Day 8 Less windy but wetter…

Today’s weather forecast suggested persistent heavy rain from 2pm. I was about eleven miles from Newquay and thought I would get there before the rain if I tried.

I hadn’t expected much from Perranporth but it was fab. Mainly due to the beach, and my B&B, the Seiners Arms which had the most fantastic view of the beach. The town was quite sweet ( buckets and spades, cream teas) and very dog friendly- there were two shops selling dog ice cream. That’s ice cream for dogs, not dog-flavour. There was a grooming parlour and dog clothes shop and a dog-friendly taxi service ( seats 6 – dogs? Dogs+ people?) There were quite a lot of dogs about, as you can imagine. When I arrived it was just past high tide but when I sat having dinner, I watched the tide go out for miles, and the newly revealed beach filled up with people out to enjoy the evening sunshine, yes, it had eventually stopped raining.

On with today. I was walking by 9.30, I’m not an early starter, the wind was much less (I was able to wear my hat, although it did blow off a couple of times) and I didn’t need any wind proofing from my waterproof trousers. I was fairly optimistic about the weather. I walked along Perran Sands for a couple of miles then over a headland or two to Holywell. There was another open public loo at Holywell, “At least that won’t be one of today’s highlights I thought”. How wrong I was. It started to rain. I put on my waterproof trousers and put up my hood. It carried on raining. I put on my backpack cover. To be honest, I had forgotten about it as I’ve never had to use it in anger with this backpack. It carried on raining. I realised I was still wearing my sunglasses. I couldn’t face stopping to change them. I felt a bit hard done by as the forecast had been fairly clear that I’d have another hour or so rain free. The ground however was very easy walking, compared to yesterday, sheep-nibbled turf with pink thrift dotted about.

It got wetter. I got wetter. Thankfully, just when I was at my grumpiest I realised that I had, after all, made good time and was nearly in Newquay.

If you are approaching Newquay from the south you need to cross the Gannel estuary. You can walk all the way round it (long) or take a small ferry (high tide only) or walk over the footbridge supplied by the ferry company ( low tide). You will see from the picture that I took the footbridge.

Of course, you then have to walk up the edge of the headland -all 160 steps. Actually there were a few more but at 160 there was a cafe (which runs the ferry) and as I clearly hadn’t beaten the rain into Newquay I stopped for a Cornish pasty ( Devonesque, I felt as the crimping was in the middle, and just not quite as good as the other two I have tried) and a cup of coffee before marching wetly by the most direct route, bypassing the beaches, through the low cloud to my hotel.

The weather forecast for tomorrow is dry. What a relief, but I’ll believe it when I see it.