Week Two - Out of Cornwall — THE SILVER WALKER - Adventures on foot and other stuff

At close of business, Tuesday 29th March, I’ve been walking for two weeks, so it’s time for a quick update on how things are going.

Things are going pretty damn well, the weather has been fantastic, not at all what I was expecting for March in Cornwall, instead of storms blowing in off the Atlantic and soaking everything in freezing rain we’ve been blessed by long sunny days and no rain at all! Admittedly there’s been a chilly wind blowing constantly from the North-East all the time but that’s a small annoyance compared to what we might have endured.

Fantastic March weather on the Cornish coast

Sandra has been fantastic as support, in spite of some dodgy mobile reception she has always been able to find whatever bench or, preferably, pub I’ve finished the day in and whisked me back to the campsite and cooked something delicious while I’ve been showering off the dust of the day.

Without a doubt, the single biggest unknown was my ability to walk 10 to 12 miles a day, day after day after day; to be successful both body and mind have to be willing to carry on. Everyone always asks about my feet so just to make things clear I do have tired and sore feet at the end of every day; no blisters yet but my feet know they’ve walked a good distance every day.

While I’m not worried about sore feet but I am concerned about my arthritic toes; without going into too much detail the main joint on my left big toe seized up with arthritis many years ago, over the last 12 years or so I’ve had two operations. The result is that my toes don’t flex like they should, over the years I’ve learned to compensate but that puts more strain on the ankles, knees and hips; I’m still concerned about the toes giving up or crumbling away but so far, with 150 miles down everything is within expected tolerances.

No body mentions the mental aspect of doing something like this but it’s just as important as the physical, it takes a bit of mental effort to walk day after day and not get bored or fed up. I’m undoubtably lucky to have Sandra and Arthur along to keep me cheerful and on track. The real test will come when the weather inevitably turns bad and I have to turn out in the rain and put the miles in, so far I’ve had it easy but I’m sure Sandra and Arthur will be there when things get tough. I like to think I have a deep well of personal determination and will power that I can draw on; Sandra says I’m just too bloody stubborn to give up.

When I was planning this trip I had to do quite a lot of crystal ball gazing, trying to work out where I would be walking each day and booked campsites accordingly. It turns out that I was being overly pessimistic as to what could be achieved. The walking has gone so well that we are currently slightly out of kilter with the camping plan, in fact it’s about two days ahead of the campsite schedule but I’d rather ahead than trying to play catchup this early in the trip and I’ll need those extra couple of days when Sandra leaves me and Arthur to fend for ourselves while she goes to Sophie and Michael’s wedding.

There have been many memorable highlights of the week, but the overriding impression is of going up and down very steep paths between beach and cliff top.

Crackington Haven, classic steep decent from on cliff top to the sea, then up again

Actually the overriding impression is of great walking in perfect early Spring weather, with sky larks soaring overhead and the sun beating down while the path snakes away into the distance, this really has been a perfect start to my Land’s End to John O’Groats attempt.

High Cliff, with the path stretching away into the distance.

Bude is the last major town in Cornwall, a classic example of North Cornish cliffs and beaches, miles of sand and spectacular rolling breakers, great for surfers but not for swimming, fortunately the Budians of old built a spectacular sea pool and Sandra enjoyed a couple of dips while I was walking.

Interesting folded rocks at Millbrook Haven just south of Bude, interesting if you like this sort of thing.

Not only is Bude home to a fair number of surfers, it also hosts a GCHQ listening post, I would say secret listening post, but as it’s signposted from the A39 it’s not hard to find.

GCHQ Bude, signposted from the A39 but please don’t take photographs!

On Saturday I walked out of Cornwall and into Devon; the Cornwall/Devon border mostly follows the River Taymar but up on the North coast the small Marsland Water marks the transition from Cornwall to England.

The geography has been subtly changing as well, the Cornish coast was an almost bewildering succession of huge sandy bays full of surfers separated by vast jagged cliffs crowned with the ruins of tin mines. Devon feels a bit softer, more pastoral, although I’m missing out Dartmoor and Exmoor, the cliffs and paths aren’t as big or steep and there are no ruined mines perched high on the cliffs. The predominant rock has changed as well, from granite and shale to Devonian or Old Red Sandstone, a rich red brick coloured rock about 370 million years old; incidentally, Devon not only gives its name to the rock but also to the Devonian period. This rock weathers to a very distinctive deep red and fertile soil giving rich grazing and subsequent clotted cream, I’m looking forward to my first cream tea.

A handful of old red stand stone off a beach

It is a real privilege to be doing nothing day after day except walk across wonderful countryside, however it has turned into a full time job but it’s the best job I’ve ever had!

It’s an odd thing but when you’re walking all day, time flows at a different rate, the world passes slowly, at a walking pace, there is time to enjoy the feel of the land through my feet, listen to the birds singing, admire the spring flowers and simply watch the newly emerging bees, butterflies and other insects doing whatever it is they do.

The passage of time is also marked in different and slightly weird ways, the individual days are only important for the few minutes that I update my log with the day’s totals of distance, height gained, paces trod and time taken. Other markers have become strangely relevant, filling the small tea, sugar and coffee jars we use on a daily basis from the big boxes marks’ out a week as does washing clothes at a campsite while the days and dates are strangely unimportant.

I’m finding this change of personal temporal perspective very interesting, for nearly 60 years life was regulated by the school and then working week, even after retiring the old structures remained but I’m starting to feel time differently, with different priorities and with a different perspective. However just as I was waxing lyrical and contemplating altered states of being reality reared it’s ugly head and we were off to Hayle to get the van’s exhaust fixed.

It was a 90 mile drive to the camper van specialists who sorted it out in a couple of hours but driving back to Hayle in two hours after it had taken me nearly two weeks to walk away from it was a bizarre feeling.

Anyway, for those interested in such things here are this week’s and the trip’s running totals.

Total for week:- 78 Miles 13,303 Feet of Ascent, 181,992 Paces, 38 Hours of Walking.

Walk Total to date:- 153 Miles 22,655 Feet of Ascent, 365,670 Paces, 72.75 Hours of Walking.

Land’s End to John O’Groats walk 12% completed.

I’m pretty certain about the distance and the time as they are being tracked by GPS against Ordnance Survey maps. The amount of ascent feels low when I look at all those steep paths but the app should be accurate as it works from spot heights on the OS maps, it just feels like I’ve climbed a lot more. The number of paces are however open to a much bigger degree of doubt, I don’t have a proper fit bit or anything, I’m relying on my phone to count the number of paces and I don’t think it’s very accurate. I’m sure it’s under counting because it doesn’t seem to be able to count steps on soft surfaces where, I resume, the jolt of a pace is too soft for the accelerometer (or whatever it uses) to register.