Day 45 - Wednesday October 13th

The b & b in Padstow was good. Julian my landlord was very flexible and more than happy to do an early breakfast so I had it at 7.00am. This gave me plenty of time to be ready and walk to the ferry for the first one to Rock at 8.00am. I was not charged for the ferry as I was walking for charity and this is their policy.

I had an easy initial walk to Polzeath, a village I knew of but have never visited before. By 10.17am I reached Lundy Bay which was clearly marked but have been unable to find on the map! At 10.35am I passed Trevan Point which is marked on maps! At 10.55am I arrived at Port Quinn and a sign indicating Port Isaac in three miles. It was quite a long 3 miles with all the twists and turns and ups and downs and I eventually arrived in Port Isaac at 12.40 where I was able to stop and at last have a cream tea previous places having been closed or not offering same said cream tea in the past two days.

This morning I saw three pods of dolphin at the same time along the coast.

At 1.05pm I resumed walking and discovered some discrepancies in the signposted distances like 6 miles to Tintagel but it was obviously much further. I quickly reached Port Gaverne just around the corner from Port Isaac and continued relentlessly on to Tintagel along a hilly coastline with no obvious identifiable features or bays. The only thing was, that from a very long way off I could see Tintagel parish church which is set high on the cliff top and some distance from the main village. I eventually arrived in Tintagel at 5.45pm too late to start the last part of todays planned walk the further four miles to Boscastle as there was no time to do it before it got dark. Had the first ferry from Padstow been at 7.00am it would have been possible.

So I decided what to do. I called in at a hotel and the barman rang for a taxi for me and Dave arrived about 15 minutes later. We had a good chat and I explained what I was doing so although the charge was £8.00 he took £5.00 and told me to put the remaining £3.00 into the sponsorship fund. When I arrived in Tintagel I was too late to do any shopping. So as the Youth Hostel was self catering I had some issues to resolve like breakfast in the morning. Linda who was on duty was exceptionally helpful and told me there was a spare can of soup and that there was some bread in the freezer. I then went out and bought a meal at a local pub. While there I asked for a pasty to take away so this resolved my day time needs. When I got back to the Hostel there was a small school group with two members of staff. These were the only other occupants of the hostel. They must have heard my conversation with Linda as they offered me some of their left over pasta bolognese. I did not need this as I had just eaten but they did give me a bowlful for my breakfast and put it in the fridge. So I no longer needed the soup. Quite an eventful day.

Distance walked today - 22 miles

There is no absolute agreement on distances as distances using GPS technology are "flat" miles and do not take into account the ups and downs. All distances are therefore approximate. Also there are alternative route options indicated on the routing and different people differ as to how far it is to walk between A & B - National Trust distance signs vary from the signed distances put up by the County Councils in some places!