Date: 20180613
Time: 9:30 – 16:30
Distance: 26.6 km
Stay: Wellmore End Cottage B&B, Porthleven
Walk
The first part of today goes via a bike / walking path to Marazion. Here is St Michaels Mount, a tidal island with a castle on it. A tidal island is only island when the tide is high, at low tide you can just walk to it. And that’s exactly what I do. I can almost walk into the harbor, from the sea side that is. But unfortunately, there is just a trench of water too much. So via the regular route, a road of boulders.
The island with castle was visible from afar (during my last walk the day before yesterday).
After Marazion follows a more regular part of the Coast Path, over narrow paths that are partly overgrown. Today, the vegetation is not too bad. However, the vegetation today is more hostile, nettles as high as I am and stitching stuff that can be felt through my jeans. I seriously wonder how those hikers do it that walk with bare arms and legs when walking these kind of paths. That has to be a painful affair. There were parts today where you can not escape the nettles below the waist…
At Cudden Point I say goodbye to the Queen who until then still dominated the landscape behind me, along with St Michaels Mount.
At Perranuthnoe it is time for a break at the Cabin. A good cup of coffee is welcome, outside on the terrace overlooking the beach and the sea.
After the break it goes on to Praa Sands. Here I walk a stretch over the beach. As I approach the end of the beach, I wonder if I can go up somewhere. The cliffs rise from the beach and I do not see an access anywhere. I do see a limited number of people on the beach at the back, which gives hope. And indeed, hidden behind a rock, I find a narrow stone staircase leading to a small bridge where I get back to the Coast Path.
Until now it was not all that exciting. After Praa Sands that changes somewhat, it goes up and down more and the path is sometimes very uneven. There follows a large part that goes over the cliffs. Those cliffs are not very high here.
There are Hottentot figs (Carpobrotus edulis) here, a kind of flower that originally comes from South Africa. I have taken pictures of it before. Today I have seen them less and now I know why. The plant, introduced here more than 100 years ago, is so successful that the existing original vegetation no longer gets a chance. For that reason they have started to remove the Hottentot fig on parts of the coast.
I have only seen the purple version so far. There also seems to be a yellow one.
Weather
The weather was good, dry and mostly cloudy. Occasionally the sun came through, but it was not too hot.
Lyric of the day
Today the castle on St Michaels Mount dominated the scenery for a large part. That made me think of a line from Led Zeppelin‘s lyrics, “It’s to a castle I will take you”. So today What Is And What Should Never Be:
And if I say to you tomorrow,
“Take my hand, child, come with me.
It’s to a castle I will take you,
Where what’s to be, they say will be.”
Catch the wind,
See us spin,
Sail away,
Leave today,
Way up high in the sky.
But the wind won’t blow,
You really shouldn’t go,
It only goes to show
That you will be mine
By takin’ our time.
And if you say to me tomorrow,
Oh what fun it all would be.
Then what’s to stop us, pretty baby,
But what is and what should never be.
Catch the wind,
See us spin,
Sail away,
Leave today,
Way up high
In the sky.
But the wind won’t blow,
You really shouldn’t go,
It only goes to show
That you will be mine
By takin’ our time.
So if you wake up with the sunrise,
And all your dreams are still as new,
And happiness is what you need so bad,
Girl, the answer lies with you.
Catch the wind,
See us spin,
Sail away,
Leave today,
Way up high
In the sky.
But the wind won’t blow,
You really shouldn’t go,
It only goes to show
That you will be mine,
By takin’ our time.
Oh the wind won’t blow
And we really shouldn’t go
And it only goes to show.
Catch the wind,
We’re gonna see it spin,
We’re gonna sail,
Leave today
Everybody I know seems to know me well
But they’re never gonna know that I’m gonna move like hell.
Ah, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby, baby.
Oh, I love ya!
Baby, baby, babe!
Oh, I love ya.
You know, know, know, know, know, know, come on now.
