We set off early the next morning as we had 11.1 miles to walk to Newquay, a bus ride back to Porthcothan, and then a 3 hour drive back to Bristol. Also up early that morning was Mr Snail …
The tide was now in at Porthcothan when we set off and the strong breeze was creating some good waves which we would see a lot more of as we progressed around the coast …
After about a mile we realised that we were now under the 500 miles to go mark and therefore after a quick chorus of the Proclaimers we continued on to pass Park Head – this stretch was more up and down than the Padstow end of this coast but still very attractive and not a problem. A local feature in this part of Cornwall are the herringbone style stone walls and just to confirm that David was on this walk as well as Fiona …
Eventually, as we approached Mawgan Porth, we had our first sight of the Bedruthan Steps Hotel which we had not seen for about 38 years when we stayed there a couple of times with the boys. The beach hadn’t changed but the hotel, which we later passed the front of on the bus, was looking a bit dated and in Mawgan Porth where we stopped for coffee we heard a tale of somebody who mistakenly booked their honeymoon there and were appalled that it was full of noisy children – RTFM to them!
Whilst having coffee we had a good chat to a couple who had a holiday property in the area and put the world to rights as our age tends to do! – they have children and grandchildren in Canada and New Zealand so spend a lot of time travelling but when we were talking about Jonn in France and the rugby world cup kit they revealed that Luke Cowan-Dickie, the Exeter Chiefs hooker and member of the current England Rugby World Cup squad, is a close relative. What with Joss Buttler’s relative yesterday is was becoming quite a sporting family trip. But we had to move on as we had a bus to catch, so leaving Mawgan Porth …
… we continued on and just had time for a selfie …
… before arriving at Watergate Bay where we had our lunch on the beach.
It was then just an easy walk on through Porth to Newquay with half an hour to spare to catch the bus. Whilst sat in the bus shelter we were amused to see at least 6 crocodiles of paired off small children, with high-viz jacket wearing teachers and parents file past. It was good fun to spot the trouble makers such as the one little lad with a baseball hat on backwards and who was refusing to hold hands. We would have liked to take a picture of this wonderful sight but feared we would be set upon by the PC police – shame!
After a speedy bus journey back and getting admonished by the bus driver for not pressing the bell, although we were stood up at the front next to her as she sped past the bus stop, we had an uneventful journey back in Fiona’s new Hyundai i20 car. We say new car, but in fact it is second hand – 1 year old but only 1500 miles on the clock as it was a Motobility car so we thought it was a good opportunity to give the engine a good run down the motorway. All in all a very successful couple of days and another 17.7 miles knocked off the target.