Friday 09th June 2000 - Day seven, Botallack, Lands End, Plymouth, Newbury Prev

During the night it rained and rained, hard on a couple of occasions. I was woken properly by the guy in the tent opposite who started his Transit van at 06:20 and left the engine running. I guess he had got wet and cold, and needed to warm up. After about twenty minutes he drove off - I didn't see him again.

I did my usual breakfast and messing about, but even more so because it was raining and everything had to be water proof. By twenty five to nine I was just about ready. I got a bit lost finding the path again but after going through another field of bullocks I got there.

It was still raining lightly with low grey cloud as I cleared the first headland of the day and Cape Cornwall came into view. I recognised it immediately from photographs. Many people must have stood on the same point as me and photographed it. Once it was thought to be the most westerly point in England until mapping improved and it was discovered that Land End beat it by a few hundred yards and it is all the more unspoiled because of it.

The path follows a long detour inland to get across a stream before you go to the cape and then turn left and uphill. Grass lay over the path, weighed down by the rain and even though I had put my gators on, my legs ended up soaked. In the distance I could see Lands End, it was one of those 'Pendeen Watch doesn't look too far away' sort of distances. I had been told at the camp site that the path to Lands End was an easy walk, and so it was most of the way - just not this part.

After getting over the stream and rounding the headland the path levelled off for a bit then took on the more familiar rise and fall, contending with boulders that typified some of this granite stretch. All around old mine workings were surrounded by low round granite walls. Sometimes my legs started to dry and then had another deluge from the long wet grass hanging over the path. At one point the path doubled back on itself to climb the hill.

Lands End came closer as I progressed. On the approach to Whitesand Bay the path became particularly mean and involved climbing up and over granite boulders to get past one outcrop, then down the other side. This was the trickiest part of the whole path so far. At the first beach I trudged across the sand then up and over some more rocky path ending up behind the main part of the beach and into Sennen Cove.

Sennen Cove seems to consist mainly of small cafe's and craft shops. A notice warned that the harbour was a working one and people used it at their own risk. In a car park graffiti demanded 'Cornwall for the Cornish' and 'Free Cornwall'. Finally through another car park at the end of the road the coast path climbed up wide steps and onto the last stage to Lands End. Here it was well worn by thousands of feet walking to and fro.

At the Land's End complex I first found the bus stop which is over the far side of the car park and checked the time table before heading back for a pastie, chips and beans, and a quick bit of souviner shopping. It is about twenty years since I last visited Lands End and it has been extensively 'developed' since then. Now it has much more of a theme park atmostphere in addition to the resturant, signpost and First and Last House that I remembered from previously.

The bus was a double decker and the driver did not have an easy job first going via Sennen Cove, then St.Byrian where the lanes were so narrow I don't think you could have got a bicycle between the hedges and the bus. At Penzance the bus station and railway are next to each other which made transfer easy. I paid a surcharge of £8-90 to travel on Friday and after a few minutes got onto the train. It should have left at half past three, but because it was missing a member of staff it eventually left just before four. Our carriage had an electrical fault which meant that there were no lights and the doors didn't work, so every time we went into a tunnel it was pitch dark and people had to go to another carriage to get off the train. We crossed into Plymouth slowly over the single line Isambard Kingdom Brunel bridge that I had seen from the coach a week earlier on the way out.

The train driver made a valiant effort to catch up with his timetable but was held by other trains so after gaining some time we eventually arrived at Newbury nearly half an hour late. I walked home along the Kennet and Avon canal as the sun set and took a short cut through the Thatcham Discovery Centre, a nature area around some old gravel pit workings. Bats flew within a few feet of my head as the light faded and the street lights came on, and I arrived home.

Previous page, Day six, 08th June 00, Trevalgan Farm, Pendeen Watch, Botallack.

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