Looking back to Botallack Head and the many Beam Engine Buildings

Carolynn and I are sitting, once again, at Gloucester Services on the M5 after another trip walking the South West Coast Path. Once again my thoughts are of our return in April.

A friend of mine, Stephen McLoughlin, is walking one of the many routes on the Camino de Santiago. This is his 5th trip to Spain and Portugal; it’s a trip, I know, that means a great deal to him. A trip, I assume, that tests his faith and his liver! Seriously though, I’ve seen his tears of joy on entering the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela. He has walked thousands of kilometres over the last few years completing the pilgrimage he loves so much. Ours, unlike Stephen’s, is not a pilgrimage of faith or pain but one to savour in a different way. To enjoy what we see, what we feel and what we hear.

I poured over the map looking at the Gannel Estuary just south of Newquay and it occurred to me that the path went over a boardwalk that was not the full width of the estuary and that the mean high-water mark completely covered it at high tide. To not cross the boardwalk would mean a diversion of at least 4km and could be as much as 5km! I have to say I wasn’t overly keen on the consequence of not being able to cross the boardwalk because of the tide. This is the first time that the tide has dictated where and when we walk. Luckily the boardwalk is usable two or three hours either side of low tide and we were due to be there approximately two and a half hours after the tide would start its unstoppable march. The day went to plan!

The walking as we’ve travelled further south has got easier. The cliffs are no longer hundreds of metres high, instead, they are tens of metres and the Nepali flat is becoming flat or flatter, anyway. I don’t mind the steep valleys and the hidden coves, they are what the walk is. I know that my compatriots are happy at this turn of events, me, I don’t mind if those hidden valleys and coves, with their steep unrelenting paths, return.

The first day’s walk was straightforward and enjoyable. We rambled along catching up and chewing over the important issues of our time, such as Brexit, USA and North Korea, Russian spy poisoning, but most importantly whether we needed to buy Lottie a coat for the cold days forecast ahead.

I don’t normally mention where we stay as the accommodation is usually mundane AirBnb cottages, generally the cheapest we can find. This time we stayed in a holiday let called Surfsounds. A small apartment right on the beach. I have to say it was very aptly named. Although the sound of the surf was very relaxing, I think a Spring tide might worry me slightly.

The next day seems to blend into many of the other days along the walk. The frightening thing is, have I just come to accept that the path will always take us through natural coastal beauty, which is unparalleled anywhere? I now look back on that second day and it was an average overcast day that threw up some of the most wonderful soft light, which took the hard edges off the coastline and the relentless pounding of the Atlantic waves.

We passed the now derelict Penhale Camp. A military camp abandoned by the MOD in 2010: old abandoned Nissen huts, with ragged half-open curtains flapping through the broken windows, creating eerie shadows that dance in the darkness, with secrets that we’ll never know. From there we walked along the beautiful Perran Beach to Perranporth and a well-deserved coffee. The café proprietor was full of doom and gloom about the weather. He predicted that at least two feet of snow would fall overnight! Well, he was a Derby County supporter: that would explain his downbeat mood.

The afternoon walk was leisurely, on paths lined with gorse bushes and a gentle rise up to St Agnes Head and the end of the day’s walk. It’s on this stretch that we first come across what Cornwall is so famous for: the first ruins of the old tin mines. They blend in perfectly with their surroundings: an industrial heritage that the landscape has grown around in sympathy with the rose-tinted view that we have of those times. An image that is romanticised by programmes such as Poldark. The reality can be seen in the slag heaps that still litter the area, a reminder of the harsh, cramped conditions that the miners worked in.

The end of the walk did not end with a deserved drink, but instead three full scoops of Cornish ice cream… bliss. It appeared that Cornwall was slowly waking up as the cafés, ice-cream parlours and restaurants opened their doors for the beginning of the season.

Day Twenty-Two started with a catastrophe; Lottie was limping. We checked the offending paw and there appeared to be no injury and she was as keen as normal to come out with us. A decision had to be made. Do we split up and leave Lottie in the apartment, or see how she fared if she came with us? The first option won the day, for the main reason that we would be walking past the apartment in a couple of hours’ time and we could check on her. So we set off, just the four of us. It’s strange walking without Lottie, she rounds us up when we start to spread out and keeps us together, running continually between us. She’s a constant source of amusement and in a way, a comfort, scouting ahead, sniffing the path, looking for… who knows! All I have to say is that she was missed that day.

That mini beast from the east was beginning to bite, a bitterly cold morning, with a chilling wind… maybe Lottie knew what she was about, after all! Again, a day of walking through Cornwall’s industrial heritage, both ancient and modern, both deadly in their own way: the tin mining industry, unregulated and mined only for profit and Nancekuke Common airfield, an outstation that manufactured the nerve agent Sarin, but which has now reverted to a remote radar station for the MOD.

The last section of the third day’s walk and the beginning of the fourth day was a gentle walk along the cliff tops. The only difference on the fourth day was the thin layer of snow that had fallen overnight, nothing like the ‘two feet’ predicted by the Derby County doom and gloom supporter! We then descended into St Ives Bay and spent the final section walking along the golden sands to our destination and just that little bit closer to our final goal.