Today happily consisted of few miles walk around the quay in Devoran village and a day off from the journey forward. I woke up last night in a lot of pain in my right groin area and found I couldn’t really move my leg forward or upstairs very well. We were scheduled to walk today about 11 miles to Holywell Bay, and another 14 miles tomorrow through Newquay to Watergate beach. I realized that my body was clearly saying, “Uh, no. If you want to make the entire coastal walk, and then continue northwards up the entire country, you need to rest and try to fix me.”
Fortunately, we were planning on staying with Suzanne and her husband Richard. They were going to pick us up in Holywell and drop us back there after staying for the night in there beautiful home in the village of Devoran, just outside Truro (the main city and cathedral town of Cornwall. It’s lovely, visit if you’re ever down in the South West of England). Richard was so sweet and drove to pick us up where we had glamped (saved by a decision to stay in a cute little camping pod instead of pitching a tent last night because the 40mph winds blew all night!), and brought us home where Suzanne had lunch ready. After a yummy lunch of salad, ham, cheese, a Brittany fish spread, and Branston pickle, we took a stroll around the village. We needed to keep our legs moving a little bit to not seize up after the long previous days, and I just took ibuprofen, iced my leg and moved slowly.
The sun came out, the wind died down here away from the coast, and Suzanne was the consummate tour guide explaining the tin mining history of the area, and showing us the quay (tide was way out and all the boats just tilted on their sides waiting the water to rescue them). Devoran is on the Restronguet Creek, a tributary of the River Fal, flowing into the English Channel - there is a lot of water here and the maritime history is long. We saw so many flowers and green hillsides people walking and enjoying a drink outside the local pub, signs protecting hedgehogs, and ruined mine buildings.
Upon returning to Suzanne’s we had a tour of her glassworks studio at the end of her garden ‘Harley House’, named after her gorgeous ginger cat. He joined us to show off his favorite warming place. She also showed us the little hedgehog trail and homes that her neighbor and she have created between their gardens. They have a ‘hedgehog cam’ to see what they’re up to at night. Hilarious antics are always happening down there in the dark hours!
Tomorrow they are going to drop us off a little further up the path, so I will miss about 10 miles of coastal path. But I’m not a purist, as mentioned in an earlier post, and as it turns out, I’ve actually walked along parts of this coastal segment before in 2019 when visiting Suzanne. I’ll include a few photos of that trip below so you can see what it looks like. I even did a headstand then, staring out to sea upside down! Sometimes it helps to take a different perspective, and today I had to take the perspective that caring for my body is more important than tracking every mile of this journey on foot.
