“We’ve seen some pretty tough sections, how much worse can it get?” -Mike (the guy who dared the SW Coast Path to say- “Hold my beer” !!)
There was rain in the forecast for our 4th day of walking. We’d agreed that if we woke up to rain that we’d not walk at all. That’s because we were certain that the Coast Path would be dangerously slippery (or muddy) when wet. Some of the descents and ascents were scary enough in dry conditions.
There was a light rain overnight, but it was over by the time we woke up. Mike said that the day would be clear and we could walk.
When we brought down our suitcases for the transport company, our host, Austin, asked if we were ready for breakfast? Yes, we were. All of our B&Bs so far seemed to have a light continental breakfast set out, but they also took orders for hot breakfasts. Austin let us know what was available and we made our requests.
There were two ladies from Holland that had also sat down for breakfast and we started up a conversation with them. They were very nice. I think they were just going to do a circle walk in the area that day -not head on down the trail. They did share a story from the day before. They hadn’t seen the way down from the cliffs to Kynance Cove (it wasn’t marked) and ended up taking a “possible” trail down the side of the cliff…on their bottoms because it was so steep!
After breakfast, we got our daypacks ready and went downstairs to check out. Just as we came down the stairs, ready to go, Austin mentioned that the second half of our route today was going to be quite challenging. He said that the Kennack Sands beach would be about halfway for the day’s walk and it would be our last chance to call a taxi service and arrive in Coverack the easy way. He handed us a business card for a taxi service in case we might need it.
We thanked him for the advice and hit the road. Since we’d woken up assuming we weren’t going to walk, we were getting started later than we should have for the mileage we were doing and that ended up contributing to a very long day.
We left Lizard Town the way we were supposed to arrive the day before -via Church Cove on the West side of town. I liked seeing these older thatched cottages.
Just as we reconnected with the Path, we passed by St. Wynwallow’s Church. Most of the existing church building dates from the 1300s and 1400s.
The Coast Path sign was just past the church and we soon found ourselves walking the walk.
I am pretty sure that this is a picture of the “Devil’s Frying Pan”. It is what’s left of a cave where the roof caved in. I guess on wavy days, the water boiling in there puts on quite a show.
Just a few miles “up and down” the coast from Church Cove, we entered Cadgwith, a small traditional looking fishing village.
The Path joined the road through the village where there were a couple of stores and public restrooms.
I noticed that there was a gift shop called Crow’s Nest Gallery above a little food shop (called Cadgwith Cove Crab) that was reached by climbing the aqua ladder in the picture! Unique, but it would never be allowed in the USA. It was a cute little shop and a fun break for me.
One last look back at Cadgwith.
A cove or two over from Cadgwith, we saw what is left an old serpentine works. Serpentine is a stone found in the area that, for awhile, was used decoratively. These buildings were built in the 1850’s to process the stone. Finished stone was ferried offshore to waiting ships to be transported across the globe. By the end of the century, the serpentine industry had pretty much disappeared due to several factors -such as Serpentine falling out of favor and too much competition from cheaper imported stone, such as marble. It was a lovely setting. It was easy to imagine having a little cottage in that cove.
It didn’t seem that long before we arrived at Kennack Sands. There were two restaurants there. One of them was open, so we had lunch there and a nice break. The one in the picture was closed. For some reason, I didn’t take a picture of the one we actually took our break at.
With Austin’s taxi suggestion weighing on my mind and knowing Mike didn’t really want to walk long miles, I asked if we should call a taxi and take a pass on the 2nd half of the day? He said, “No, let’s walk it. It can’t be any worse than the challenges we’ve already gotten through.” Famous last words. It was really, really, really hard. It took us four hours to walk those last 5 miles.
After Kennack Sands, the descents and climbs were the most challenging we’d faced so far. The Path was muddy in spots from the rain overnight and the terrain was steep and wild.
But even on tough sections -there always seemed to be a nice view to enjoy.
We’d gone down a really tough hill, and I didn’t take a picture until we started going back up. The rock ridge at the top in this photo was where I thought the trail was leading, but we actually popped out more to the right (not even in the picture). The point being -you can’t even see the trail going up beyond the few “stairs” at the bottom of the picture.
In one tough spot -this view lifted my spirits. The water color was amazing.
Just after we’d done the first really hard down and up, we’d crossed the top of the headland and met up with a couple walking the other way. They looked super tired and said…”We just came up a super big climb – just take your time going down it.” We told them we’d just come up a rough climb too, but assured them that after that one, they’d be seeing Kennack Sands (where we’d taken our break earlier).
This is a picture I took looking back at what they’d “just come up” (and what we’d just gone down). My first comment to Mike was…At least they had stairs! But if you can zoom in on this one, you’ll see the very long line of stairs coming down the hillside…then the path skirting the cliff… but you can’t see what we climbed up. You can see how high up we are after the climb though.
This picture is pretty much from the same spot, but more focused on the coastal view.
At the top there was a rough path -a bit up and a bit down- following the topography of the cliff top. We popped around a bend (going up a bit) and saw these guys blocking the path. We wisely made a new path around them so that we didn’t bother them.
You can see the actual Path going between them.
At the end, about a mile from Coverack and with us being more than ready to be done for the day, we came to a directional post… go straight for the sculpture garden, or right for the village. We briefly wondered if we could get into the village via the sculpture garden, but not being sure about that and not wanting to have to backtrack and do extra miles, we turned right.
That was the start of an absolutely miserable mile + of what appeared to be an utterly abandoned, almost impassable trail into Coverack. It took us an hour to get through it. For nearly the whole way, it was so overgrown with foliage that we often couldn’t even see where to walk.
I was so busy dealing with the challenges this part of the trail faced, I only took two pictures -and they don’t begin to show how bad it was.
I tended to move a bit faster than Mike (mainly because I’m a bit more reckless than he is). One time, I’d crossed a small bridge that was so overgrown that I could barely see where to put my feet down and i had to push the growth to one side or the other as I went through -so after I got past it, I stopped to wait for Mike. I couldn’t see him at all (the foliage was taller than him!) until he was at the point of stepping off the bridge.
Strangely, the only person we saw the entire length of that last mile or so was a guy dressed in shorts, carrying a to-go coffee, looking like he was out for a Sunday walk. He seemed to be as surprised to see me as I was to see him. The first thing out of my mouth was “Please tell me there will be signs of civilization soon!” He said it wasn’t too far, but it was actually about 30 more minutes before we emerged from the “jungle” we’d been stumbling through. I told Mike it reminded me of the movie “Swept Away”, where a couple think they’re stranded on a desert island, but one day stumble out of the jungle and onto the perfectly groomed property of an island resort. We didn’t stumble out and onto a resort, but we were relieved to seen civilization -the road at the edge of the village- all the same.
Within moments of stepping foot onto the road, a local came walking by and heard me telling Mike where we needed to go to get to our B&B. He told us a quicker “locals” way to go. He said, “You didn’t just come off that trail, did you?” When I said yes, he said, “Oh that way is terrible!” Tell me something we don’t already know!
Our sports watches recorded us going up 2,293 feet and down 2,388 today. Mike says that is like climbing to to top of ten 23 story buildings…and back down…but with stairs (when steps were actually part of the trail…they weren’t always) that varied from 6” to 2 feet high. Where steps hadn’t been added to the trail, we had to climb up or down over rocks of all sizes.
Our B&B
I took this photo outside, but it was roughly our view from our room:
After checking in, we showered and went to the one restaurant in town. Coverack was such a small village that there wasn’t a grocery store or other small shops you might expect to find in a small town. Whatever was there was closed by the time we arrived, with the exception of the restaurant, thank goodness.
We had a nice dinner.
And then it was back to the B&B to settle down for the night.
I know elevation graphs are tough to decipher, but I thought I’d share today’s (from my GPS watch). I drew the red line on it – That red line roughly shows the highest elevation we have in our area of Florida.
