Day: 069
Date: Monday, 08 August 2022
Start: Loggans
Finish: Long Carn (then bus to St Ives)
Daily Kilometres: 30
GPX Track: Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos
Total Kilometres: 1931
Weather: Warm and sunny.
Accommodation: AirBnB
Nutrition:
Breakfast: Pastries
Lunch: Egg salad sandwiches
Dinner: Cornish pasties, ice cream
Aches: Dave - a few niggles. Julie - nothing reported.
Highlight: Another case of just catching the bus. We had pretty much given up on getting to the bus stop in time to catch the 4:31pm bus to St Ives where we had accommodation booked because of slow progress on the technical trail (see below). But, suddenly, the trail junction we had been looking for appeared earlier than expected and we hiked uphill on technical trail as fast as we could, literally arriving at the bus stop at 4:31pm. The bus arrived a few minutes later.
Lowlight: We thought we were in for a relatively easy day’s walking, but most of the last 20 kilometres turned out to be on difficult rocky trail, boulder-scrambling in a few places, with many ascents and descents. It was hard work in very warm conditions and much slower than we had anticipated.
Pictures: Click here
Map and Position: Click here for Google Map
Journal:
We left our hotel just before 7:00am, anticipating a relatively easy day, and began with a few kilometres through the back streets of Hayle to link up with the Coast Path and then made a long trek around the River Hayle estuary, some of it quite unattractive, but other parts along pleasant quiet lanes past lovely old homes and gardens.
After crossing a golf course, we dropped down to the sand beside the river and beach-walked, on a beautiful sunny morning, to St Ives Bay and Hawkes Point, where we climbed back up to the Coast Path for the journey into St Ives. It was a lovely shady lane walk with a sub-tropical feel, being enjoyed by lots of people.
The attractive old seaport of St Ives was already very busy with holiday-makers shopping, dining or heading for the beach. We found a grocery store and bought supplies for the day, then walked to the back beach, Porthmeor Beach, and found a bench on which to eat our breakfast in the sun.
Our easy walking ended there, and the rest of the day was slow and difficult (see above), but the scenery more than compensated. The steep and rugged rocky coastline dropped down to meet a calm and clear sea, disturbed only by a few boats, and we could see a long way along the coast in both directions. There were a few rocky coves but they were not easily accessible, and there were also the remains of some old industrial/mining buildings here and there.
Hopes of an early finish diminished as the afternoon passed and as we laboured up and down hills on the technical trail, during which time we disturbed a snake (about 1 metre long) on the trail. We began to think we would have to wait for the 5:31pm bus back to St Ives where we had booked accommodation. Happily, we just caught the 4:31pm bus (see above), but had to stand all the way back to St Ives (about 35 minutes) as the big double-decker bus was full of holiday-makers, most returning from coastal walks.
St Ives was very busy as we walked through the narrow old streets to our accommodation near the harbour and checked in around 5:30pm. Despite the late hour, Julie walked down to the harbour beach and had a quick swim, something she had been thinking about since yesterday, and probably her last chance on this trip.
Last day tomorrow.
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