June 23, 1994: Polperro to Looe
Looking back at Talland Bay
With the weekly train strike behind us it was now time to attempt a return to London; we were a day behind our original schedule but coping well nonetheless. Today’s only impediment seemed to be the Claremont Hotel’s breakfast hour. I wanted to be out of the hotel, in order to make the 12:25 from Looe, by 9:00 – and the hotel wanted to start serving breakfast at 9:00. Tosh came up with the solution; we would have a non-cooked breakfast at 8:00 and this is what we prepared to do on another sunny morning. In the event we were even offered toast as well as cereal, but we had to drink tea instead of coffee.
Harold settled the bill; the French proprietress seemed to have no record of our having booked a second night – I’m so glad we hadn’t found anyone sleeping in our beds when we arrived from Polruan. The pajama-clad half-French child was watching cartoons on a luridly jumpy TV screen as we pulled on our packs for the last time – and left at 8:45, fifteen minutes early.
On village paths we climbed up around the headland. The day resembled yesterday in its clarity, its views, and its brilliance, but there was one happy difference. There was a lovely cool breeze blowing at us throughout our morning progress and – with only two black arrows to contend with in five miles, we were able to make excellent progress.
I waited for the others to catch up with me as I watched a hawk floating without movement while I stood in a patch of shade after beginning our descent into Talland Bay. Once again there was a diversion sign but this time we did not have to travel far from our original path to find a new descent to the bridge over a little stream, emerging at a kiosk – yet to open – and loos, into which the girls disappeared.
We soon passed a small flat-topped island with a pelt of grass on top called Aesop’s Bed. Then we reached another headland at the Hore Stone and began to round Portnadler Bay. No one seemed in the mood to rest and, with our early start, I began to have visions of our completing our five miles in time for the 11:30 train.
Looe Island
The first houses of West Looe had just begun to appear ahead of us as we approached Looe Island – a mile or so from the end. Margie was ahead of me and the Lees were trailing but I could hear their voices coming down the trail as I waited for them. What I heard next was the unmistakable sound of a body crashing to the ground. I rushed back up the trail to discover Tosh in a heap in a grass ditch next to the trail! Our most sure-footed walker had put a foot wrong and slipped off the path. She seemed to have survived without any broken limbs and asked only for some assistance in detaching herself from her pack. As Harold and I helped her to her feet it was possible to see what damaged had been sustained. She had come crashing down on her right eye, still wearing her regular glasses and her sun clip-ons. There didn’t seem to me any damage to the eye itself but a huge egg was ascending her right eyebrow and it was obvious that the eye would soon be swollen closed. I wiped some dirt from her face with my handkerchief and we gave her a drink of water. Her glasses were bent but not broken. As unfortunate as this accident would have been for anyone else, there were even worse implications for Tosh – since she can see out of one eye only at the best of times and it was now swelling shut.
We decided to continue at a steady pace to Looe so that Tosh could complete the walk before we had to lead her around by the elbow. Margie was soon taking a first look at the shiner and Tosh was already beginning to worry that if she reported herself to her Acton GP the latter would be certain to harbor suspicions that Harold was a wife-beater. Fortunately, behind her dark glasses, Tosh did not attract much notice as we sped along on wide tracks, over grassy fields, and onto the roadside verges of Looe.
Looe
There was much holiday activity in evidence and we had to dodge many other pedestrians and their dogs as we made our way into Looe harbor and headed for a bridge to the other side. Tosh had announced that she wanted to stop off at a chemists to see if they had anything for the eye. “Maybe you don’t need a chemist,” I said, “you need a butcher.” The tide was out and boats lay on the muddy bottom of the river as we neared the bridge. Across it, in East Looe, I spotted a Boots and Tosh soon entered its crowded precincts. The chemist was suitably horrified by her injury but there wasn’t much to be done, and we were still in time for the 11:30 train. Margie bought us some apples and we walked north to the halt.
We didn’t have much of a wait and we were soon aboard the Looe Valley line, an interesting survival in this day of high technology: at one point the conductor had to put on his orange BR vest and switch tracks for us so that the driver, changing train ends, could shunt us up the hill into Liskeard Station. We walked around the corner to the next platform and almost immediately climbed aboard a train for Plymouth. Here we had about a fifty-minute wait, just enough time for us to have lunch in the buffet. I had an egg and tomato sandwich and a Dime bar.
The Paddington train, which left at about 1:30, began at Plymouth – so there wasn’t too much of a problem finding seats. I sat next to Margie, with the Lees in front of us. I ate my apple and drank the last of my orange juice cartons. The train was full of unappealing young people leaking rock and roll from their earphones. The Lees and Margie got off in Reading in order to take the local to Ealing Broadway and shortly after 5:00 I reached Paddington, having added fifty-one more miles to my coast path totals.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: