11 miles walked today
1256 miles walked in total (10.466 average)
What a day! Very blustery and cold and, boy, has the surf been up!
This is the first day of my six month adventure - I've finally given my notice in at work, bought a campervan - from here on known as "Dizzy" - and am planning to spend six months walking from Newquay to who knows where? I'm trying not to plan too much as I want to enjoy this and take each day as it comes.
So, for the last three months, I've been buying gadgets and getting more competent with a laptop computer, printer and digital camera - so that I can email and send the diary as I head round the coast. Andy has mostly been patient with me, despite the fact that it takes me longer than a seven year old child to understand this new technology!
I had my first camping expedition at the weekend - I stayed at West Runton, near Cromer. Despite a few omissions - anything to drink, soap (which I didn't realise until I was starkers in the shower and sopping wet!) and matches for the cooker, so I ended up with a banana sandwich and a yoghurt for tea, it went pretty much without a hitch! I aim to be much more organised now! I was very nearly thrown out of the Camping and Caravanning Club on only my first night though - it was a quick march over the golf course down to the Village Inn at West Runton where I met Mum and Dad, and Rat and Pam. They plied me with drinks and didn't get me back to the campsite until 11.30 pm, half an hour after "lights out" so I had to stagger around a bit with my torch to try and find Dizzy.
I travelled down to Newquay on Tuesday after packing everything at West Drayton on Monday and it took me seven hours to get down here! Dizzy is a bit of an old lady - like myself - and doesn't like to do more than fifty miles per hour although, on the downhill, she's a bit of a speed demon. So I found a campsite at Porth and spent Tuesday and last night there, and had a mooch into Newquay yesterday to find bus timetables, internet cafes, etc.
I actually started walking today and had a "moderate" stretch according to my guidebook. Despite not walking since last September, I didn't find it too strenuous, although the wind helped me round! Blimey, it was gusty! Definitely a day to hold on to your hat. I left Newquay at 9.30 am and headed around Lusty Glaze round to Porth before heading past the Bronze Age burial mounds at Trevelgue Head above Whipsiderry Beach, past Watergate Beach and round Berryl's Point to Mawgan Porth.
It was here that it started to rain so I found a bus shelter to have lunch in - disaster struck. Everything tasted of banana, including my tuna mayo sandwiches, as I'd had a splurge in my rucksack! Feeling the need to mop up, and to stop any banana loving insects from following me to Porthcothan, I stopped at the Beach Cafe to have a coffee and warm up a little. The sun came out almost immediately and it was blue sky for the rest of the day, although very cold.
The path's been fab - long wide stretches over the cliffs and I've seen violets, thrift, flowering gorse, caterpillars, bees and what I think were a stonechat and a sandpiper, although they both flew off before I got a proper look at them.
From Mawgan Porth, it was a quick up and over Carnewas National Trust land round to Bedruthan Steps where legend has it that the huge granite stacks on the beach were stepping stones used by the giant, Bedruthan.
From here, it was an easy saunter along the clifftops and down towards Porthcothan, where I had to wait for an hour for the bus back to Newquay, a manoeuvre which involved leaping into the path of the oncoming bus to flag him down!
Once back at Newquay, I collected Dizzy and headed out to find accommodation - I found a fab site at St Merryn and was only charged a fiver for the privilege.
A very good start to my walking adventure.
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