April 7, 1993: Porthallow to Falmouth

The mist was falling again when we went down for an early breakfast on the fifth and last day of our walk. Margie sprinkled bran on her cereal and we ate our eggs and toast. There was an amusing scene to observe from the window next to our table. The local dustbin men drove by Gallen-Treeth’s driveway without picking up three bags of garbage and the next thing we saw was our host and hostess, the Peters, charging down the driveway, loading the black bags into the trunk of the Volvo, and pursuing the truck down to the beach, where it sat idly. We could see that there was a sharp exchange of words between our host and the lorry driver and then the bags were transferred from boot to garbage truck by the aggrieved parties. He then had Mrs. Peters drive him up the valley for a paper and they returned, somewhat flustered by the sight of guests in their dining room, ten minutes later. By this time we had had our last sip of coffee.

We brought packs and boots downstairs. Naturally I had forgotten to leave a pair of hiking socks out and I had to open my pack to fish these out. Then I had to put on raingear again. When Harold (our treasurer) had paid up we walked down to the harbor but Tosh disappeared immediately to mail a card and get her own paper. It was 9:00, our earliest start – I knew it would be a long day – but we still hadn’t started ten minutes after leaving our guesthouse. Margie and I climbed the steps up to the next cliff top but it was sometime before the Lees put in an appearance and they often lagged in the early hours – addressing various health problems no doubt.

As we approached Nare Point the route called for a diagonal march over the grass down to a stile in a wall near the cliff edge. Unfortunately Margie was so far ahead she missed this hint and had to walk around two side of the triangle when she ran up against a stone wall. The Lees were the beneficiaries of our pathfinding, since they were able to follow my line – not Margie’s – to the stile. There is a coastguard lookout on Nare Point and the coast path continues to hug the cliffs until it reaches the access road for this establishment. When the Lees failed to follow us down to this road I knew what had happened – Tosh had cut a corner over the headland in order to arrive ahead of us in Parbean Cove. “That is what gives walkers a bad name,” I chided her. “I know,” she replied sheepishly, “but I had to get to a good loo spot.” I warned everybody not to get too far ahead of me as we entered the valley of Gillan Creek – for I intended to go off route within the next half hour.

The sight before us was glorious. Boats bobbed up and down at the creek outlet and behind them we could see a peninsula fronted by Dennis Head hiding part of the Helford River Estuary, but not Helford Passage, behind it. This is a complicated stretch for the walker. You can reach the peninsula by wading across Gillan Creek for an hour on either side of low tide (we were a bit too early for this). Once you have made your way to Helford you have to take a ferry across the river to Helford Passage, a journey possible only at certain times of the year and certain times of the day. Tosh had phoned the ferryman a month earlier and we were pretty sure that he would be plying his trade today – but I now undertook to follow a shortcut recommended by Hall and Mason that would at least take care of the problem of Gillan Creek.

We continued forward in lush surroundings, climbing over Men-aver Point and reaching the first of a number of very attractive private houses in the region. Then we climbed down some steps and in and out of a number of minor coves, finally reaching a road at Flushing Cove. Here began a steep ascent among blossoming trees and burgeoning gardens – with our backs turned to the creek. The Lees were engaged in conversation with one of the gardeners, who had just come out to see if anything else had come up overnight. Eventually we reached a road on top of the ridge and walked along it in a westerly direction. There was a steep descent into the village of Carne, near the head of the creek; the latter still looked very muddy.

The alternative required us to continue on the Manaccan road until a footpath sign put us over a stream and up into a wood festooned with bluebells. The girls went ahead for some privacy and even Harold and I, bored, had a pee. Then we continued up to the level of our village, whose church tower soon served as a beacon, through one or two fields. We emerged on a back street not far from the village store where Tosh tried unsuccessfully to buy an Almond Yorkie to replace the one she had borrowed from me days earlier. We were told the pub was open and I had spotted it somewhat downhill on the main road. Thus at 11:20 we reached the New Inn.

The publican asked us to leave our packs outside in case it got crowded but I didn’t want us to stay until that time because there was still so much of the route to be covered. Everybody had a drink, however, in the half hour we were there and then it was time to hoist our gear again. I had been able to take my rain cape off by this point but I left my rain pants on – there was certainly plenty of mud about. The publican, an ancient, limping, red-faced man, said he had to deliver some beers to the Shipwrights Arms in Helford and backed his car out of the drive in preparation for this task. How the pub dog survived all of the swerving wheels in his own forecourt I do not know.

We continued uphill to the garage, where a footpath sign pointed in the direction of Helford. There was a brief field stretch between two roads and then we began a descent downhill in a lovely woodland paralleled by a stream. It was very wet underfoot. At the bottom we turned right to follow another stream down to our village. There was a raised bank that allowed for a little dryer walking here and before long we had reached the very charming town of Helford. I put us on the western side of the harbor and we marched past the pub and out to the point where the ferryboat lands. It was 12:30 and, much to my dismay, there was a message on the chalkboard indicating that, because of low tide, the ferry would not be running until 2:30 -3:00!

I was a bit non-plussed and we decided to return to the Shipwrights Arms to ponder our next move. I would have been happier had I been able to rely on the accuracy of the chalked message, but there was no date on it and so I asked Tosh to phone her ferryboat man and confirm the details on the sign. We first found a quiet corner of the pub, passing the publican of the New Inn, who was seated at a bar stool, and who said to a myopic Tosh, “Bet you can’t remember where you’ve see me last.” He was right; she couldn’t.

When she returned from her phone call the news was not cheering. She had only spoken to the boatman’s daughter, who had suggested that maybe the ferry wouldn’t run until 5:30 because of an unusually low tide! Had this been the case there would have been no way to complete seven miles to Falmouth in daylight, and I was considerably downcast by the prospect of aborting the walk here – with such an awkward gap left at the end. We ordered food. I had a crab ploughman’s but I don’t think I enjoyed a bite. My half lager went untasted. I was trying to think what we could now do. At a nearby table the Cottingtons were now seated; they assured us that they had literally been tracking our footsteps all day long – what copycat hikers! They were settled in, waiting for the ferry and so was another American couple from Colorado who, because they didn’t like backpacking, had come to hike in Cornwall for a month. Harold phoned our Falmouth Hotel to assure them that, in spite of a late arrival, we were still on our way.

The pub staff got us the number of a taxi company in Helston. When I spoke to them they said they couldn’t get a cab to us until 2:00 and that it would cost at least £30 to drive us around the estuary to the other side of the river. I decided to wait and see if the ferry were truly running at 2:30. The Shipwrights Arms staff assured me that it would – so there was nothing to do but sit around for another, very slow-moving hour and see if they were right. I ordered a whisky. Tosh left the rest of us to go sit on a bench near the point and read her newspaper. At about 2:20 I went for a final pee, as did Harold, who was just leaving as I arrived.

Then I slowly made my way out to the point a second time. Just as I arrived I met Harold coming in the opposite direction – he had urgent business back at the loo. There were quite a few people milling about at the ferry landing and I wondered what the likelihood was of our missing the ferry, after all this waiting, because Harold was in the loo back at the pub. I opened the red disk, the signal to the boatman that his ferry was wanted. Then I posed Tosh against this artifact because she had just completed her 1100th mile. There was no sign of life on the other side. John, he with the marijuana-flavored pipe tobacco, was catching small sea creatures as he lifted up rocks at the river edge. He showed Tosh some prawns and brought a baby eel up for all of us to see. I paced around until 2:45 when Helen and I agreed that there were definite signs of life on the opposite side of the river.

A small boat marked “Ferry” in red paint was heading through the sailboats in our direction. We started to stroll down the walkway to quayside. In the end there was a full house, helped aboard at £1.50 a head by the bearded Charon. The ride took less than five minutes. It was exhilarating and I was quite happy because I now knew that it would be possible to complete the walk as scheduled.

A portable dock was anchored against the shore at Helford Passage. I was the first down its length and thus the first to notice that it stopped about a yard and a half short of the beach. I took a leap and managed to splash ashore without getting too wet. I held out a hand to Margie and yanked her across the gap as well. Next came Helen. She tossed me her knapsack, which I placed on the sand, before she jumped across. John followed. He took a flying leap and one of his arms brushed Margie’s shoulder as he landed; she shied back a bit at this, tripping backward over the pack I had just placed in the sand. The Lees, still to jump, had a wonderful view of their friend falling over backwards onto the sand. She wasn’t hurt. The rest of the passengers were wearing wellies, so they had no difficulty with the gap. After the last of them was safely landed on the beach Charon used a crank to wind his dock all the way to the shore!

It was 3:00 and there was no time to dawdle. The six of us started off together and the Cottingtons took a picture of the four of us with our backs to the river we had just crossed. Thereafter they disappeared ahead of us, no doubt hunting for a spot to have a brew-up – since they carried a portable stove. After half an hour we arrived in the wonderful National Trust village of Durgan; I was beginning to regret that I had so few shots left in my camera. As we dropped down to the Carwinion Valley I had the impression that I had just seen the red pack of front-running Tosh turn left on a lovely path that headed up the valley. Unfortunately this was not the coast path, which turns right here to pass along the back of a beach. I explained this problem to Harold, who began shouting for his errant wife while Margie and I waited at the back of the beach. In a few minutes she returned somewhat shame-facedly. The same thing happened, but to a lesser degree, an hour later.

We made a short, steep climb up to Toll Point and turned our backs on the Helford to head more directly toward Falmouth. We could see the church tower of Mawnan village ahead of us and we passed beneath the churchyard to descend through a wood in lush surroundings again. (There was far more woodland today than on any of the previous days of this trip, a sure sign of a more sheltered coastline.) We crossed a stream in the middle of a field where a farmer was spreading tiny white pellets from the back of a tractor. Hall and Mason award a black arrow to the stretch that “climbs” up from the stream but this is surely the least deserved black arrow of the whole lot, since there was nothing that could remotely be called an ascent at all.

Anyway, as we rounded Rosemullion Head we could see in all its glory the coastline up to and beyond Falmouth, and we were able to pick out most of the rest of the day’s landmarks and even some – like the lighthouse at St. Anthony’s Head – for the next trip. Large tankers were at anchor in the Falmouth roads – just waiting for a cargo. “These ships,” I joked to Harold, “are here to redress the balance of payments deficit by carrying British exports to the far corners of the world; unfortunately, the government of the day has made sure that Britain has nothing to export anymore.”

Immediately ahead of us was a wooded ravine carrying a stream down to the sea. The Meudon Hotel occupied a prominent position at the top and lovely, landscaped gardens cascaded down to the sea. Tosh experimented with a high crossing but I told her she would have to drop down practically to sea level for a footbridge. I had been encouraged by the sight of the Dartmoor couple climbing up from the stream and onto the cliff tops. This meant that the way forward, which had been abandoned at one time to eroding cliffs, was still in good shape and that it would not be necessary to undertake another inland diversion.

After a stiff climb things leveled off and we continued forward on a narrow, often muddy path behind garden walls. Some of the path seemed quite new, particularly as we rounded a headland and dipped into the cove at Maen Porth.

The Lees were ahead of Margie and me and as I saw all the mod cons (modern condominiums, in this case) of the beachside resort I could only conclude that Tosh had sensed loos ahead. When we arrived the others were drinking coffee with the Dartmoor couple. We had just missed a visit to the cove by the royal yacht Britannia, and the rescue of some kids off a cliff face by a helicopter: we had seen the helicopter bobbing up and down.

I took off my pack – feeling almost weightless – and went to the loos up the hill behind the kiosk. I was interested to see that the baby’s changing room was on the side of the man’s loo – a sign of changing times?  John pumped my hand and jumped into a car driven by his brother, who had come to pick the Cottingtons up. I ate a vanilla ice cream bar and took off my rain pants. It was 6:00. An American lady, with a Golden Retriever who loved playing in the sea, came by to chat with us – after hearing our accents.

We endured a short, sweet, last black arrow as we left Maen Porth. There followed an almost level, very easy stretch of coast path around Pennance Point. I think I cut a corner of the path by accident, there being quite a few rival footpaths to choose from. Around the bend Margie and I found the Lees against a backdrop of the lakelet at Swanpool. Digby’s restaurant had a pub sign featuring a giant English Sheep Dog. We crossed some sand, walking on a pile of rotting kelp, and ascended some tarmaced paths around the next bend. As Falmouth came into view again, at Gyllyngvase Beach, I took Harold’s photo  – he had reached his 1100th mile.

There were some loos as we reached Cliff Road. While the girls were inside Harold and I conferred on the fastest way of dropping over to the other side of the ridge and down to our hotel on the harbor front. He had a map from the hotel and we had worked out a route – which was confirmed by a passerby. We darted across Cliff Road and headed uphill, turning right and continuing forward for a short distance on a busy ridge-top street. Then we dropped down under the rail tracks and continued forward to Grove Road and the Grove Hotel. It was 7:15.

The proprietors, the Corks, were away, but another staff member showed us to rooms with bathtubs on the second floor (another black arrow!). The rooms had indifferent lighting but there was plenty of hot, if slow-moving, water and by this time I think no one cared too much about their surroundings. At 8:00 I joined the others in the lounge, where they had made the pretty bar girl turn off the muzak. I had a pint of lager and a package of peanuts.

We were given plenty of advice about restaurants in Falmouth and at about nine we headed off into a misty evening to search some out. I was hoping for something honestly ethnic but Tosh glommed onto the King’s Pipe, which offered an “international” cuisine prepared by someone whose ambition outstripped his experience. My starter was prawns in garlic butter – dozens of them, each hot and greasy and requiring an elaborate peeling. Then I had a steak au poivre, with the peppercorns unable to disguise a quite indifferent piece of meat. Tosh had pork in roquefort sauce! All of this took a lot of time to serve and I was really happy when we could move at last back to a well-deserved rest. We had covered 51 miles on this trip.

In the morning we met at 8:30 for a last full breakfast in a once charming, high-ceilinged room that had been papered in an aggressive red and gray flowered wallpaper. We left at 9:15, back in raingear, and slogged up to the Dell Station, which we had passed the previous night. This only took five minutes. Tosh fell into conversation with a woman from Nebraska. At 9:32 a little shuttle came through and took us up to Truro, where there was plenty of time for snack and paper buying. It was windy and cold and rainy on the platform but at 10:20 the Paddington train pulled in and we got settled, four across, in a non-smoking compartment.

I watched with amusement while the conductor explained to all why their return-tickets had to be supplemented by a surcharge because this was the day before Good Friday. I had warned Harold to be prepared for this eventuality  – it had happened to us once before. I read a good 80 pages of Anne Tyler’s Breathing Lessons, translated for a German school girl who was writing a letter to her boyfriend in Plymouth, ate my egg and cress sandwich, dozed, drank my Diet Coke, and somehow survived the almost five hour journey back to London. Here I said goodbye to my game companions and headed back to see Dorothy and Toby just before Sharon the dog groomer arrived at 4:00 to put the latter back into a shape recognizable as that of a Schnauzer.

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

Day 33: Falmouth to Rosevine