Day 3: our first tough day

Distance: 17.4
Yesterday-photo-count: 108
Today-photo-count: 19

Today was tough. We turned north, leaving the beautiful south Cornwall coast behind, heading inland for 3 days to bypass this big peninsula they call The Lizard. The country lacks the dramatic beauty of the coast, but it's still very nice. The rolling hills are crisscrossed by hedges breaking them up into fields of grass, cauliflower, and bright yellow daffodils. There's villages, and old stone churches, and farms that look like they've been worked for 200 years.



We thought it'd be a nice walk through the countryside; turned out to be a bit of an adventure. But here we are at the end of our day, showered and warm and enjoying a pot of tea, so I shouldn't complain. I will anyway.

But first, I'd like to thank everyone who has commented on the blog. The first thing we do after a day of walking is check for new comments! It's really great, like having our friends and family all stop in for a few minutes each day. We appreciate it, please keep them coming! And everyone who hasn't commented, don't be shy, just hit the button and write us a line about what you're up to, or what you think of our shenanigans, or just to let us know you're out there!

Back to our tough day. We thought that we'd be mostly done with the up and down when we left the coastal cliffs, but it turns out this place is all these super deep valleys and high rolling hills. I'll bet Gordon can explain why. We thought yesterday was brutal with a total uphill of 2075 feet. Today we climbed 2393 feet. Another thing we didn't know is that Cornwall is famous for its china clay deposits - the largest in the world! So what happens when it rains? You get mud. That lasts for a long time. So even though we haven't had a drop of rain since London, many footpaths, inviting dotted green lines on the map, look like this on the ground:



I didn't take pictures of the deep mud pits on the narrow paths, because we were too busy trying to get through without sinking to our knees. The locals go walking in wellies; our standard issue modern just above the ankle boots were no match for the mud, even with gaiters. So that slowed us down a lot, and added some effort.

But what really did us in was one wrong turn. On the map, there's one of those pretty green dotted lines running along the river Cober, starting just a couple of miles into the day's walk. What we didn't realize is that there are two footpaths. We took the nearest one, following one of those great "public footpath" signs you see here. That was a mistake. The correct footpath was on the other side of the river. Things went fine for the first mile, though we were kind of wondering why nearly all the other walkers we saw were across the water. Then it happened. We arrived at a stream flowing into the river. One of those annoying streams, too deep and fast and wide to simply jump. Maybe six feet wide, and a foot or two deep, gurgling pretty good. The path we were on had sort of petered out by now, but clearly people had turned and walked upstream before. So we followed them. After 15 or twenty minutes the path was completely gone. Ahead was swamp. Across the stream was a big field that looked a little more inviting, though there were no paths. We found a branch reaching over the stream and decided to cross.


I went first and discovered that the branch was as slippery as it looks in the picture. Tough balancing with a pack! I went back and ferried Dawn's pack, and then it was do or die time for Dawn. Ian and Erin, you would have been proud of your mother. She scampered right across with only the slightest twinge of fear in her eyes. It's hard to see in the picture, but to get to the branch, you have to swing your leg around the trunk of the tree. It wasn't easy for me, and my legs are twice as long! It was quite a relief to be still dry, with all of our gear, on the other side.

But we were still a mile off course. Getting back to the river Cober was not really an option: back that way was swamp with mud so deep we may have been swallowed up forever. So we headed overland, through the fields. After lots more being lost, backtracking, mud, and confusion, we finally found a promising looking muddy track heading in roughly the right direction. Ten minutes later, we arrived at a road, back on track. We passed off the track onto the road, I swung the gate closed behind me, and we were on our way.

Almost. Twenty feet on we heard a voice at the gate, "Hey! You there! This is private land, you shouldn't be walking here." In the usa, at this point you run and hope not to hear bullets around your ears. But this being Cornwall, I went back to chat. Once he saw that we meant no harm, and were just Canadians out lost, he warmed right up. Told us that what we thought was a footpath, is just a track used by hunters who go out shooting on the moors. He had an amazing Cornish accent. I could barely make it out. We got the directions we needed to get back on track. The last thing we heard was "up to Coverack Bridge is a lovely little walk; we love our walks we do!" Naturally, his "lovely little walk" was (in portions) a narrow path of deep mud. But we made it. And, if only we had wellies, it really would have been a lovely little walk.

And so the day went. The last half was on lanes, which is not the nicest walking because the hedges are usually high, and so you don't see much.


But there was very little traffic, and we came across a pub in Porkellis serving roast beef and Yorkshire pudding (washed down by the local ale: Betty Stogs), and once we were lunched up and moving we made good time.

Tomorrow (thankfully) is a shorter day: ten miles mostly along Cornish lanes through Truro and a few miles out the other side.