone about the prices of sports gear. I had to add ours up to update the insurance and I was quite shocked!!
ReplyDeleteI love the friendly looking beaches between the rugged cliffs and hills.
Hi Barbs, there is something endlessly soothing about the repetitive nature of it all, though the inevitability of another sharp climb to the top of the next cliff is a little unsettling!
DeleteI hope those steps were better spaced than they look. You have been fortunate with the weather,a grey sea is never as inviting as a blue one. Maybe nature will eventually cover most of that man-made scree, it looks as though she has made a start.
ReplyDeleteBridgy, yes I have been lucky, but the forecast is uncertain. Let's hope for the best. And no those steps, like all the others, were a real pain! More of a problem going down than up! Especially with the knees! Many thanks for the comment!
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