St. Ives to Penzance – Another Ardith and Fred Adventure

The Cornwall Coast

Our third and most recent hike in the UK was undertaken six years ago.  Friends’ glowing reports and website photos of the coast of Cornwall made this seem like an idyllic hike along level or slightly undulating clifftop paths offering a stunning view of the ocean waves below.  Somehow, we missed the websites that described the walk as challenging, rugged, and not for the faint of heart. 

The entire Cornwall coastal walk stretches 630 miles.  Although we did only a fraction of this, the repetitive steep and rocky ups and downs and the countless stiles made it seem an arduous task with but short reprieves of relatively level stretches.  At one point, facing the 5^th stile of the day, Ardith asserted that she was not going to climb over one more stile!  Of course, there was no choice but to soldier on, up and down, and over whatever lay ahead. Below is our memory of this last hiking adventure in the UK.

June 2016 found Fred Elder and Ardith Meier, with backpacks and luggage in tow, on a flight to Toronto, Canada. We had minimal connection time in Toronto, during which we had to formally enter Canada while racing to our next flight, a less than half-full Boeing 767 to Manchester, England. 

For this trip to Cornwall, we had multiple purposes.  First and most importantly, we were to participate in a first viewing of a commemorative bench on the rugged coast of Yorkshire, built and placed in memory of Ardith’s longtime and good friend Monika from Vienna. The bench had been inscribed with part of a poem Ardith had written. The bench was located near the town of Bempton, the chalk cliffs of which are known for their array of seabirds such as puffins and gannets. (We stayed in the near-by community of Bridlington, a community of about 35,000 which is 4 miles from Bempton.)  Our memorial time was filled with friends, family members, champagne and flowers – and especially with fond memories of Monika.  The day in Bempton was full and rich!

June 10, a Friday, was another day filled with memories, friends, toasting, and beach walking.  One of the people we met was Mike, the man who had designed and built the bench, also a friend of Monika’s.  Connections were made with Monika’s siblings that have continued to this day.

June 11 marked our departure day to the coast of Cornwall, so we bid adieu and began the day’s journey, which involved crossing a good bit of England as we travelled on a diagonal line to St. Ives, which was the beginning of our coastal walking adventure.  Taxi, bus, and airplane were our modes of transportation. Our first leg to St. Ives involved a three-hour taxi ride to Manchester Airport.  Next was a one-and-a-half-hour flight to Newquay on the north coast of Cornwall.  Upon arrival at Newquay Airport, we again found ourselves in a taxi, this time bound for the bus station in Newquay. We learned that the bus to St. Ives was delayed 1.5 hours; so, schlepping backpacks and bags, we headed to a restaurant near the bus station.  For unknown reasons, the gas was off at the restaurant, so salads remained the sole fare and that is what we dined upon.  Finally, at 9:40 pm, we arrived in St. Ives and found Little Leaf Guesthouse perched on the top rung of a series of ascending streets and did a self-check-in with emailed instructions.  We had a nice, up-graded room overlooking the bay and town but were too knackered (Brit-speak for “exhausted”) to enjoy it and were soon in bed.

June 12 was Sunday and our day to explore St. Ives, a picturesque fishing harbor of about 11,000 inhabitants.  Following breakfast at our guesthouse, we walked down the 71 steps to the town and visited St. Ia’s church, where the Sunday service had just ended.  We were, however, politely asked to leave as it was the day of serving the Queen’s birthday meal there. 

Next, we wandered through the narrow cobblestone streets, passing small shops and fisherman’s cottages, and then walked along the harbor, admired the beaches, and enjoyed a pasty and tea harborside.  A walk along a clifftop spit of land led to the medieval St. Nicholas Chapel, a single-roomed granite building, allegedly used at one point by smugglers.  Porthmeor Beach lay below, and off to our left below, snaking along the cliff, we could see part of the path where we would find ourselves the next day. We then headed off to locate the beginning point of our hike.  It promised to be a beautiful walk with stunning vistas. 

After that we returned to the guesthouse to rest and clean up a bit for the evening meal.  We intended to eat at a renowned fish restaurant, but learned it was full until nine, so we enjoyed fish and chips at Smeaton’s instead.  After dinner it was back to the guesthouse; this time we had to climb only 27 steps as we had begun our ascent on a higher street. Off to bed we went, looking forward to our impending coastal adventure.

June 13 found us packing our backpacks before breakfast.  We were able to leave our main luggage with the guesthouse proprietor, who was very accommodating in agreeing to drop them off at our final destination of Penzance when he drove there to do some shopping. 

With breakfast behind us, we set off to the path we had found the previous day.  While the views from the path were indeed beautiful, the path, after not all that much time, turned out to be quite difficult with many up-and-down stretches exacerbated by very large steps and many rocks.  This was not a path for speed-walking!  And, it began to rain about 20 minutes into the hike.  By the time we had donned our rain gear, however, the rain had stopped, a routine to be repeated frequently throughout the hike; we eventually just kept walking and got wet.    A mile or two before Zennor, our day’s destination, we encountered a lot of boulders to climb over, making our seven-mile hike seem at least twice that far, especially since we encountered a severe grade virtually the entire distance. 

We were very pleased when we saw the sign to the village of Zennor, D. H. Lawrence’s home from 1915 – 1917.  Upon arrival in Zennor (population 200), we had a tea (Fred) and beer (Ardith) at Tinner’s Arms, a dark low-ceilinged pub that required Fred to bend over to enter, It could have been a scene from Poldark, which was, in fact, set in Cornwall.  After much-needed imbibement, we strolled over to the 12^th century St. Senara’s Church but found the door locked, so we examined the Celtic cross outside. 

We then traversed a field path to Tremedda Farm, our B&B.  There we were shown to our room in the barn, where we cleaned up before retracing our steps across the field to Tinner’s Arms for our evening repast, this time in a more modern adjacent room.  Ardith had sweet potato curry and Fred had smoked haddock with potatoes (mashed) and spinach.  The meal concluded with excellent carrot cake and clotted cream.  Then back across the field we plodded and happily sank into bed. We were beginning to get an inkling of the error of thinking this would be an idyllic stroll along the coast.

June 14 saw us off well-fortified with a hearty breakfast.  We crossed the field to return to the coastal path.  The path was again anything but easy walking, although the views were impressive, that is, if we dared take our eyes off our footing on the path.  Our evening destination was St. Just, but by late afternoon we were both losing our hiking verve from repeated scrambling up and down steep rocky paths in relatively warm temperatures.  So, we left the coastal path and walked to Pendeen instead, where we waited awhile to catch the local bus to St. Just.  When we got off the bus in St. Just, we found our way to the Kings Arms (a pub), where they provided us with a phone number for a local taxi.  We phoned the taxi and were soon on our way to Boswedden House, our B&B, which was a sort of writer’s retreat. 

We cleaned up (slowly – it had been a difficult day), then walked back to the Kings Arms for our just reward.  We each had a seafood curry and shared a sticky toffee pudding with clotted cream for dessert – quite good!!  We caught up on email at the Kings Arms and then walked back to our B&B and bed.  Nothing was left of our illusions of effortless walking along level clifftop paths.

June 15 – Today’s hike started at Boswedden House in St. Just and ended at Treen House.  It was a long, difficult day, struggling, as usual, with steep rocky ascents and descents. One descent emerged from the bushes onto a very narrow path positioned right at the edge of the cliff.  The image of this as well as the feeling of “here it goes” upon making the huge step down and hoping for the best remains stamped in memory. Somehow the beautiful view was not the focus — survival was!  

Near the end of the day, after continuing to navigate the unending ruggedness of the coastal path, our hearts sunk when we espied the next part of the walk, which involved descending along the cliff wall on a long stretch of steep and narrow rocky steps, with no railing (!). These steps that led down to Porthcurno Beach appeared suicidal, given our fatigue. Also, if, by a miracle, we would survive the descent, a long, steep ascent from the beach to Treen would follow. (Was it a masochist who plotted this route?) None of this appeared to be a choice a sane person would make.

As we were standing there, stunned into indecision, we had the good fortune t0 encounter an Englishman (Gary) near the cliff steps, who shared our sentiments.  He was a metaphorical step ahead of us, however, and had figured out a “work-around” and helped direct us to a wondrously level road and a public walking path devoid of rocks.  After walking part way together, Gary headed for a somewhat different destination and disappeared into the distance.  Ardith viewed him as an angel of sorts.  We were exhausted after having covered about 13 ½ miles of challenging terrain; the sight of our B&B was welcome indeed.  After shedding our backpacks and freshening up, we felt somewhat restored and managed to drag ourselves to the Logan Rock Inn, a 16th century traditional village pub, only a short walk away. We shared a seafood platter for two, which was nicely done and generously endowed with crab.  After our repast we slowly trod back to our B&B and bed!

June 16  Over our continental breakfast the next morning, still licking our wounds, so to speak from the previous day, we decided to shorten our walking day, and so headed to the bus station.  We took the bus from Treen to Lemorna Cove – how wonderful to view the world from a seated position, winding through roads shaded by ponderous green trees. Time has a way of decreasing the perception of distance and very soon we were getting off the bus at Lemorna Cove, where we briefly contemplated its natural beauty, and then, after crossing a footbridge, took a deep breath and headed up (quite literally) the trail, which was quite narrow at the beginning and again too close for comfort to the cliff edge.  Large rocks and giant steps stretched our legs and tested our abused muscles.  The trail eventually led through a nature reserve and woods, including one very steep section around Penzer Point. We got a bit off the trail near a coastal watch station, but soon rejoined it.  Finally, it was only approximately 2 ½ miles to the

fishing village of Mousehole, where we ate a pasty and drank tea (Fred) and soda (Ardith).

There was now light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak, as only 5 miles remained to be trod to our final destination of Penzance, which is the most westerly major town of Cornwall, population about 21,000. We easily found our lodgings, Elmsdale Guesthouse, and were ever so happy to be done with steep ascents, descents, narrow cliff paths, and rocks and boulders. The luggage delivery had been made and we were re-united with our clean clothes, non-hiking clothes – civilization re-entered!  We cleaned up and headed to Turk’s Head Inn, the oldest pub in Penzance,  for a victory dinner.  Ardith had a seafood pie (which was served in a shell) and Fred had fish and chips.  We walked about town and inspected a church, the harbor, and shops.  We then headed back to our guesthouse and there learned of the assassination of Jo Cox, a member of Parliament, by a deranged man. 

June 17 found us enjoying a leisurely breakfast at Elmsdale House, from which we walked to town in drizzling rain.  We checked out the bus and train depot as we would need them the following day, and decided it was too wet to walk to St. Michael’s Mount, a sight well worth visiting, about 5 miles away.  

St. Michael’s Mount is a tidal island in Mount’s Bay, and the home to an imposing castle. (In the 1979 film Dracula, the mount was used as the exterior of the Dracula Castle; it also appeared in the 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, as nuclear missiles fly over England and out to sea and pass directly over it.) The island is linked to the town of Marazion by a stone causeway, which one can walk across between mid-tide and low water. So, due to the weather, we jumped into the Jordan Taxi, conveniently parked at the train/bus station, to ride to Marazion and the beginning of the walkway to St. Michael’s Mount.  We were able to walk over the half-mile walkway as the tide was out and the walkway exposed.  Once across, we looked around a bit before purchasing tickets to tour the castle.  We were not yet done, it seemed, with treacherous walking as the castle was accessed only by ascending a massive staircase, whose stones were wet and very slippery, offering no traction.  Once in the castle, we took a self-guided walking tour. It was most interesting as in its long history, the castle had served as a home for Catholic monks, as a fortification, and as a private residence.  Today, some descendants of the owner still live in part of the castle.  We wandered through the castle for about two hours and then walked down to the castle cafe for cake and tea.

The tide was now coming in, so our return to the mainland had to be via ferry.  First, however, we had to face a precarious descent on the slippery stone steps. The drizzle had almost stopped, but the walk down the steps was no less wet.  It was with relief that the last step was taken to terra firma. After we made our way back to Marazion on the ferry, we decided to walk along the coast from Marazion to Penzance, made a bit longer by needing to backtrack a bit after ignoring a detour sign.  When we got back to Penzance, we explored the town, where Fred had a Walker’s pasty and tea and Ardith a sandwich.  Next, we returned to Elmsdale Guesthouse, checked email, and made a dinner reservation at Admiral Benbow, a well-known local restaurant. 

We left about 6:30 to walk to dinner and found Admiral Benbow quite interesting. Upon descending the narrow dark stairs into the lower-level restaurant, we found ourselves in something akin to a ship.  All walls, plus the ceiling, were totally covered with actual pieces of old ships – intriguing.  Fred had plaice (European flounder) and Ardith had Moroccan meat balls.  Surprisingly, we had no dessert.  Upon returning to our accommodation, we phoned a taxi service to arrange for them to pick us up in time to catch the National Express bus the next morning.  To bed and the end of our Cornwall walking adventure.

June 18 was a travel day, but mercifully not on foot.  We were up very early, which precluded enjoyment of the regular breakfast, but the proprietor of the B&B was kind enough to set out croissants and orange juice for us.  By 7:30, we were quickly (and somewhat sleepily) out the door and in the taxi to the bus station to catch the National Express Bus to Newquay, where we transferred to Coastal Travel Taxi and the Newquay Airport. At the small airport we encountered some hassle involving bag weights before boarding a turboprop to Stansted Airport, about 42 miles northeast of central London.

We had thought that we could walk from Stansted Airport to the Hilton Hotel, where we had reservations, but after ending up in a blind alley (literally), we returned to the airport and found a shuttle to the hotel.  After checking in, we rested and felt a bit odd being in such an accommodation. Upon considering possibilities, we concluded our only dinner choice was the hotel, in a dining room very different from our dining environs of the past week.  Fred ordered barbeque ribs and Ardith roast chicken.  Dinner concluded with Ardith splurging on a cheese board and wine and Fred on pecan pie with ice cream.  Next was a little TV, a little email, and bed.

June 19 was a Sunday and another travel day, this time with Vienna as our destination.  We checked in on-line for Eurowings and tried to understand its obscure baggage policy – impossible!  There was time for a soak in the hot-tub, a boon to hiking muscles, followed by breakfast, and then we were in the shuttle to Stansted Airport.  At Stansted we had to wait for the Eurowings check-in desks to open before joining a large crowd for security and departures.

Suddenly, amidst a large back-up at security, an alarm went off in the terminal.  We looked around. The scene remained strangely unaltered; no one left the building and few even looked askance.  In fact, the crowd grew and more people entered the airport as the alarm continued to blare.  Finally, without explanation, the alarm ceased.  The crowd then began to move slowly and we continued a long walk, which included traversing a shopping area, to a train that took us to our gate.  Finally, we boarded the plane and were in the air to Vienna. 

We landed on time about 6:00pm and barely caught the bus for the city; about 45 minutes later we were at the West Bahnhof (West Train Station) bus stop and then took a taxi to our apartment, which we entered via a lockbox key.  We immediately started unpacking and washing.  It was high time to enjoy a relaxed evening meal outdoors at a nearby Italian restaurant.  We had a very nice meal, which started with a small plate of olives and ended with profiteroles and chocolate sauce.  Next we nipped into the nearby Billa (a medium-priced supermarket chain) at Franz Joseph train station to purchase breakfast items and water.  We walked home in a light rain, did some email, hung up the wash and crawled into bed a bit after midnight.

OK – we were in Vienna.  This part of  our trip was also fun and included many interesting (at least to us) activities in Vienna and surrounds, a trip to Nuremburg, and more.  But the Cornwall walk of 2016 was now well ended so this story is now also ended.  We would probably never consider doing this walk again, but we were indeed glad to have experienced it AND to have it behind us!!  We experienced the ups and downs of the Southwest Coastal Walk in all its “glory.”