Distance covered today: 19.7km (12.2mi)
Last night's B&B: Braganza!
% Complete: Cumulative distance: 60.2%: 610.1km
Total Ascent/Total Descent: 625m/ 630m
GPS satellite track of today's route: Day 33(click!)
A strange walk today! It started out usually enough with me having breakfast with a dead bear, but after all, one might expect that in Braganza. I made the ferry in seconds flat (apologies to the Beatles) and was soon on my way to Place to start the day's walk. Only, in the rush, I forgot to switch on my satnav route recorder. No matter; this evening I opened the gpx file and inserted the grid coordinates of Braganza as my starting point and the geek in me is very proud that I know how to do that, though to be fair, a careful study of the breadcrumb trail on my GPS satellite track sees me crossing the estuary in a dead straight line to the point at which I remembered I hadn't switched the thing on! No matter, the distances and timings will be approximately correct, and who, other than me, actually cares!
The early part of the walk was perfect. Cornwall was covered in cloud and mist, as opposed to the sunny South East of the UK, and the walking along the cliffs of the Roseland Peninsula was easy and actually quite flat. The cliffs here are much lower than along the Lizard, so it follows that there were fewer ups and downs, and no diversions at all! Maybe, it's the geology or just the height of the cliffs, but it was a relief not constantly to be diverted. Away from the tumultuous crowds in Falmouth, I again had the path mainly to myself, with the exception of the odd friendly dog-walker.
Soon though, I was on familiar territory. A year ago, Veronica, our dog-walking friends and I did a happy return walk to a restaurant called "The Hidden Hut" and there it was just past the attractive little town of Portscatho. It has a fabulous reputation for excellent food, but for the second year in a row, I didn't have time to stop and sample it! I walked on up the familiar path, with its easy walking, thinking how very different this is from the fearsome path along the North coast.
I did have a little mishap on Porthbean Beach where I missed a sign from the beach back up to the path just 10 metres from the entry to the beach! Who walks on a beach for 10 metres??! The result was that I eventually found myself clambering up an increasingly difficult set of rocks, until I realised that this just couldn't be the path and retraced my steps in embarrassment.
Soon afterwards I passed the glorious stretch of beach from Pendower to Carne, furiously resenting the poncy hotels at each end that refuse to allow the Coast Path to run between them and the sea. I don't know the history or the law, but I need to discover how two hotels have maintained this right, when I can recall no other all the 600-odd kilometres back to Minehead!
No doubt there is a rational explanation, and as I was thinking about it, I started to have strange sensations. I had now started the much more arduous high-cliff walk towards Nare Head, and was increasingly out of breath. I decided that I was beginning to imagine things. Every now and then I saw something that reminded me of something I had seen before. I wasn't really concentrating on this, but suddenly there would be another deja vu moment. I was heading for Nare Head and even this caused me some confusion as I was sure I had passed a Nare Head earlier on the Lizard somewhere? I rounded Nare Head with these confounding recollections now worryingly reverberating around my brain. Had the path now become so repetitive that I was confusing previous experiences and imagining that I had seen them before?
Then I became truly alarmed! I was bashing the ground with my walking poles and quite suddenly, there was a reverberation from the poles suggesting that I was hammering on an underground cavern sufficiently close to the surface that my poles were picking up the hollow vibrations. I had heard this before! What was happening?
Suddenly, it all became clear and I decided I was a complete idiot, not for the first time in the last few days! I was approaching both a nuclear bunker from the '60s and a 2nd WW bomber decoy site, intended to produce special effects simulating bomb explosions and fires to attract enemy bombers away from Falmouth to what they thought was Falmouth. They saved thousands of lives. I had been here with my daughter, her husband and his father less than a year ago on a walk around Nare Head! I have the photo to prove it.
The underground cavern my sticks were reverberating on was indeed the nuclear bunker one metre below ground level. The idea was that three officers from the Royal Observer Corps could live underground for three weeks following a nuclear attack, while monitoring levels of radiation at ground level.
So I may be an idiot, but at least I'm not losing my mind!
Yet!
Breakfast with a bear(skin) in Braganza
Fog on the ferry crossing to Place
Yet another of those poles used to practice rescuing wrecked sailors with rockets and breeches buoys
A Stonechat? I used Google Lens to identify it. AI becoming real, but is it right??
My major objective of the day: Nare Head. Didn't I pass one earlier?
Another badger hole trap avoided, and no trees to bash my head!
Portscatho looking unspoiled
That's Nare Head again with Gull Rock in attendance
Portscatho Beach
The Hidden Hut
Another Coastguard post with a couple of lovers keeping watch
Looking along the cliffs to Pendower Beach
Suddenly,a confrontation! Mums with their calves. I have learned from my daughter and her son that discretion is the better part of valour in these circumstances. But, how to persuade them peacefully to evacuate the gateway? It took time and much grandfatherly hurrumphing!
The first of the pesky hotels that won't allow walkers between it and the coast
The second!
An innovative use of second world war defence structures to add pizzazz to your des res!
Suddenly it's serious! Up and down to Nare Head!
Just visible, above the mist, the last sight of the Lizard Peninsula at Porthoustock, beyond the more easily visible St Anthony Head. Once around Nare Head, the Lizard will be gone for good
Gull Rock
Hold on a moment! I really have seen this before and there were people in the image!
Here they were, my daughter, her husband and his father!! I'm not mad!
Air filtration units for the underground nuclear bunkers
Stitchwort!! It really is spring!
Portloe, described in my guidebook as "one of the the most unspoilt and attractive fishing villages in the whole of Britain"
The view of the harbour from my dinner table this evening
What an interesting day you've had, Kevin, starting with the most novel of breakfast companions! Lovely, lovely scenery on this stretch, but I'm wondering about what means those hotels use to prohibit walkers from travel on the seafront? Were there actually some sort of barriers or fencing? Perhaps you didn't want to waste steps to find this out? Hmmm...doing so might have produced some another interesting story for the blog! As it is, you really do know how to have your readers on...I became quite concerned to read about the shortness of breath and feelings of deja vu until I realized nothing too terrible could have happened as you wouldn't have been in a state to write the blog!!! So good to know you re-established your bearings. Have a great time tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteAlways lovely to have you greet me in the morning, Phyllis! On the subject of the seafront hotels, I could have walked past them on the beach itself, but the Coast Path almost always has an official path that doesn't include the beach, to cater for high spring tides, etc. It was these paths that were directed behind the hotels, with secure fencing preventing anyone from transgressing.
DeleteYou say you're not mad yet! Really?
ReplyDeleteEye of the beholder, my love, eye of the beholder!
DeleteI can't tell whether Veronica is incredulous, relieved, or disappointed!!!
DeleteDoes Portloe meet the expectations?
ReplyDeleteWell now, that is interesting, Barbs! If unspoilt means that effectively nothing architectural has changed for yonks, then this is certainly true. Whether the original village is that attractive depends on what one wants from a Cornish fishing village. I would argue though, that the architecture of old Cornwall does certainly mesh with the harsh cliff-face environment in a way that modern architecture does not. Perhaps, it is just nostalgia.
Delete