It is part endurance challenge, part we-like-walking and part I-just-want-to-see-everything. It is very much a team effort like our rock climbing is. If one can’t continue the other can’t either. Kim is a better walker than me but she bemoans my mountain skills of climbing fitness and descending confidence. On the flat I can’t keep up. If Kim was to do ultramarathons she would probably walk them in the same time that I run them.
We were up and out at a sensible time and back on the tarmac road from the campsite to return to the coast path. The amble to the lockside cafe at Bude was easy, both recovered well from the miles and the elevation changes of yesterday. The path was soft underfoot and slowly lifted us and dropped us giving views onto Bude’s beaches. Bude has an open air, part rock pool swimming pool free to use and was being well used. At its longest (it has an irregular shape) it is 91m long. Good lengths those and I wonder if you can tumble turn.
We dallied at the cafe as the staff charged our spare batteries for us and fed us bacon rolls and cappuccinos. Leaving and crossing over the canal lock took us back to the path and up our first steep section of the day to the tower view point. But for much of the way to Widemouth Bay it went easy on us.
Afterwards though, the action began. Into the first steep section we leant but at the top of the cliffs we held much of our height for a while. Heather and fern slopes dropped steeply to the sea. Looking back we could retrace our coastal path and see darkening cloud descending.
Our familiar friend, the dip, returned to give us steep descents to stream crossings and each necessary steep climb out. What goes down must come up. The OS map was orange.
The climb out to Castle Point before Crackington Haven was excellent, with blooming heather and gorse around and a ridge giving drops and views on either side. The shape of the coastline here is unusual in places, breaking up your expectations and giving back in interest what it takes from stamina
The long drop across the cliff-like hillside to Crackington Haven was full of nervousness. Would the cafe still be open? One was closed, the other open so Cornish cream teas all round was the recommendation. Phones were charged from the wall.
Climb out, turn around, wow at the view and continue. The generally steady, occasionally strenuous, always sweaty work towards the summit was taking us up High Cliff with the peak at around 220m above the sea level that we could see so far below that the scale of objects was lost to us. It was so high it had goats on it.
It could probably do with a better name but it is memorable both in name and geography. After the peak you are dropped down into unlikely steep slopes of gorse that are climbed, zig zag back to another cliff top edge not joined with the first.
We decided to aim for the nearer campsite before Boscastle given the time of day and the speed of climbing heathery cliffs. Tops are often good for a phone signal and this one was, so I called the campsite to check that we would be welcome. We would.
We saw wild horses with foals and heard mournful wails (or grunts?) echoing from a low, deep cave in the side of a black cliff hundreds of metres below us. Seals are pupping in these isolated caves.
The campsite owner promised us the best showers in Cornwall and he was correct. There are no campsites in range of the path for the next section to almost Padstow. If we aim for Port Isaac tomorrow we will have two options.
29km and 1336m of ascent.