Day 9 Sunshine at last

It wasn’t raining as I left Newquay. The skies were grey but the forecast was good. I stocked up on food at Tesco and bought a couple of dehydrated meals for camping. (Buy one get one half price at Millets.)

Leaving Newquay was quite interesting. There were the Barrowfields, which were Bronze Age barrows, dug up in the 1820s to make the land easier for farming. There was Lusty Glaze, a private beach with what looked like beach huts. Wikipedia tells me that the name derives from the Cornish Lostyn Glas which means “a place to view blue boats”. Cornish seems to be a very economical language. Then there was Porth, a seaside village with an information board packed with exciting local history- wealthy farmers, scheming landlords, cliff explosions…

As I passed Watergate Bay, the sky cleared and the rest of the day passed in a haze of sandy beaches, cliffs and small villages. I had lunch on a bench on the beach at Mawgan Porth -no pasty today-then hauled myself up the hillside, definitely feeling the weight of my backpack.

The ground had changed, the path was now passing through a grassy sward, which was very easy walking. This gave me time to look around me. There were fields where corn buntings were nesting (didn’t see one), fields where corn buntings and skylarks were nesting (deafened by skylark song) and I saw a stonechat. I hope you’re impressed by my recently acquired bird knowledge. I often read blogs where people say airily “I saw” and name birds I’ve never heard of. Obviously this is unlikely to be one of those blogs but I have seen a good many birds that don’t look like the ones at home. Brown, yes, small, yes, but clearly different from the small brown birds in Oxfordshire. I have however seen a pair of choughs. I took a photo as I was so excited. If Cornwall were a country then the chough would be the national bird. Unfortunately, when I came to look at the photo, the choughs weren’t very visible, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

Bedruthan steps are famous locally and I did wonder whether I might take the 125 steps down to the beach to see the impressive rock formations at sea level. Happily for me, that decision was taken out of my hands as the steps were closed due to rockfalls.

I pressed on to Porthcothan where I succumbed to temptation and had an ice cream (double scoop, vanilla and strawberry, though it was quite large and I know that another time I’ll stick to a single scoop). I was quite tired by now so was pleased to see my idyllic campsite. Just a field (there were showers and loos as well, they were out of sight) looking out to sea, sheltered by a flowering wall. I pitched my tent, cooked my dehydrated chicken tikka and rice and went to bed early.