Day 64, Gwithian to Botallack (Planned: St. Agnes to Balnoon), Tue 8 Sep

Summary

Today's distance: ~33.8 km (21 miles)

Total distance: 1603 km (996 miles)

Distance to go: 26 km (16 miles)

Report
We had breakfast at 7:30 am and I was back on the road, just before Gwithian, at 8:40 am. The weather was overcast, tending towards rain. I reached Hayle in good time and stopped to take a photograph of the memorial to Rick Rescorla (?) who was born in Hayle and lost his life helping fellow employees in the evacuation of one of the twin towers during the 9/11 terrorist attack. I thought it might be of interest to my readers in the US, including my son Colin, who organises this blog, and now resides in Connecticut.

While taking the photograph l was spotted by a friend of Ricks who provided me with extra information about him and mentioned the fact that there is a website dedicated to his memory. He also pointed me towards a pictorial display of some of Hayle's interesting industrial history.

He also gave me dire warnings against following my proposed route across the moors. I took the road to Lelant Dons with one of my famous ''long cuts'' near Splattenridden. I stopped someone, Nick Ridge, to get local knowledge on my plannd route and he did not seem phazed by it. He also very kindly gave me a donation.

A little further down the road I met up with Chloe and Simone, two sisters down from London, who were out for a walk. They acted as my guides to near Nancledra and suggested my original route, via Amalveor, would be the easiest to follow on the ground. Walking with them was really enjoyable and boosted my morale for the day.

The boost was to be short lived however as l arrived at Amalveor to find the path obstructed with path closed signs. I rang the number on the sign to get detailed information but no one was in the office who knew about the closure, set up in April. The girl in the office rang back but only seemed to have details of a SWCP closure. I wonder if the sign was put in the wrong place as it talked of a slip near a cliff and no cliffs are visible on my OS map of the path west from Amalveor. In the end I decided to follow a parallel path about 1km south, starting from Embla.

I got to the farm road just north of Borifty without too much of a problem and found a path, not shown on the OS map that finished up near Tredinnick. Visibility was quite poor but by good fortune someone from the farm was arriving by car and I got useful information from her. I headed on a path to Lanyon Farm but took the wrong path at a fork. This added a few 100metres to my walk but I didn't mind as Lanyon Farm do cream teas, and they had no scone shortages! Recharged, I headed NW up the road towards the turn off to Little Bosullow, where I met up with Shiel.

Although the rain was now quite heavy l decided to walk on south west towards Tregeseal. I knew I would get the wrong path among the plethora of paths near Carn Keidjack, and get the wrong path I did. I finished up just south of Carnyorth. However I could see the farm builings and decided it would be quicker to walk on a farm access road than walk on the very boggy paths across the moor.

I met up with Shiel at Botallack from where I head via St.Just to Land's End tomorrow. Todays walk was long, at 9 1/4 hours but I find it easier now to continue a long day rather than get up early the next morning. The end is in sight and I've not yet told you of my observations of single industrial gloves, seen on at the side of many roads, or of my conversations with sheep and cows.