ST IVES TO PHILLACK

It was something of a marathon just getting to St Ives; although the car journey to Newquay was straightforward and we parked up in the same car park as last time, the bus travel was a bit fraught!  It was a 2 minute walk to the station where we were expecting to catch the U1 and get off at a stop near a roundabout to connect to the number 200 bus to St Ives.  The expected time came and went with no sign of our bus, but then a U1A turned up, and with a similar route to the U1, we thought we’d better get on.  After an hour or so, we realised we weren’t going to make our connection;  the timing was looking very tight, plus the actual stop had been moved to a temporary place due to roadworks, and this 200 bus was the last of the day [15.40 is quite early for a last bus, but that’s rural transport for you!] so we needed a Plan B.  We saw that our bus would stop at Truro train station, and there were plenty of trains to St Ives, so we stayed on the bus.  We seemed to be in a loop where we were always moving but not getting anywhere-the roadworks detour didn’t help!  At last, after a TWO HOUR ride we finally got off! [At least it only cost us £2 each with the current subsidy]. We boarded a train headed for Penzance, but changed  at St Erth, where another train shuttled between there and St Ives, with one stop at Carbis Bay.  It was about a 15 minute walk to our accommodation, our arrival an hour later than expected.

St Ives has tons of choice when it comes to eating out, and it also has tons of seagulls to mop up the leftovers!  I thought birds roosted when it got dark, but the gulls were screeching throughout the night, so I didn’t have a great night’s sleep.  We had to get up early for the luggage collection, but we stopped at the harbour for a coffee and croissant for breakfast.  The weather was mild but overcast.  Walking was easy going on proper paths as we made our way through town and past some lovely properties with a frontline view of the bay.  We were following the train tracks and crossed the line at least 3 times as we progressed.  We’d had a few steep ascents, but the main features were the large sandy beaches below, at St Ives, Carbis Bay, and Porthkidney.  Our previous walk had small coves and rocky inlets, but the theme of this leg proved to be big beaches bordered by sandy dunes.  Approaching Porthkidney, we started walking on the usual compacted sand and stone you get on much of the Coast Path.  It was very narrow in places, which meant standing to one side when making way for walkers coming in the opposite direction, rather dodgy when the path was cut into the cliff face with a steep drop on one side!  But a little further on there was so much foliage, it was like walking through woodland, quite dark actually, until it opened out onto dunes as we crossed the railway line yet again and headed inland towards Lelant church.  It was 11.20am as we hit the village of Lelant, where I was struck by the abundance of wildflowers growing by the roadside, opposite the garden flowers of yet more lovely houses.  We stopped at the Old Forge for lunch, and rested there for an hour [on this walk we wouldn’t need a packed lunch at all, as we would always be close to civilisation half way through each day-result!] before we hit a boring stretch, walking along the road around the Hayle estuary.  It’s a nature reserve, but I didn’t see anything other than a flock of birds of unknown species on the ground exposed by the low tide.  As we began to walk up the other side of the water, I noticed a footpath up a small bank and suggested to Paul that might be our route, only to be told unequivocally that we should continue alongside the road.  As we approached Hayle, Paul compared our route with Komoot, and said we should have walked off the road after all [cue a rather tetchy exchange where I bemoaned the fact I’m not listened to-note to self, I really must be more assertive.  Not usually a problem for me, but because Paul is in control of the navigation, I do tend to give way too easily!].

In Hayle, we passed a big Asda, so we popped in to buy some wine to go with our dinner.  Our AirBnB accommodation for the night was quite isolated, so the owners offered to make us a pizza [for an extra fee] in the evening.  Meanwhile, as we were passing an ice cream shop, we thought we’d have pudding early [it is still a holiday after all] though they started melting as fast as we could consume them now that the sun had come out.

Resuming, we walked over North Quay bridge past some new flat developments, and carried on past some other buildings, until Paul realised we were heading for a dead end.  Somehow, we had missed the turn onto the Path; not surprising when we turned back and found it was like walking through a building site!  However, the stony road emerged into a car park then out into sand dunes as we reached the mouth of the estuary.  We had quite a long stretch across the dunes, or towans as they are known in these parts.  Fortunately, there were multiple stones marked with the acorn pointing to the Coast Path route, as otherwise we wouldn’t have known which of the many tracks to follow.  We knew we would have to head inland when we came to a holiday park, but rather than walking through the park, the track took us alongside it, separated by a fence.  We stayed on the track, but began to regret it because it was very overgrown with brambles.  As we were wearing shorts, our legs were soon dotted with scratches and specks of blood, but we couldn’t access the park because of the fence!  Thankfully, we veered away and into a more open area with some ups and downs before emerging to cross the access road to the park and head off down another path through woodland.  I was beginning to feel pretty tired now-fresh legs had given way to lack of practice.  My toes were also stinging with the pain of blisters in waiting-very annoying after zero blisters on the last leg.  The final straw was an uphill section as we reached the road heading for a group of houses.  Google was telling us our AirBnB was here, but none of them looked like the photo-we had a final punishing upwards quarter mile to go, though it was an idyllic setting in the end, with chickens roaming around the garden.  After showering, I lay down on the bed and actually fell asleep for a couple of hours!  After dinner, I inspected my feet and applied Compeed to one toe on each foot, though alas, the damage had already been done, and a tough day was to follow.

Stats: Time 3hrs 19mins.  Distance 9.01miles.  Pace 2.7mph.  Ascent 600ft. 
Descent 500ft.