To a Long Steep Hill

 From the top:  On the Cremyll ferry with Derek Mount Edgcumbe House Camelias in the park at Mount Edgcumbe From the top: Selfie on Mount Wise Me, Derek, Chris and Maggie Royal William? Plymouth Sound

                                                    The sculpture Garden at Barbara Hepworth's studio   A delicious lie in.   We are both glad not to be walking today.   We decide that we can’t leave St Ives without paying homage to Barbara Hepworth.   We schlepp all the way to the Tate to buy our tickets. Dialogue with the lovely person on the ticket desk at Tate Modern, sitting under a sign saying 'buy tickets for the Gallery and Barbara Hepworth Studio' Us:   “Good morning, please can we have two tickets to the Barbara Hepworth Studio” LP:   “You can get them at the studio” Us:   “Thank you. Could you possibly give us directions there?” LP: “No. Ask the security man” It turns out that the studio is literally just above our hotel.   We are enjoying our day of rest too much to be ve...

  Our last walking day.   We decide to do it backwards, and take the bus to Zennor, leaving at 10.03.   There is really nothing At Zennor except a fine church and the Tinner’s Arms (closed at this early hour). We have been warned that the path to St Ives is not easy. But it is only six and a bit miles and we are undaunted.   Mistake.   We should have been very daunted indeed.   Recovering later in the Sloop at St Ives, we both agree that these six miles are the toughest so far, and we have conquered the Great Hangman!   It was the combination of sections where there was no path at all, just boulders to scramble through – whilst dealing with sharp ascents and descents through mud and bog.   We treated ourselves to another fish supper at the Seafood café.

  This day’s walk will get us back to St Ives. We book a 10.00 taxi to Gwithian. It’s a fine day, but we have a long walk ahead. We soon leave the towans aka dunes and are back on the beach.   Soon we can see Lelant church ahead of us, and it looks as if we can just climb off the beach and reach it.   But there is a problem.   Hidden in a dip in the sands is the Hayle River.   It is uncrossable.   You have to go all the way round through the busy town of Hayle and tediously along the main road.   We stop for a coffee in a funky little café in Hayle – timely loo stop – and I forget to pay.   The funky waitress chases us down the street.   The Hayle River mud flats are supposed to be a great place for bird watching, and I have brought my lovely new light weight binoculars.   We stop by the side of the road for me to have a dekko.   Disappointing.   I can only make out gulls. Once off the main St Ives road, we pause at Lelant ...

  We drove to the long stay car park at Gwithian to await our taxi back to Portreath to begin the second stage of our trek.   Taxi cost £25.00.   There were two nasty dips to cross, but after that, it was an easy walk in improving weather.   We ate our lunch at Hell’s Mouth, a vertigo-inducing cliff.   Scary messages from the Samaritans, in case one might be tempted to leap. There is a handy café there where we had a coffee after lunch.   Then, a highlight of the trip – at Godrevy we were able to look down at seals on a secluded beach with their young.   Needs a better camera than mine to get a decent picture. The walk ends with a very pleasant stroll along Gwithian sands, with the tide right out. We had supper in the Queens.   I had the Sunday roast – roast beef and Yorkshire and forget about healthy eating.   Chris had sausage and mash.   They warned us to book, but the place was not full.   Came to £35.00.

  It’s time to say goodbye to St Agnes and move our base to St Ives.   It’s another stormy day, so luck is with us as we don’t plan to walk today.   We check out at 10.00.   The hotel cost £584.   It’s been fine – but there is a coda: a couple of weeks later, I get a notice of £50.00 fine for parking.   The hotel car park is supposed to be free for residents.   This is annoying, but a phone call to the hotel gets the charge cancelled with an apology. St Ives, Oh my god.   We have to find our hotel – The Queens – so that we can leave our bags.   If you don’t know the town, this is a nightmare.   We try to follow our sat nav.   The sat nav doesn’t realise that some streets in St Ives are too narrow and steep to drive up, and we have a horrible time going round and round.   When we eventually reach the hotel, they are most helpful in taking in our stuff, even though it’s hours before check-in, and they helpfully direct us to a...

  So, we drive to Portreath and park in the long-stay car park on the sea front.   Our taxi is from St Agnes Taxis and he arrives on the dot of 11.00, as arranged.   The forecast rain stops too.   We learn that he has lived in St Agnes for thirty years.   He plans to rely on his wood burning stove to beat the forecast rise in energy costs.   It won’t be long before the company has to put up taxi fares, he says. The walk to Portreath is described as easy in the trail guide.   This is broadly accurate, but there are a couple of very steep up and downs at the start.   On one of these we meet Josh, coming the other way. He is making light of the steep climb in spite of the huge pack he is carrying.   Josh and his dog Basil started off at Poole.   They are planning to walk the entire coast line of the UK, collecting for the air ambulance service, which he says saved his life.   He is Instagramming as ‘sand.sea.basilandme’. I plan t...

  The storm has blown itself out, but from our bedroom window we can see the huge breakers still rolling in. We get the U1A bus to Perranporth.  We are on the path by 09.45.  Climbing up the hill from the beach, we meet a chap with a white bull terrier.  ‘Nice dog’ I say, ‘Is that a bull terrier?’  Yes, he says.  ‘Tricky, though’ I venture.  ‘Not at all.’  He replies ‘they are gentle dogs really’.  I agree, thinking of the times we had as children with my grandmother’s dogs, Fergus and Tom.  My father didn’t agree after Tom bit him, and was ‘put down’. It is not long before we are back in Trevaunance Cove.   The path runs literally past our hotel room window.   I pause to take advantage of the WIFI to check my emails.   In the planning, I imagined us coming down the path at the end of a day’s walking and falling into the bar, then literally walking out the door onto the path next morning.   Sadly, the logistics don’...

  A storm has got up in the night.   The surfers – already out before breakfast – are ‘lovin it’, but for us, it means no walking today.   That’s not the only thing.   I get a horrible attack of cramp when I try to get out of bed, and there are ominous twinges in my left knee.   Not the one I had surgery on – the other one. Chris agrees to join a day of nostalgic exploration of the St Agnes area.   First stop is St Agnes Churchtown.   I go into the church to remember second daughter Kathy’s wedding, we identify where they lived in British Road, and Sue’s house in Polbreen Close.   We buy pasties at the St Agnes bakery, arguably the best in Cornwall, though I concede that there is competition for this title. Then it’s off to St Allen.   This is a remote parish towards Truro.   My Great, great grandfather was the vicar here in the 1840s.   I hope to take photos.   It’s hard to find.   There is hardly even a village, bu...

  I had scrambled eggs and smoked salmon for breakfast – excellent, but the coffee is no better than it was in the old days.   Breakfast is served in the restaurant.   The vibe is very different. When I worked here as a waiter, the space was set out as a traditional dining room with table cloths and a carpet. The Irish headwaiter wore traditional black uniform with bow tie.   We were all also dressed as traditional hotel waiters.   A middle-aged professional waiting couple, she Polish, he Turkish, and three students comprised the staff.   The third student was a likely lad from Manchester.   He became very friendly with the daughter of one holidaying couple. Meeting a family from the hotel on the beach one afternoon, I asked if a holiday at St Agnes wasn’t rather dull.   The mum replied ‘It will come to you, one day’. We drove to Perranporth and put the car in the long stay.   After buying rolls for lunch, we get the U1A to Newquay, belie...

    We are off again.   It’s early in the season and the weather forecast is distinctly unsettled.   We leave home at 09.00 and are at Becky’s for lunch by 12.30.   Becky gives us a substantial lunch of shepherd’s pie and we walk round the woods after.   John joins us for lunch, and we get a glimpse of Will just as we are leaving. Sadly, there is no sign of Lillie the sheepdog, who has died since we were last down.   The family are still mourning the loss of this friendly dog.   She was apparently too nice to be trained as a working dog – unlike the new puppy, Rose, who takes to the sheep like a duck to water.   The other cause of grief is the recent storm, which ripped the fly-sheets off two of the safari tents on the glamping meadow.   Becky thought they were comprehensively insured – but in the small print it says not for storm damage.   We can’t linger, because we are now in deepest Cornwall.   We leave West Hill at 1...