Day 06: 29 Mar 2014; Holywell to Porthcothan

Walk descriptor	LEJOG2014		Day	06
Date	Sat 29 Mar 2014		Start to end time	08h 29m
Start point	Holywell		End point	Porthcothan
Miles today	18.49		Cu miles	119.03
Ft today	4,412		Cu ft	22,241
Route miles left	1,350.42		Route ft left	171,708
Today’s weather	Rain nin the morning, dried up about 11 am and weak sun came out. Strong Easterly wind, cool (about 7C)

Today’s location (the red cross in a circle shows where I am at the moment)		GPX based track of today’s walk (click here to access to access downloadable file)

Commentary

“I slept remarkably well last night, Pirates notwithstanding. I think it was partly due to the fact that in my sleeping bag I wore every item of clothing that I was carrying, so managed to stay warm, and partly also due to the fact that I managed to pitch the tent a lot better so when it rained (which it did on and off all night), it didn’t drip icy water on me.

Nevertheless, I was woken at about 6:30 by a particularly hard downpour, so got up and decided to make an early start. It carried on raining until about 11 then stopped and the sun shone weakly all afternoon. It didn’t start raining again until about 6 pm, as I was walking to the pub. So I think that counts as the longest dry spell on the hike so far!

I really enjoyed today’s walk and actually added more miles on at the end than I strictly needed to, in order to take a longer route to the campsite, because the walk along the clifftops north of Newquay was so uplifting. There was still a lot of up and down to negotiate but the path was less rocky and not so hard on the knees. There was quite a lot of storm damage to the path – at one point, I had to wade across a stream because the bridge that normally crossed it had been picked up and driven 50 metres inland by winter storms.

The route passed through Newquay which appeared to me to be in every way the opposite of unspoiled. I tried hard to find the nice bit but couldn’t, so after a brief stop for a pasty, moved on quickly. Though I did notice the local headline that the X-Factor was shortly to be coming to Newquay. I presumed that referred to the TV show and wasn’t an early announcement of my own arrival, so at least Newquay residents will have something to look forward to.

Shortly after leaving Newquay I was called by the bank who explained that overnight my credit card had been cloned and so as a precautionary measure had been deactivated. Fortunately I have another one, or else it could have been a bit of a hand to mouth existence for the next 1,400 miles. I think the pirates finally had the last laugh..

I’m staying at Old MacDonald’s Farm campsite, which is excellent and even more so because the proprietors have kindly waived the pitch fee and donated it to the Scouts. A nice touch, and made up for the Pirates!
”

Today’s photos (click to enlarge)


A few brave surfers were braving the icy Atlantic at Holywell Bay this morning. Personally I think they are even madder than me	Snail appears to be making faster progress across the beach than I am towards Dunnet head!

The low-tide crossing point for the Gannel – the river just south of Newquay	Sadly, I felt rather the same way

I simply could not work out what on earth this sign meant	A strange yellow object made a brief appearance in the sky this afternoon

This gaping rift in the earth had appeared, unmarked, adjacent to the path on Pentire point. It was about 20m long, 5m wide and so deep I couldn’t see the bottom. A good reason for not attempting to walk the path in the dark..