THE mist – 5 aug, 2018
Day 3 Land’s End to John O’Groats – Gwithian to Chapel Porth
Distance: 19km
Cumulative distance: 71km
One of the early problems I ran into starting out this walk was the management of my sleeping bag, and how to keep it dry. It hasn’t rained on me at all so far this walk which is magnificent, but sleeping bags can get extremely overheated at night time which can render them quite damp. They often don’t get a chance to air out either because you get up, pack them away and off you go. My sleeping bag has a comfort level of about 8 degrees which makes it a little bit too warm at this stage of the walk, but should keep me just about right as I venture north and it starts cooling down. Given it’s a bit too warm though, I’ve had to battle a bit of dampness, particularly on my first two nights. But I’ve come up with a solution. Last night I turned it inside out and aired it out over the top of my tent once I’d set up camp and it made a massive difference, it was actually dry by the time I crawled inside after my couple of pints at the pub. I’ve also started packing it away into its mesh casing which allows it to breathe a little more as I walk.
Anyway, back to the serious stuff. I was a bit sore after a big couple of days, but still circled Perranporth as a possible target, although that would mean 26-28km I think. I was dreaming of the youth hostel there, but realised pretty soon on it would be an almighty challenge. I left Gwithian, and managed to dodge the rest of the sand dunes as I climbed up Godrevy Point. There’s a lighthouse on a small island a little way off the Godrevy coast but I couldn’t see it, the whole thing was shrouded in mist! The sea mist I’d seen a couple of days ago had settled in and it was incredibly thick, reducing visibility at times to less than 50m. It was a shame I couldn’t see the sweeping views any more, but it added another element of intrigue to these heaving cliffs. In any event, I’d hit a pretty unforgiving section of trail, and I put my head down and powered on for about four and a half miles, on very high cliffs. The path cut through some low shrubbery and the usual gorse and blackberries and at times I was barely a metre from the sheer drop below. At one view point I peered down and the mist parted just enough for me to see down to the water. This was a popular spot for spotting seals and I thought I saw a few down there but given my eyesight, they were probably raccoons.
Soon enough a whirring noise became apparent somewhere off in the distance, and as I pressed on I could hear what sounded like a bloke speaking into a microphone. It sounded like a whipper snipper/lawnmower show of some description, and this bloke was telling the crowd how good each model was as it was presented. It was a persistent noise and grew louder and louder as I walked, piercing the serenity which had been created by the sea mist. Eventually I got close enough to see a plane off to my right which was performing all kinds of trickery in the air. I ducked across the road and peered over a fence and saw what was happening…it was a Sunday morning model aircraft show and it was very well attended. I was more interested in miles than model aircraft so I didn’t hang around. Plus I wanted to get out of the range of that whirring noise.
I thought I was cruising with Portreath firmly in my sights until I came to the first of two down and ups, which were as harsh as any I’d seen so far. The first one was okay I spose, I took the steps all the way down, to sea level almost, then powered back up the other side. It was fairly hard work but I was stoked once I made it to the other side, and figured the worst of it was over. Not even half a mile on came another one, steeper, deeper and much tougher to negotiate. I was filthy. Anyway I scrambled down and up and then had to go all the way back down to enter Portreath. I grabbed a smoothie and spoke to Mum and Dad, then went and grabbed a few supplies. I picked up a jam jar (I was dying for a bit of variety in the peanut butter wraps I’d been having for lunch), but put it back down because it felt too heavy. Damn!
It was a really steep climb out of town and I eventually rejoined the path and pressed on past a disused airfield. Two more down and ups almost broke me in half but the sea mist had cleared by this stage and the views were back and typically spectacular. The ground became a lot redder, and it was almost like I was back in Australia as I walked past a bunch more disused tin mines. I sat down at one of them and took the chance to pull out my sleeping bag, airing it out atop one of the old stone buildings. The sun was bearing down and it did the trick. Soon enough I strolled steeply down into Porthtowan and skipped on through past the glut of tourists, and back uphill out the other side. The terrain up there reminded me a bit of the start of the Landmannalaugar hike in Iceland, it was very colourful and starkly orange in places. I was starting to tire by this stage, and knew that Perranporth was well out of the question. The map said there was a campsite just past Chapel Porth so I resolved to aim for that.
Chapel Porth was another long, steep descent into town but I’d been looking forward to this place. The beach café is famous for serving a ‘hedgehog’ which is their spin on ice cream. Essentially it’s a Cornish ice cream in a cone, covered in Cornish clotted cream and then peppered with honey roasted nuts. The place was packed, and everyone was ordering them so I stood in line and waited for my turn. It was incredibly rich and they didn’t skimp on anything, particularly the nuts and the cream. I’m astonished at how many tourists (mainly English) there are at the beaches here but I figure they’re having a record summer, and this is their beach window. Bit different to Australia in that sense. Anyway, I finished up the ice cream, climbed out of town past some more mining buildings and found my campsite. Cue more airing of the sleeping bag, and a long session sat next to the power point in the laundry room to try and charge everything up.
