Backpacks and blisters - the walking thread

[Sits]

My Dad was always late everywhere. When he took my brother and me across that causeway the tide was just about in by the time we reached the Mount and we all got wet feet and flares.

[Paul S]

Marazion to Mullion today and the weather was overcast with a fairly strong wind which made walking difficult occasionally. I stopped for lunch in Porthleven, a place I know of from the FA Vase when they were drawn against a team from Northumberland (Bedlington Terriers I think) and had the longest journey for an English fixture.

Tomorrow I walk round Lizard Point which I am quite excited about. Here's a picture of the harbour and church that overlook Porthleven harbour. Quite a famous photo during a storm I am told.

[Paul S]

I had a stunning walk today from Mullion to Lizard Point over low lying moorland which gives fantastic views in all directions. Lizard Point has an excellent cafe and I can recommend their donuts!

A long slog after that up the eastern coast of the Lizard to The Paris Hotel, Coverack. The hotel is named after the ocean liner SS Paris which was wrecked on the headland in 1899.

[Paul S]

The view from my room :

[Sits]

Aren’t you tempted to stay there forever Paul?

[Paul S]

No not really. My hobby is hillwalking and I love the change in environments I walk through. Sometimes salt marsh, then hills, cliffs an industrial port. The change keeps me going and alive. It also keeps my mind off the news and coronavirus. Stay safe everyone.

[Paul S]

Doing this walk with the coronavirus outbreak makes me think about Wainwright when he did the Pennine Way back in 1939. The outbreak of war was imminent and in his book he tells how the news changed as he went further north.

Tomorrow I'm on the last sleeper train out of Cornwall until this outbreak is over.

[Sits]

No not really. My hobby is hillwalking and I love the change in environments I walk through. Sometimes salt marsh, then hills, cliffs an industrial port. The change keeps me going and alive. It also keeps my mind off the news and coronavirus. Stay safe everyone.

You too Paul.

[Paul S]

Major milestone reached today in the village of Porthallow.

[Arturo]

Paul, I'm loving this and it's bringing back so many memories. We stayed in Marazion three years ago (your photos of St Michael's Mount are identical to mine) and I walked the path between Lizard Point and Coverack over a decade back. The weather and scenery of the latter trip remain one of my favourite holiday highlights.

(edit - I also did St Ives to Zennor too)

You're in the best place at the moment.

[Nocturnal Submission]

Major milestone reached today in the village of Porthallow.

Half of those sound like diseases from the Middle Ages.

[Paul S]

I have come to the end of my walk from St Ives to Falmouth. It's been a great trip, I've seen lots of things, met lots of people and met a lot of dogs and their owners. Tonight is the last sleeper train from Penzance to Paddington until the coronavirus outbreak has finished.

I have a book at home written by the great Alfred Wainwright when he walked the Pennine Way in 1939. He described the descent into war, how things changed as he walked further north. As I have walked this path, coronavirus has gone from a joke to lost bookings, cancelled quiz nights and now a lock down.

My big wish right now is for all my friends and family to stay safe and that includes people from OTF.

Good night from the Night Riviera from Penzance to Paddington.

[Sits]

Thank you Paul,for,a lovely bit of escape, all the very best.

[elguapo4]

You've had the best week of us all, I've been reading this with a lot of envy.

[Nefertiti2]

Good night Paul. Safe journey. And thanks for sharing.

[San Bernardhinault]

Awesome stuff, Paul.

Also your comments about your walk, and Wainwright, put me in mind of Patrick Leigh Fermor's "The Time Of Gifts" as he walked through Germany and Mitteleuropa in 1933-34 seeing the very end of the old order and the rise of the new.

[Arturo]

Nighty Night Paul. Thoroughly enjoyed reading it all.

[Moonlight Shadow]

Thanks for the dispatches Paul. Apt mention of 'Pennine Journey's there...Glad no mention of water bottles were made...

[longeared]

Great stuff that Paul, really enjoyed it.

Went walking in Derbyshire myself today. Fucking hell it was busy! There was nobody on the trains but everywhere else was absolutely packed with people, it looked like a sunny bank holiday. This was out round Ladybower and Bamford Edge, a friend out near Edale reported it was the same there. Presumably this is all because going to the countryside is one of the few leisure activities currently available.

[Foot of Astaire's]

[Foot of Astaire's]

[Foot of Astaire's]

[Foot of Astaire's]

^^ a few from yesterday's walk around Bedgellert and Snowdonia. Took around 3 & a half hours and we saw probably less than a dozen people. I hear it was somewhat busier today

[Lurgee]

I did one of those rambling things yesterday. Fourteen kilometres long, with 855 vertical metres (or whatever they're called) uphill and 735 downhill.

I was wearing unflattering clothes, which got fucking filthy, and I stank like a ferret at the end*. This makes me a proper rambler, doesn't it?

* That could also describe one of my typical work days in summer.

Am I missing something here? How did you get back to your car (or golf hut) if you descended fewer metres than you ascended? Are you still stuck on the hillside somewhere and this is a coded cry for us to come and rescue you?

Or is there some clever, exclusive rambler way of dividing metres up and down into ones that count and ones that don't, and I just amn't in the know?

[Paul S]

Some lovely pictures there Foot of Astaire, where were they taken?