SWCP Day 32 – 24 Sept 2018

Zennor Head – St. Just

Mammoth would be a good word to describe this day. By far the longest walk I’ll have to do to complete the swcp (I hope).

The five km added due to the change in accommodation tipped me over into deciding to get a luggage transfer. This, of course, meant I didn’t have to worry so much about drying my tent out before strapping it on to The Beast. Since the extra water-weight wasn’t a concern, I could pack up a dew-drenched tent and hit the footpath out of Trevalgan super-early.

The hour-plus I’d taken to walk across the fields to Zennor the previous day whittled down to 45 mins on my morning power-walk. Knowing just where you have to go really does save time 🙂

The major difference, though, was the lack of wind. After two weeks of gale-force bluster, it was weird to not have to offset the strength of the wind. I didn’t have to lead into it, or against it, just to keep my balance. The human Zimmer frame me and my sticks had become wasn’t needed so much anymore. I could hear all sorts of things other than the screaming rush in my ears. All of a sudden there were buzzing insects, and singing birds, and mooing cows. The ocean, when I finally reached Zennor Head and could start on my official swcp walk that day, was nearly flat – whispering gently as it nuzzled up against the pebbles on the shore far below. The stillness was revelatory, and kind of otherworldly.

Of course, none of that awesomeness removed the challenge of the day. A ‘severe’ walk of nearly 30 km wouldn’t just magically get done simply because the day was a soft, blue-skied wonder.

From Zennor Head, the path wound crazily up and down and around dozens of scrappy, rocky headlands. Ancient, stone-walled fields partition up the landscape, but there’s not a right angle in sight, and the randomness of the landscape parallelled the path – requiring constant attention to not turn an ankle or fall flat on my face.

Just after I’d climbed down off Bosigran Cliff, where the remains of the Iron Age Bosigran Castle Settlement (probably just a watch tower) forms an impressive amount of rubble,…

…I came across two walkers who turned out to be local leaders for the SWCP association. We agreed readily that what made this section of the path so challenging was the mental focus it required. Hours and hours of rock-hopping. All very fun, of course, but exhausting.

By the time I passed Portheras Cove and hauled myself up the uninspiring lane to Pendeen Watch where the path would turn south for the final stretch to Land’s End, I was pretty much on my last legs, but I still had over eight km to go!

This section is quite different. Old mines speckle the countryside. Many of which you can explore and pretend you are a character out of Poldark. Me? I just pressed on between mounds of rubble and raw cuts in the earth. Up to Cape Cornwall it’s not all that picturesque – unless haunted landscapes of miners past is your thing. The industrial revolution might have changed the face of humanity, but it sure ain’t pretty.