Day 4

August 14, 2015

Depart Portscatho | Arrive Mevagissy

Distance: 31.5KM | Cumulative Distance: 94.9KM | Grade - Strenuous/Easy

Ascent: 4,515 ft | Cumulative Ascent: 6,808 ft.

Cumulative Distance (both walks): 558.9 KM | Cumulative Ascent (both walks): 68,513 ft.

4500 ft and UP!!!!

Before I begin today's post I noticed I missed something from yesterday's blog from Maenporth to Portscatho. I made reference to Reynard the Fox as a reminder but then forgot to post it. Anyhow, as a child growing up in England one of our stories revolved around Reynard, and as I was walking one of the lonely stretches, (it was all pretty much lonely yesterday), we were up pretty high and I was focusing on the path pretty much straight in front of me as the path was pretty wet and puddles were forming, rather than looking too far head. I looked up and noticed a rather large animal racing along the path just ahead of me before it disappeared into the heather, and recognized it as a fox. Pretty neat.

I bade farewell to Wendy and her husband, the owners of Trewithian Farm and could not thank them for their kindness. They took all my soaking wet clothes and returned them to me this morning nice and dry. They also ran me to a restaurant and picked me up again afterwards, as it was about a mile from the farm, and a miserable night to boot.

I made it out at about 8-45 am and you can add about another mile and a half to my walking total, as the farm is located inland. I arrived shortly after 9 but needed to make a slight adjustment to my back, and whilst I was doing this I noticed another hiker get ahead of me, more on him later.

Unfortunately today's post will not contain as many photos as I would have liked due to the length of the day. When you are having to put in 10 hours of walking the last thing you want to be doing is stopping. Having said that the walking was quite remote and without too many truly picturesque "must have" photo's.

If I thought yesterday's walk was difficult, due to the weather, then today certainly was its equal, first because of the distance, which by my calculation comes in at around 21.5 miles, and secondly the elevation gain which at 4500 feet was pretty relenting. Throw in my backpack, with the anvil inside, and you will get a sense of just how difficult the day was. When you get this type of terrain it is very difficult to move quickly.

The weather today was much better than yesterday, although it would have been nice to have more sunshine, but I will take today over yesterday anytime.

I soon caught up to the guy who passed me and it turned out it was the same fellow who I had seen leaving Coverack just ahead of me on Wednesday morning. Turns out he was a science teacher at a school, and he was working his way "home" to Plymouth. His name was Pete and because of his profession he is on vacation for like 6 weeks or more. He was very interesting to chat with and we had a mutual interest, as he wants to go to Japan, a place Liz and I visited a couple of years ago, and which is very much on our bucket list to return.

Pete was camping along the way, and every week or so he would take a rest day so he could explore the area if he liked the look of a place. I walked with Pete for about an hour or so but felt I needed to push on as he did not like the "uphill" sections, and so I wished him a safe journey and started to get ahead.

I met some really interesting people today, including Germans, Dutch and a lovely "elder" lady from New Zealand with either her daughter or daughter-in-law and a couple of grand-kids. I suspect the mother of the kids was visiting, with her mother-in-law, as the boy was carrying a rugby ball with All Blacks on it.

I also met a woman with her beagle, and so sat on the grass trying to get the dog to come to me but he was having none of it, and started to bark quite loudly. It was funny but he was doing a very good job of guarding his mistress.

I cannot stress enough how difficult today was, especially with all the uphill stretches that seemed to go on for ever, but I'm hoping that I'll have my walking legs under me in the next day or so, which will make the journey both easier and more memorable.

I finally rolled into Mevagissy at around 6-15pm, and was blown away by just how hilly it was, and so I started down the big hill that led to the harbour and found my directions of how to get to my B&B, and wouldn't you know it's at the top of a rather steep climb.

My first job was to email Liz to let her know I arrived safely, before making a well earned cup of tea and then heading to the bathroom for what I hoped would be a welcoming bathtub, but had to settle for a shower.

I then booted back down the hill to find a bowl of pasta which is my preferred meal because of the energy it provides the next day.

As I type this the couple in the room next door arrived home and I can hear someone snoring, which means I could be in for a loooonnnggg night!!

Well I'm going to dash off some photos and call it a night. See you tomorrow and thanks for followin my blog.

Before the photo's I'm thinking I should rate my accommodations and so Arlyn at Coverack is a 4.5, it was clean and run by two lovely older people who were both very kind and also extremely interesting.

The Trelawne Hotel at Maenporth was very nice with the added bonus of a bathtub, but only gets a 4, although I would stay there again.

Trewithian Farm is also a 4.5 because of the great hospitality and the bed was fantastic.