A sublime 6.42 miles in 3.5 hrs. What a difference a day makes. And the gift of a map technologically- savvy friend and a skillful, generous cooking-inclined friend. Richard spent hours yesterday helping me understand route making better, corrected our planned directions, planned better (and shorter/easier) ways to walk along coast and countryside paths and downloaded them to my phone. He found more ways to save battery power on my phone so I can leave on location finding for safety. All the while Suzanne prepared meal after meal of delicious, hearty food. We slept very well, and then they drove us back to the coastal path this morning to set off again. My leg isn’t better, but it’s rested and much happier. Seriously, daily gratitude for the people we meet on this life journey, and the efforts to stay in touch through the years. Bill and I met Suzanne in 1990 while teaching at Beijing University; you never know when and how and why people enter your life who will have a large impact upon it. Pay attention. Be kind. Enjoy spending time with others.
Our walk started today at Fistral Beach in Newquay: the center of British surfing and the waves here have hosted many international competitions. It’s a big beach, and still it didn’t seem to fit all the hopeful wave catching souls out there bobbing around. The waves were fast (according to Kimberly) and hard to get on top of, but we saw a few long rides.
The weather was sunny but windy, and we continued around the bay into Newquay proper. Kimberly picked up a morning pasty, I picked up some more blister balm. Leaving the town uphill to the cliffs, we passed Barrowfields park. This is the site of a Bronze Age (3500 yr old) burial area, seemingly pretty well intact until the 1820s when the cairns marking them were disturbed and chambers emptied and destroyed in field making and town development. It’s now a heritage site and protected, below the grassy park. Sacred ground of people long ago.
We stayed on top of the cliffs, with a short dip into the village of Porth with its deep beach and many people enjoying a windy day on the sands. I just love the wind breaks the English set up, with little chairs, tables and thermoses of tea. The sun is out, it’s the Easter school holidays and the day will be enjoyed.
Up on the cliffs again the wind really picked up. It was slow going and we made sure to hug the edge of the path far from the drop off. Many people were out walking these paths because of the holiday visitors, and they didn’t seem at all bothered by the waves far below us. We eventually arrived at Watergate Beach, with its many modern hotels and vacation apartments. More surfers. We walked up the hill on the other side of town, looked back to where we had started in the morning, and proceeded to the place we reserved to pitch our tent. Pitch #17, my lucky number! Had lunch (thank you Suzanne!), charged our phones, and took a long, deep nap. The sunshine poured into the tent, protected from the wind I slept very well.
We’ve walked back into town to the restaurant I reserved weeks ago. I was warned that if you don’t book ahead you might not be eating dinner in these small villages. Enjoying a shandy, playing darts. Glad we had a short walk today. Hopefully we can get a taxi back up the hill to tuck in for the night!
