August 7, 1991: Watergate Bay to Newquay

Toby at Newquay Station

Perhaps it was just as well that we had decided to make today our rest day – the dog did not need a taxing day after his troubled sleep of the night before and Dorothy, nursing a sore foot with dollops of Deep Heat, had decided to spend most of the morning on the beach. This meant that at 10:00 the rest of us left her behind as we headed up the hill on the section of the coast path we had been staring at for days from our table in hotel dining room. It was bright but not too hot.

We reached a spot near the hilltop that marked the farthest point reached by the dog on our nightly walks. As usual there were lots of people using the path, many descending to the sands at Watergate Bay behind us. We passed over several stiles as we continued south, the airfield and the road on our left and the wonderful sea on our right. We moved very slowly, enjoying for once the luxury of moving forward without having to meet Colin at a fixed time.

The hotels at Watergate Bay

We neared the road again opposite Trevelgue Head but Toby did not have to go on lead because the path turned toward the sea – to swing around to a paved route along the north side of St. Columb Porth Beach. Families were playing miniature golf of the hillside above us as we reached the roadway again, but this time Toby had to go on lead as we used pavement to climb up the hill along Alexandra Road. There was some difficulty in figuring out how to get back to our route. There seemed to be nothing leading off to the right and when we reached a likely looking road (which I decided to take) it was marked Porth Beach Road, not Porth Bean Road – as it appears in the guidebook. We descended the road anyway, located some loos, and soon found the coast path climbing on a tarmac path up the hill toward the crest of the next cliff. (The next day, as we were driving this stretch for the umpteenth time, I noticed that we should have been on the non-beach side of Alexandra Road, where steps led down to an underpass that went under the roadway as the coast path.)

Among crowds of people we snaked our way through an outdoor market using roads, and then onto a last patch of grass at Barrowfields before returning to the main road not far from Newquay station. Harold, who had been having problems with his boots, now went shopping for some sturdy tennis shoes while I spent a lot of time strolling up and down among the tourists on the pavement. At 12:30 we returned to the station for a brief sit down on a bench, waiting for Dorothy to join us by taxi. When she arrived we continued our stroll up the main drag (Burger King, t-shirts, sun glasses, Cornish fudge) before deciding on a likely looking pub, Berties, for lunch.

Newquay

It was actually quite warm in the cement forecourt of the pub and at one point, after my pint and curry, I used some sun blocker. I had forgotten my University of California cap. Everyone seemed in good spirits, though tired, but I was pretty bored by the passing scene (a lot of stoned and sodden surfer trash wandering about). After lunch we continued downhill to the west, with much window shopping, eventually reaching the harbor featured on the cover of my OS map. Then we retraced our steps a bit and took a cab back to the our hotel.

I had a nap and listened to my walkman before taking the dog down to the beach – where the others were sunk into deck chairs (they had decided against boogie boards, I guess). I sat down on the sand and watched the beach parade, but we left at 5:00 and got cleaned up before our evening drinks in the bar. Surely it was on the occasion of this evening’s stodge (I was the only one to eat my broad beans) that the decision was made to forego the hotel’s food on Friday night in favor of a restaurant meal, with the Andersons, in Newquay.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 21: Perranporth to Portreath

To continue with the next stage of the walk you need:

Day 19: Newquay to Perranporth