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It rains the entire bus trip from Newquay (where we're staying) to Padstow (where we're hiking), but stops just as we arrive, at which point the sun blasts through the clouds. This happens to us a lot in England and we are grateful.
We're with Susanne again for the first few days of this trip. Her son is getting married on the beach in Newquay, which is the surf capital of Cornwall (who knew there was a surf capital in the UK?) and through which the coast path meanders. Susanne is as eager as we are to get on the path. 
After a cider in Padstow we walk the path. At first we planned to walk for an hour, turn around and go back to Padstow, and eat Rick Stein's fish and chips because they are the best in Cornwall, hence England, hence the world.
It's an easy-going trail that wanders across fields and through tall grass and wildflowers.
It also runs right through the garden of this house. How cool is that?
Once we start walking we decide to hell with the fish and chips by the most famous fish and chip chef in the world. And we keep on walking.
The path winds around and around and up and down.
See the teeny tiny path at the top left of that headland? It looks close but it was a 45-minute walk from there to where I stood to take this pic. We walk for miles but nothing around us is matching up to the ordinance map we bought specifically so we would know where we were.
This is looking straight down (obviously) and that's my finger at the top of the picture because the wind is whipping us around and I'm afraid my phone will blow out of my hands and down the cliff.
By now our legs are feeling it. And still the path goes on with nothing in view but cliffs and water. And still nothing matches up on our map.
The grass ripples and billows and rolls like the sea.
Finally! A village with people and food and alcohol and rest and eventually, the bus home.
We've reached Trevone and all three of us are beat.
We stop at the first pub we see. I have tea, Bob and Susanne have ciders, and we all have pasties. And then Cornish ice cream.
While we eat we study the map and realize we were looking at the wrong map ever since we rounded the corner at the top of the path. Our next step is to find the bus stop, which is—as almost always—up a hill. |