Day: 064
Date: Wednesday, 03 August 2022
Start: Tintagel
Finish: Wadebridge
Daily Kilometres: 29
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1812
Weather: Overcast, foggy and drizzle until mid-morning, then mostly sunny and warm.
Accommodation: Hotel
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Cereal, toast & jam
Lunch: Cornish pasties
Dinner: Chicken pasta salad, rice pudding.
Aches: Dave - the usual niggles. Julie - admitted to tired legs after the climbing of the last two days, and Dave noticed that he was actually keeping up with her on some of today’s climbs.
Highlight: The village of Port Isaac was interesting and lively. An old seaport with narrow winding streets, very old houses and an attractive little harbour, it is now a tourist attraction and was very busy with holiday-makers on a beautiful day. We each enjoyed a yummy large Cornish pastie for lunch, seated on a wall by the harbour and watching the passing parade of tourists.
Lowlight: As we walked down the edge of a field in mid-afternoon, Julie’s cap was knocked off by a low-hanging branch and fell into a cow pat. On a more serious note, we had a scary kilometre of walking along a narrow and very busy road with poor visibility soon afterwards.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
After making and eating our breakfast in the hostel kitchen, we started walking around 7:30am on a grey foggy drizzly morning. First we went down to see the ruins of Tintagel castle, which sit precariously on some rocky outcrops high above the sea, but we could see very little because of the fog. Fortunately, we had visited here and had a good look around four years ago, so didn’t feel quite so deprived.
From there we headed westwards along the Coast Path in the dreary conditions, with the ghostly dark outlines of the cliffs dropping down to the sea, just visible below. We feared more of the roller-coaster trail of yesterday but, initially, there was easier walking as the the path followed the field edges along the cliff-tops. The first big descent came as we dropped down to the tiny harbour of Trebarwith, followed by a lung-buster of a climb up a steep, and seemingly never-ending, chain of high rock steps.
More ups and downs were to come as we continued on, but the weather cleared dramatically, and we were finally treated to superb views up and down the spectacular coast from the higher elevations. We reached the very busy, with holiday-makers, Port Gaverne and Port Isaac around noon. Originally, we intended to buy some sandwiches on our way through and eat them later but, instead, bought some pasties and ate them by the harbour watching the world go by. Very pleasant.
It was amazing how the crowds disappeared just a few hundred metres up the steep road out of Port Isaac and we were soon walking on our own. Our guidebook route left the Coast Path at Port Isaac and followed a more direct course towards Wadebridge across fields, along country lanes and through cute little villages on a warm afternoon.
We reached Wadebridge and our hotel around 5:00pm, very glad of an earlier finish than the two previous nights.
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