Day 14. Lulworth Cove to Worth Matravers. The End.
It was with mixed emotions that we packed our bags for the final day of the trip. On the one hand, the coastal views made each day’s walk a pleasure. On the other, the daily 20-25km distances over hilly terrane were just on the edge of what our grumpy knees and moaning feet could handle, and there’d been a gradual increase in the early morning joint-related groaning from the group.
Dorset (God bless it/her/him/they) recognizing we were close to capitulation, saved a chunky one for last; a 24km workout along the chalk downs between Lulworth Cove and the curiously named Worth Matravers. Dorset also threw some bloody warm weather at us which didn’t help us as we battled up the steep grassy climbs. (I’ve become increasingly “fragrant” as each sweaty day has progressed; my new personal superpower is the ability to clear a bar or crowded space instantly after a 5-hour hike.)
Getting out of Lulworth was a bit of a challenge. The start of the path has collapsed so we shuffled along the Cove’s curved shingle beach to a likely spot to climb up and take in the view over the crystal-clear bay. We scrambled up, following an alarming trail of fresh blood (with no obvious source) up the path to the start of the coast walk.
The route passes through a huge military artillery range that’s miles across. Ominous signs along the way tell hikers to stick to the path marked by yellow plastic poles and not to touch anything OTHERWISE YOU COULD GET BLOWN UP INTO TINY PIECES AND DIE YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED. Wrecked tanks litter the landscape. And it’s the only part of the entire route where we got lost. The army path makers cunningly diverted us inland for some reason, and we ended up about a mile inland trudging past burned out armoured cars and bombed cottages.
The first serious uphill we came to was a tad problematic for me. A big, grassy cliff-top slope that was so steep that any slip would potentially send you tumbling down to the chalk cliffs and certain squishy death on the rocks below. I don’t generally suffer from vertigo but this climb did the trick -it could’ve been the north face of the Eiger as far as I was concerned, minus the rocks, snow, glaciers and jolly Swiss climbers of course- and I was feeling a bit discombobulated. So I kept my head down and trudged up, deliberately focusing on my feet and trying to avoid catching any sight of the slope stretching away below us. I would’ve liked a photo of it but didn’t dare stop to fish out my phone. I’m bloody glad we were going up it, west to east, and not the other way round.
From there, the walk was a stunner. Rolling chalk downs, cut off by steep white cliffs, as far as the eye could see. The last hour of the path cut inland to Worth Matravers and the blessed sanctuary of the old Square and Compass pub which was owned and run by a freemason in the 1830s. Founded in 1776, rather than having a bar it retains the original service hatches which can make ordering a pint of luke-warm, flat scrumpy a bit of an issue when it’s busy. The entrance corridor gets jammed with people, dogs, kids clutching crisp bags and sweaty hikers like us desperate for a cleansing ale.
And then we were done.
We sat happily in the paneled back room, and snapped a few selfies, elated and happy at finally finishing our 2 weeks of walking and living to tell our smelly tale. Some key statistics: the total distance walked over the 14 days -depending on whether you skipped a leg or two for injuries like me and David V- was between 250-300km. Full english breakfasts consumed was probably about 20-25 (we were pretty good at moderating the egg/bacon intake) and the number of pubs visited somewhere around 35-40, or 2-3 per day, usually one at the end of the walk then one or two more for dinner depending on the size of the village or town and the presence or absence of a food venue.
A big shout out to Mickeldore for their great work in arranging the trip. It went off flawlessly. Next time around I’d probably go east to west so that the toughest leg, St Ives to Pendeen, came toward the end when fitness levels were a little better, but no matter. If I do it again, I’ll also avoid the organic unfiltered scrumpy. Bad news that stuff, if you value your continence.
Day 13. Weymouth to Lulworth Cove.
Ok, I’ll get it over with up front: this leg of the coast path is up there with the best of them. The views from the towering, white chalk cliffs east of Weymouth are simply stunning and the scale of the hazy seascape from east to west was mind-blowing. At one point, Dave C and I were convinced we could see the coast of France -a low grey line on the horizon- which the googleizer says is about 80 miles as the crow flies. All in all, it was one of the best hiking days I’ve ever had.
Our walk began on the endless seafront promenade along Weymouth Bay. It finishes at the wonderfully bizarre Riviera Spa hotel, a modernist wedding cake confection of a hotel in white and blue, built in 1937, which dominates the eastern end of the Bay. The architectural notes state dryly that the design “epitomises the austere approach of the modernists in the immediate pre-war era, and suggests the designer’s acquaintance with contemporary work in Rome and elsewhere.” Quite. From the wedding cake, the path climbs benignly up to Chaldon Down and then becomes a roller coaster slog of steep clifftop chalk hills drawing sweaty walkers toward the natural rock arch at Durdle Door and then Lulworth Cove.
Durdle Door was a shock after the peace and quiet of the walk. There must have been a couple of thousand people trying to get to the beach, jamming the narrow rocky steps to the shingle beach. The strange thing was, they were nearly all from the Anglo-Asian community and there must’ve have been dozens of buses down for a day trip from London. That afternoon, we were picked up by a taxi from the pub in Lulworth to ferry us to Swanage. The taxi driver was a talkative chappy. During the half hour taxi ride, we heard all the gory details about his two-timing girlfriend and which of his friends knew about her most recent dalliance. He’d definitely know why Durdle Door is the place to visit.
They shot a Bollywood movie song there a woil back din they, he told us.
A song called Pyar Ki from the 2017 movie Housefull 3, sung by Akshaw Kumar and Jacklin, was set on the suspiciously empty beach and the location still draws huge crowds.
When he dropped us at our BnB on Taunton Street in Swanage, our land lady was out; her dog yapped through the front door every time we rang the bell. So, we called her cell and she showed up 2 minutes later to let us in. She’d been in the High Street watching the annual Swanage carnival parade which she confessed was “totally naff.”
Our main concern was finding somewhere to watch the England – Germany football game; the women’s European championship final from Wembley which kicked off at 5pm. She pointed us to the White Horse Inn 100 yards away. Get there early she said It’ll be packed. So half an hour later, showered and moderately less smelly than when we arrived, clutching beers, we were camped at a table in front of the giant TV screen. By kick off, the pub was full of families, with kids sitting on the floor munching chips and the dads loudly imparting their soccer wisdom to anyone who’d listen. There was a slightly dodgy moment as Dave C whistled cheerily along to the German national anthem drawing concerned glances and a bunch of shushes from the table next to us.
After England scored the first goal, the cheering drew more people in from the street and by the final whistle you could barely move inside. It was hot, noisy and the atmosphere was electric as the clock ticked down to the end. The assembled beery masses screamed and cheered for 10 solid minutes when England ladies won a major competition -men’s or women’s- for the first time in 56 years. I’m left with some very happy memories of Swanage.
Day 12 Abbotsbury to Weymouth. The Fleets
Our taxi dropped us back to Abbotsbury this morning for the leg back to Weymouth. The first 3-4km was exceptionally pleasant, taking us in land across ancient farmland pock marked with neolithic and bronze age earthworks. Then we dropped down to the banks of the West Fleet, the long tidal lagoon nestled between the hellish shingle Chesil Beach and the mainland. The Fleet is a protected wet land where one of Europe’s largest populations of Mute Swans is sensibly left in peace to eat whatever it is they eat and make their mounds of nasty green slime all over the place. We saw them from a distance, hundreds of small white dots clustered together on the north bank of the Fleet.
The walk then took us through fields and along the edge of the Fleet where large beds of rushes line its banks. It’s full of murky-looking seawater, and the beaches -such as they are- are nothing but mud with the odd beer can thrown in for good measure. Not particularly appealing. But that hasn’t stopped the locals from building huge caravan sites wherever they can so they can fill them with tourists who come and sit on their little plastic chairs and stare at the mud and the swan poop.
In a moment of rashness we decided to stop for a late morning coffee at Moonfleet Manor, a cluster of hotel buildings just under halfway along. We grabbed a nice table in the shady garden and orered 5 coffees. Half an hour later they arrived. Ten minutes later the bill arrived. Thirty pounds for 5 coffees. Six quid each for an iced americano. Later in the day, we paid 4 pounds for a pack of 4 cans of Blackthorne cider in Weymouth. There was silence around the table, and some definitely-a-bit-miffed looks, when the waiter dropped that one on us.
You may have gleaned by now that this wasn’t our favourite leg of the walk. I’d put it second from bottom, just above the jungly nightmare of our first day in Dorset. Yes, we got some nice views back along Chesil beach as we got closer to Weymouth but other than that, it was flat and dull. Weymouth was a pleasant surprise though. The old harbour area -where different generations of warehouses and inns line either side of the channel- was buzzing with people enjoying the warm evening and the pubs were overflowing. Good spot.
Day 11 West Bay to Abbotsbury
Our walk yesterday began on the sand at West Bay. Staring up the steep hill to the cliff top from the beach, bathed in the warm morning sun, we did what any sensible, right-thinking group of geologists would do and said fuck it; let’s walk along the beach so we can look at the rocks. After scaling the 500 ft horror called Golden Cap the day before we were more than happy to walk on some flat ground.
The cliffs at West Bay are gorgeous. The soft, well-stratified rocks – a mix of soft and hard layers- are a deep orangey ochre colour, and there’s a bit of a dodgy looking overhang that screams you’re-all-going -to-die-in-a-rock-fall to anyone who bothers to look up.
The morning was so lovely we were tempted to have a quick swim but opted to push on instead. And then it happened; I was looking down at the sand, eyeing the shells and pebbles, and listening to the gentle lap of the waves, when I spotted a small, coiled shape on the sand. My heart skipped a beat. Yes, it was a fossil ammonite.. an almost perfect one at that. Not big, perhaps 1cm across, but a lovely example and an iconic symbol of this coastline. It had once been golden pyrite but was now made of brown iron oxides. No matter. I whooped with joy, calling out to my 3 mates that I’d found one and for the next half hour we walked with our eyes to the ground, but alas we found no more. I called mine Andrew because it looks like an Andrew.
The day’s plan was to meet a mutual friend who’s based in the UK, another geologist, at the village of East Bexington for lunch. A week back, we walked past the point on the coastline where we were having to carry food for the day and we’re now fimly into the happy lunch land of beach cafes and country pubs. But the last mile to the promised lunch at Bexington took us along the crest of the giant shingle bank known as Chesil Beach.
If you never done it, walking on loose shingle in hot weather is a very specific form of slow-burning torture. It’s incredibly annoying and there’s nowhere on the bank that’s easy to walk. We went up and down and across the bloody thing looking for non-existent solid ground, sweating and cursing the sadistic bastards that designated this as part of the route. With Bexington still a quarter of a mile away, Dave C and I decided we’d had enough and it was time to cool off. A swim was in order. We slipped down the seaward side of the the bank, and stopped on a shoulder just above the tide line. Stripped down to our shorts, sporting glorious, 2-tone brown and white hikers’ tans, we had to negotiate 10 yards of steep gravel with no beach shoes which is virtually impossible to do without shouting like an idiot, or falling over, or both. But it was so worth it.
We found the lunch spot in Bexington, a nice open-air sea food restaurant; 4 newly refreshed middle-aged gentlemen, going commando under our shorts because we belatedly realised boxers don’t dry in 10 minutes.
We finished the day with a lovely stroll through some ancient neolithic landscape to the village of Abbotsbury. Signs of old earth works are everywhere; the ridges and mounds on the hillsides telling secret stories of a landscape that’s been worked by the local folk for thousands of years. There’s a grand old tithe barn in the village attached to a ruined abbey. In fact, it’s the largest tithe barn in Britain and was once close to 270 ft long. It’s built of local stone and has massive butrresses and a huge wooden door, a true statement of the power of the old Abbey.
Next to the barn is the abbey fishpond, a calm oasis of ducks, wading birds and green green rushes-oh. On the banks of the pond are a pair of swans and 5 cygnets. Yes, it’s the kind of idyllic Englsh country scene that tourists dream of coming across. I was enjoying the wonderful pastoral scene until I strolled over to get a closer look at the cygnets. They were clustered together in the rushes, quietly working their feathers, making gentle peeping noises to each other sat, on a pungent 1-foot high mound of slimy, deep green swan shit. Nature is wonderful.
Day 10 East To West Bay
Yesterday’s 17km jaunt finished at West Bay in Dorset, the setting for the nasty-but-compelling TV crime series, Broadchurch. It’s impossible to miss the iconic orange cliffs to the east of the town where poor old Danny Latimer’s body was found, sparking David Tennant’s perma-scowl in the first series.
It was one of the shortest walks we’ve done but a bit of a hard slog in places. But, the hike was far more scenic and interesting than the previous day’s under cliff jungle battle and Dorset delivered some glorious sea views from the cliff tops.
There are some really big, steep hills along the coastal cliffs that we sweated our way up (yes yes, stop sniggering at the back there, you North Americans – I mean big in UK terms.). The grand daddy is the scenic buttress called Golden Cap near Bridport, clocking in at an awe inspiring, towering, massively huge, awe inspiring (you already said that) 190m high. It looked like the north face of K2 when we were stood at the bottom, contemplating the half hour of pain needed to get to the top. Wikithingy tells me it’s the highest point on the south coast of England, and we watched it get larger and larger as the 4 of us hiked east, knowing we had to go over it.
Remind me why we’re doing this?
About 10.30am, Dave C and I were heading up the grassy path at the foot of Dorset’s Everest when the ambrosian scent of cooking bacon wafted past us from somewhere to our right on the beach. Like a pork-scented siren call it pulled us down to the sand where we found a small food hut, manned by 2 skinny teenagers, offering bacon baps. I’ve always been fond of a sandwich with added beach sand so we postponed the Golden Cap ascent for half an hour to munch one of the better bacon baps I’ve had, washed down by a mug of hot tea. Twenty minutes later, half way up, I was regretting yet another poor life choice as the bacon decided I should experience its delights once more to keep me company as I laboured up the hill.
We got to West Bay about 3pm. Feeling the effort, we avoided the final hill along the way by sidling down to the shingle beach for the last 1km of the way. It gave us a chance to visit the muddy cliffs to fossick for ammonites (found none), belemnites (found none) and broken bottles and beer cans (found lots). Geology in action.
Oh and I nearly forgot, Lyme Regis is lovely. Very picturesque sea front with some fine pubs and delightful views east toward Chesil Beach and the Isle of Portland where we head today. Nice way to end a good day.
Day 8/9 Eastward Ho!
We were pottering around in Exmouth 2 nights ago when 2 things happened. 1) we found a pub on the seafront and went in for a quiet pint; well that’s not unusual I hear you say (true); 2) a roving pack of swarthy sailory looking chaps arrived in the beer garden dressed as I imagine a press gang would’ve looked 200 years ago. I was momentarily concerned. However…To the best of my knowledge forced enlistment of podgy hikers with dicky knees into the Royal Navy was never a thing so I figured we were probably safe have another round.
The jolly Jack Tars lined up, blocking our only escape route from the outdoor terrace and a rather portly specimen with a white beard and glowing red nose announced loudly that they were a singing group and we were about to hear a medley of traditional sea shanties. Intrigued, we ordered another pint and settled in while they launched into a series of bawdy acapella shanties about loose women in Port of Spain or the louche behaviour their errant love got up to in olde Portsmouth towne while they sailed the Seven Seas seeking fortune.(hint: fleshly things with another jack tar home on shore leave) We left the pub, singing away, a lot happier than when we arrived.
Yesterday, we bused from Exmouth to the charming seaside village of Beer. The bus journey beat anything we’d experience yet. It was full of old ladies with no husbands heading to Sidmouth to buy their denture fixative and support stockings. They couldn’t believe their luck when 4 “young” male hikers got on and within 5 minutes they were chuckling, joking with us about swinging. I kid you not. We could all have chosen a willing second wife if we’d wanted to with a good chance of inheriting their house soon.
Our bus driver took no prisoners on the skinny country roads around Beer. Trees and bushes scraped noisily down both sides of the bus as we trundled along. Whenever we met an on coming car she simply slowed down but drove on, forcing the flustered car drivers to reverse back down the road at the same speed until they reached a passing place.
At Beer we stopped into the Beer quarry caves; a massive underground limestone quarry that supplied 4 tonne blocks of limestone to London or wherever there were large buildings or cathedrals going up. With a 2-thousand year history of mining -the Romans, the Saxons, the Normans and then the English all mined there- it’s impressive. The workers did 12-14 hour shifts and carved out 1 block each per day by hand using pick axes or hand held rock saws. The work was so hard, that most never survived beyond the age of 40. More impressive is that they typically drank 12-14 pints of rough cider each per shift to stay hydrated. From my own recent experience of drinking that stuff, they must’ve had a bloody big shit house somewhere down there to handle the explosive repercussions of drinking that much apple hooch.
We bade goodbye to Beer after a pastie lunch on the seafront and set off on what looked like a fairly benign walk on the map but quickly turned into a knee jolting slog over 6 miles of tree roots with nothing to look at other than forest. An ominous sign at the start of the under-cliff trail warned that it was a minimum 3-4 hour walk over challenging terrane. In the end it took as 2 hours but we were moderately fucked by the end. Dave C was left cursing his boots which have caused issues from day 1 and had to stop regularly to patch up his blisters and curse a bit more. The houses of Lyme Regis were a welcome sight and we stumbled, sweating and scowling, into the Nags Head for a medicinal pint of cider. Total walking in the end was about 21km.
Tomorrow is a light day; only 8 miles from Lyme Regis to West Bay, where the TV series Broadchurch was filmed.
Day 7 A Farewell To Cornwall
This morning we left Cornwall on the slow train to Exeter from Falmouth. After 7 days of walking it’s time to move on to Dorset and the Jurassic coast. I managed “only’ 5 days on this leg thanks to the aberrant behaviour of my rebellious left knee. But it is what it is. I managed a decent enough 90km with a couple of days off to heal. I was hugely relieved that the knee damage wasn’t serious. When it first came on after the St Ives Pendeen Death March I could barely walk and was mentally preparing to abandon the guys and head up to the family in York for proper rest and maybe a doctor. Happily things improved.
Last night, to celebrate the end of the Cornish leg of our trip, we had a massive fish and chip supper down by the harbour. The vast quantities of haddock and chips, mushy peas, curry sauce and pickled onion I inhaled created a sense of profound physical unease as I podged my way back to the guest house. The Falmouth seagulls, sensing weakness, decided that was the time to fuck with me and kicked off a loud party at 4am on the roof outside my window. Between over-eating and the ungodly screeching of the rats with wings, all hope of sleep was gone for me.
The hike from Porthallow to Falmouth was the easiest yet. The route uses well trodden paths and cuts through fields along some of Britains myriad public rights of way. Despite walking over 22km it was an easy day. The Helford passenger ferry forced us to slow down and take a break as we waited for the little red boat to pick us up for the short hop across the estuary.
Bad weather was all around us – pissing rain to the front and back, falling from racing lead grey clouds. Mrs Obvious, an ancient lady I spoke to who was waiting for the bus in the village of Manaccan, told us with incredible insight that when the weather looked like this, people get wet. Thanks for that. But we managed to stay dry. Ha ha!
Me and the 2 Davids decided part way through the morning that the novelty of another 20-25km of twiddly Cornish coast had worn out, so we took a more direct route across country using back roads and public footpaths, arriving in Falmouth an hour or two ahead of Tim who was all in on the twiddles.
Falmouth is nice enough, in a run-down-faded-glory sort of way. Lots of abandoned and run down houses crying out for renovation and not 1, but 2, railway stations; reminders of a more prosperous past as a beach destination perhaps.
The highlight of our stay was the gentleman we spotted at a picnic table outside The Front pub enjoying a quiet pint with his mate. He was proudly sporting the biggest mullet haircut I’ve ever seen, perhaps the biggest in the history of hairstyling (I use the phrase “styling” lightly). It was a thing of wonder – a pouffed-up mousey grey thunder cloud on top with a cascading waterfall of long silky hair stretched down his back. He sported a thick beard too presumably to act as a counterweight to the enormous mass of head hair. The four of us tried very hard to 1) not stare at it ( we couldn’t), and 2) get a good photograph of the masterpiece (we didn’t). I had no idea such haircuts were legal.
So now we’re on the train to Exeter, destined for Exmouth. Tomorrow, we’ll be in the small seaside town of Beer. Yup.
Day 6 Lizard to Porthallow. Gabbros & Man Eating Plants
The Porthallow leg was almost exactly 25km. It less windy than the Lizard slog but a harder hike with a couple of short but vicious uphills. We stocked up on freshly baked Cornish pasties for lunch at the promisingly named Fat Jack’s cafe in Lizard and stuffed them greasily into our packs.
The locals pronounce Porthallow as “Prallow”. The BBC weather forecast predicted rain which duly arrived just as we finished the day’s walk, bathing the village in a wonderful fine, grey drizzle. It’s a chocolate box village nestled in a steep-sided green stream valley with farmed mussel beds out in the harbour; sadly none were on the menu at the Five Pilchards pub. The cluster of local chaps in the pub all sported impressive beer bellies suggesting that team sports probably aren’t high on the Prallow priority list.
A group of young doctors from Dorset were at the table next to us, telling each other gruesome work stories about severed spinal chords, broken legs and patients with chunks missing who’ve turned up in A&E at their hospital. Every so often 2 of them would pop outside for a cigarette to go with their pints and crisps. Definitely not nutrionists then.
As our weary group walked, limped and slipped along to Porthallow, our geological journey took us down through the earth’s crust into a greeny-grey looking slab of the Moho. Somewhere around the pretty town of Coverack the rocks changed to gabbros, which I know you all find endlessly fascinating. The gabbros formed about 20km below the surface many years ago, likely before I was born so they’re old. At some point they were thrust up to surface close to Coverack harbour, destined to excite and tease the geology students from all over the UK who stop off in the harbour here and bash the outcrops with their hammers under the watchful eyes of their profs.
My old igneous geology professor, Dr Rothstein – the man that time forgot- had an unnatural interest in the Lizard complex and we suffered through many a dreary undergraduate lectures based on his decades of boring research in the area. He successfully killed any interest I may have had in gabbros, peridotites and their ilk.
And if the moho wasn’t enough nature for one day, this part of Cornwall is perfect growing country for the unusual Giant Rhubarb plant which we keep coming across in the damp natural nooks and crannies of the coast. They look like a malevolent cross between rhubarb on steriods – a leafy Schwartzenegger- and a spikey man-meating plant that’s just finished dinner. I’ve seen them in Vancouver from time to time, but these ones are truly huge and slightly unnerving in an alien sci-fi kind of way, well over 10ft high.
As we’ve headed east the natural vegetation has gradually changed from the Lizard’s “nothing but windswept grass and rocks” (strictly speaking rocks aren’t plants but I’ve thrown them in as there’s bugger all else growing there) to green and wooded farmland with lots of cow shit. We walked through a lot of natural tree tunnels yesterday – secluded sections of path, out of the wind, completely enclosed in low trees- which is how I managed to spike the top of my head shortly before the end of the day’s walk. After 3 years working down a mine at the start of my career you think I’d have remembered that a 6ft 1 frame doesn’t fit into a 5ft 10 tunnel without some fairly crucial stance adjustments. One more injury to the list.
Tomorrow, we walk to Falmouth, an 18-mile stroll that takes in a ford across a river and a short ferry ride. Endless thrills. Dave C’s phone app tells us we’ve burned over 18,000 calories so far simply by walking the coast. 17,500 of those were expended on the first day from St Ives. They’ve all been replaced and then some by the pub food diet that we’ve been forced to adopt so I’ll be coming home rather fatter than I left.
Day 5. Porthleven to Lizard
Today -actually it was yesterday because I’m a day behind- was the day. Time to test the knee which finally seems to be getting better. The leg to Lizard is 21km over the grassy cliff tops. I made a mental note that halfway along the route, we’d pass through the village of Mullion -a good spot to grab a bus if my knee decided to mutiny again. Happily, it behaved itself and I was able to complete the entire leg without the need for capitulation.
The walk took us 5 hours, 5 windy bloody hours; an endless howling wind that got stronger as the day wore on. It wasn’t until we got to the pub in Lizard that we were able to stop shouting at each other although it took as a few minutes to adjust our hiking volume to the strange silence of the pub, much to the annoyance of the other patrons. A PINT OF CIDER PLEASE LANDLORD -Stop bloody shouting I can hear you perfectly well or you’ll have to leave.
There’d been no peaceful English country birdsong to soothe us along our bucolic way; no innocent bleating of lambs as we ate our lunch; just a relentless alien howl. Have to admit WIndy Lizard would be a wicked band name…
I was in a good mood. After 2 days sitting around feeling miserable and unable to join in the walking fun, it felt good to be back on the trail. The walk was pleasant enough. A lot of flat grassy sections along cliff tops with the odd climb, and we were having to lean to the right most of the time to counter the wind.
The 4 of us indulged in a spot of geologizing as we headed on to the Lizard. Why was that, I hear you ask? Well…seeing as you want to know, the rocks around Lizard are part of what geologists call an ophiolite complex. Wikipedia will tell you that it’s a section of Earth’s oceanic crust and the underlying upper mantle that has been uplifted and exposed above sea level. Think Iceland dropped onto Cornwall. (Thanks uncle Ralph. You’re welcome.) In reality, the iron and magnesium rich rocks are dark and soft and shiny and we call them serpentine. Science in action.
The Lizard’s main claim to fame is that it’s Britain’s most southerly point, sticking out pimple-like into the western approaches to the English Channel. So, sitting in the pub, enjoying a post walk drink, I was for a fleeting moment drinking Britain’s most southerly pint of cider. Look upon me in awe.
Day 4. Penzance to St Michael’s Mount
After 2 days of bathing in ibuprofen cream my knee has calmed down and I felt able to go for a walk. Our band of brothers is feeling the effects of no longer being 21 years old. Funny that. Between us we have 2 sore knees, one foot full of blisters and one bruised ankle; a decent enough collection of physical ailments.
After exploring Penzance last night, I decided to test my ankle yesterday on the flat and set off with the guys walking the 4 miles east along the promenade to Marazion and St Micheal’s Mount. The route follows the coastal railway line most of the way and takes in a very well-appointed Sainsbury supermarket and the delightfully green Enterprise Rent a Car depot.
The turd count along the path is impressive. Penzance must have a bit of an issue with incontinent dogs and horses and they all seem to want to use that particular path for their morning movements. I digress. To be honest, the walk to St MM is lovely. We were blessed with warm morning sunshine as we hiked with Long Rock beach over our right shoulders sweeping up to Marazion and the elegant island of St Micheal’s Mount. The morning dog walkers were chucking sticks and stones for lots of happy wet dogs, loosening up their bowels with big slurps of seawater ahead of the morning dump on the path.
David V and I decided to join the hordes of tourists on the short hop across the crystal-clear sea to the island. With sore knees, we were both a bit nervous about climbing up to the castle on the cobble steps, so we stuck to strolling slowly around the seriously impressive succulent plant garden around the east side of the island. Some bloody amazing work has gone into that garden over many years – never thought I’d see a 6ft high agave plant thriving on the south coast of England. Penzance – the future home of Europe’s finest Tequila perhaps….
After a pleasant hour or so on the island we caught the little ferry back. Lining up to board we watched dozens of huge blue-grey fish hanging around the boat and one shifty looking swan called Simon (according to our ferry captain.) The fish swimming around Simon’s feet were mullet that have grown accustomed to the ferry captains chucking bread and the odd non-paying tourist over the side.
I decided to walk back to our guest house on Alexandra Road, braving the turd minefield once more. It took me an hour or so, refueling in Penzance with a chicken-filled pasty, but my knee felt good over the total walk of 13km. So…. tomorrow’s the day. I’m going to give it another go on the leg to Lizard. Wish me luck.
The evenings festivities included a pint of unfiltered organic scrumpy cider for me and David V. which was tasty but led to some ugly repercussions for both of us that night. After a distinctly average meal in a place trying to pass itself off as a steakhouse, the yeasty scrumpy began to wend its merry way through my system, pausing to say hello to my dinner before showing said dinner the exit door. I had to clench my way back to the BnB where -bad knee or no- I was up the stairs to the room faster than a ferret up a Yorkshireman’s trousers. David’s adventures began later in the evening. Bring on the Lizard.
Day 3 Porthcurno to Penzance: Spudtastic
Porthcurno has 2 claims to fame. The Minack theatre carved out of the living rock (I’ve always wanted to use that phrase but never had the chance till now), and the museum of electronic communication which celebrates the laying of the first under sea telegram cable between Porthcurno and India of all places. I confess I don’t totally understand why the colonial Brits thought that their Man in Mumbai might want to call his mates in Cornwall on the historic first undersea cable call.
But the quiet streets of Porthcurno harbour another, much darker secret. Potatoes. Lots of them. Hundreds of small, red potatoes line the verges, and the main road junction with the B3315 at the top of the village is knee deep in road mash. The local farmers grow a small hard, red, inedible-unless-deep-fried variety (all suspiciously EXACTLY the same size and definitely not genetically modified oh no) under contract to Walkers Crisps who turn them into crunchy bags of Prawn Cocktail or Cheese and Onion snacks. The farmers barrel around the country lanes in enormous tractors towing vast loads of potatoes. I was on the local Penzance bus yesterday when the Number 9 met Farmer Giles and his heavy equipment at 40 miles an hour on a single-track road. Highly recommended – amazing how fast a double decker bus can stop.
Dave, David and Tim left me at the Sea View guest house in Porthcurno this morning headed over the cliff tops for Penzance. It’s a 16km hike, a quite benign distance after the last 2 days. I took a slow stroll down to the beach just in time to witness a family of German tourists having a massive domestic row in the beach car park – dad and son going at it full on outside a Tesla with car alarm blazing away. My knee felt good but i suspect it’s trying to lull me into a false sense of security and is simply waiting to pounce when I let my guard down.
I hopped off my ride at Newlyn, thoroughly enjoying the smell of old fish coming from the trawlers, and strolled slowly along the flat road to Mousehole (pronounced Mowsel), a pretty Daphne Du Maurier-esque fishing village nestled into a small cove. The good folk of Mousehole have been exporting sardines to France since 1302, and barely survived an attack by the evil Spanish papists in 1595. It’s also a lifeboat station – a vital service on this coastline – and judging by the memorial plaques in the harbour, the village has suffered more than its fare share of lost lifeboat men down through the years.
One pork pie and a nice hot cup of coffee later, I was back on the bus to investigate Penzance, a nice enough spot with its long promenade and St Michael’s Mount looming out of the sea down the bay. The local Jubilee pool – a classic old British seafront pool that we usually call The Lido- was stuffed with school kids ignoring the Do Not Dive signs and doing their best to run every where on the slippery pool side.
The real fun started that night when the other 3 guys got back off their hike and we headed into town for a bite to eat. On the way back we popped into a pub that had just hosted a traditional Morris Dancing troop. The troop had finished their show outside on the cobbled street and then migrated to the bar where a massive singalong spontaneously erupted, lubricated by some fine local ales. I got talking to a very drunken Dutch couple. The husband was about 6ft 6 tall and was leaning to the right at an alarming angle slopping beer everywhere, trying to sing along to a medley of Beatles songs in accented beer-sodden English. After a rousing chorus of Let it Be followed by a jaunty rendition of Country Roads, I was the best friend he’d ever had in England, but it was his first trip so that doesn’t count for much.
Day 2. Pendeen to Porthcurno aka. Who kneeds nees Anyway?
Day 2 was all a barrel of poop after the first day, for me at least. My mildly sore left knee became a very sore knee overnight just to emphasise why you shouldn’t walk 22km over rugged terrain without receiving some serious trauma counselling first. I managed about 12km before the nagging joint became a shouty-screamy one insisting that I pay attention to it.
When we hit the North Inn pub lounge for breakfast, Pendeen was grimly shrouded in low cloud which decided to dump fine, misty, wind-driven rain into every sweaty gap in our clothes. Damp and steamy, we trudged through the ruined industrial landscape around the old Geevor tin mine, stopping for 15 minutes to talk to one of the old miners – Stevie Boy- who was leaning in the doorway of an old shed brandishing a massive mug of tea. Once he realised we were all mining people the stories of local mining lore started; the last one about 7 young miners who “drownded to death” one year in the old workings under the sea. That cheered us up no end. Off we went.
It’s a great stretch of the walk, definitely top 2 of the 2 stages we’d done. Dozens of old granite beam-house ruins and chimneys dot the way, and signs asking us to please avoid certain death by NOT falling into the old shafts were nailed to every fence post. You’d have to be a cold hearted bugger not to be impressed by the tin mine ruins, particularly Crowns engine house which is perched on a rocky promontory. When we got there it was still misty and grey, lending a broody King Arthur’s Castle look to it.
The path here is much smoother than the St Ives leg, but even so after 10km, I was done. I was finding it harder and harder to go down hill without pain in my left knee, so I peeled off just south of St Just, limped up to the town and caught the bus to Sennen to meet the guys for lunch. The bus journey was a thing of wonder: one narrow escape after another as a turquoise blue open top double decker bus took blind bends at 30 miles an hour, leaving many a German tourist lying shaken in the herbaceous verges.
From Sennen I managed to walk the 2km to the cultural waste land of Lands End; a misplaced theme park celebrating a confusing mess of King Arthur, Wallace and Gromit and Cornwall housed in a crowded cluster of shabby white buildings. Reinvigorated by my new deep appreciation for the history of southwest England, I hopped on the bus again and headed to Penzance to find a pharmacy that didn’t service livestock.
By 6pm my knee had pretty much seized up and it was becoming very clear that my walking may be limited to hobbling around Penzance for the next few days.
Give Me Pendeen or Give Me Death! Death by Pendeen!
Today was the day with everything.. Our first day on the path, we left the BnB in St Ives serenaded by a chorus of thunder, violent flashes of lightning and the endless babbling of our landlady; a woman with an opinion – THE opinion- on everything.
When we checked in, she spent a good thirty minutes warning us about the rigours of the path we planned to walk. Seven hours she said. Brutal she said. You’ll run out of water she said. Take buckets of the stuff, she said. And we -wise experienced field geologists all- promptly ignored her. What the fuck do the locals know, those simpletons? So here I sit, 7 hours later in the North Inn in Pendeen, dehydrated and nursing sore frigging knees after a hike that last 7 painful hours and 4 wearisome minutes.
It was a rugged walk on a “lovely” humid day. Lots of ups and downs, followed by the odd long tiring slippy bits through head high grass (which nearly killed at least 3 of us.) Cornwall delivered though and the pain was worth it. Astonishing scenery, golden sandy beaches and crystal blue water all tantalisingly out of reach of our sore, aching bodies that we hauled grudgingly for mile after jolting mile along the windy cliff top. We passed old tin mines, granite boulders, more granite boulders of different sizes, bouldery granite things, and then -just as the granite was beginning to lose its novelty- we walked slap bang into a wild fire started by last night’s lightning storm.
The kind firemen, none of whom -ladies, I’m sorry to have to let you down- were shirtless and sweaty like Captain Poldark, advised us to move through quickly and take an alternate route. It was hugely dramatic, and we barely escaped with our lives, one step away from being flambeed by burning gorse. Kinda. And we met a bored looking horse who took a shine to Mr Volkert.
The North Inn in Pendeen was a welcome sight after 7 hours of walking; it comes highly recommended with friendly staff and a fine pint of zoider to wash your cares away. It’s just up hill from Geevor, one of the most famous Cornish tin mines.
Day 1. The Travel Gods Have Smiled
I’m currently perched in an awkardly shaped chair in the bar of the White Hart hotel in Salisbury. The travel gods smiled on us and we arrived here roughly 3 hours after landing at Heathrow; a remarkable feat given it involved Heathrow immigration, picking up a rental car (we were upgraded to a Jaguar, thankyou car rental gods), negotiating the M25 motorway, finding the damn hotel in Salisbury’s one way system and avoiding the siren call of a myriad fine looking pubs along the way.
The White Hart is a nice enough place near the Cathedral. Standing in reception, our stroll mate, Mr Beale, pulled out the reservation on his phone and presented it hopefully, which was immediately met by a blank stare from the nice lady behind the counter.
You should have four rooms in the name of Beale please?
Nope. Any other names?
Cass?
Nope.
Rushton?
Er…nope. Panic was beginning to set in.
Thankfully it was a temporary glitch in the matrix: once she checked the “expedia” bookings file, there we were although the rooms weren’t ready.
Why don’t you go down the road to the Wig and Quill pub and have a pint while we get your rooms sorted, said the nice lady to a cloud of dust as four thirsty geologists took her advice and headed for the promised land.
After a pint of Wadworth’s 6X in the pub garden, trying not to fall asleep in the balmy heatwave weather, we decided to visit the Cathedral, one of Europe’s finest, which harbours an original copy of the Magna Carta
Sorry we’re closed, said the nice lady at the ticket desk. But there is a nice pub round the corner called the Wig and Quill…
Four middle-aged geologists on a coastal stroll.
Coming soon to a blog near you. The fun starts July 18.
What’s It All About?
A good question. Well…Two years ago, in what passes for remarkable prescience for yours truly, I had an idea. Figuring (correctly) that COVID was going to last a while, I decided I needed something to look forward to other than pandemic weight gain and the weekly Okanagan wine delivery. A walking trip would be ideal, but when and where? I contacted three good friends, who also happen to be geologists, over WhatsApp.
Chaps, I said. We need to something to look forward to other than our pandemic weight gain and the weekly wine delivery.
Agreed, they said in a WhatsApp-in-unison sort of way.
So, Says I, why don’t we book a walking trip in the UK for the summer of 2022? How about a week or two hiking along the Cornwall / Devon coast? If we book now we can pick the optimum window for good weather, like mid-July to early August.
Oh yes. We’re in if you book it! they replied somewhat cryptically.
Righty ho. Said I.
Fast forward 2 years and the trip is upon us. The idea I had back then seems more and more inspired the closer we get to departure. We fly this Saturday (July 16) and the 4* of us (Me, Dave, David and Tim) start walking July 18th in St Ives on the north coast of Cornwall. And I can’t bloody wait to get started. We have 16 days of walking ahead of us along some of Europe’s most attractive coastal scenery.
(*with a few others tagging along from time to time beginning with Captain Nick for the first 3 legs.)
Sweaty Men
Right now, the long-range weather forecast is looking good and Cornwall can look forward to regular sightings of a group of lobster-pink, middle-aged and slightly chubby men slogging their way around the coast, praying for the next pub. Yes ladies, if photos of rugged looking windswept men loitering on Atlantic cliff tops, their t shirts moist with sweat after walking for miles carrying vast packs full of lunch is your thing, you’ve come to the right place. Be sure to check back regularly from July 18th on and we’ll try not to disappoint.
