As I stepped off the train in St. Ives, where I was greeted by my four fellow hikers, and looked out over the twisted, picture-book streets of the town -- a larger town than I'd expected -- I knew I was going to love Cornwall. What I didn't yet fully realize was that Cornwall, in return, had some physical demands in store for me.
My college friend Jim, his brother John, and their respective wives Dorothy and Ann had hiked with me last year in Scotland. This year's hike was to be more wildly scenic, and considerably more physically demanding than had been Scotland's "Great Glen Way." In nine days of actual hiking, our official mileage was 99 miles. But several of our accommodations were located somewhat off the trail, and my phone's pedometer gave me a total of 111 miles.
We began the hike in St. Ives and hiked counter-clockwise along the coast to Falmouth. The largest town between those endpoints fell midway at Penzance, where we spent a rest day. (Although I "rested" by logging another 6.9 miles just wandering around Penzance.)
The first day was extremely difficult hiking -- not because of altitude changes, but because of the rocky terrain we passed over. At times, the trail was nothing more than a route over fields of boulders. That first day was only six miles, but felt much longer. The second day was longer, but not quite so difficult, and the trail became increasingly conventional as the days passed.
The scenery was magnificent -- rugged coast lines, with rocky promontories and sandy coves. Historically, this was smuggler country, where locals considered smuggling simply another profession. Shipping was important, and sailing was difficult along the Cornish coastline. Salvage of wrecked ships, like smuggling, was just another way to make a living. As one church leader prayed:
Dear Lord, we hope that there be no shipwrecks, but if there be, let them be in St. Just for the benefit of the inhabitants.
It was also mining country -- tin, which was an important export from Neolithic times up until the 20th century, and the beautiful serpentine rock. The mines and smelters are abandoned today, but the structures are still in place -- stately stone buildings, in various stages of ruin, reminiscent of ruined castles and fortifications.
We arose each morning to a sumptuous breakfast, then hiked all day -- perhaps stopping for tea and cake if we happened on a tea house, often stopping for an improvised lunch, until finally -- finally -- we arrived at the next night's accommodation. The names of the towns in which we slept ring with the accents of Cornwall -- St. Ives, St. Just, Porthcurno, Penzance, Porthleven, Lizard Village, Coverack, Mawnan Smith, and Falmouth.
Every B&B or small hotel was different, every proprietor's personality was unique. Including that amazing woman in Coverack who, in "high camp" accent, called us her "darlings," greeted us with gin and tonics as she introduced us to her bohemian friends, insisted that we bathe blisters in a bath of vodka, and, with a wink, suggested I leave my key in the door in case she decided to visit me at night. It wasn't the Marriott.
We saw, of course, the most westerly point in England (Land's End), as well as the most southerly (the Lizard). We also saw the beautiful Mount St. Michael -- cousin of the related French abbey at Mont St-Michel -- which is reachable by foot only during low tide. We saw a monument at the spot where the first transatlantic "message" was sent (to Newfoundland) and received -- a simple Morse code "S" (dot dot dot).
Two of our hikers suffered severe blisters, and left the hike by summoned taxi at noon on successive days. Spirits remained high, however, and after a day or so of recovery, both were back on the trail.
We finished our odyssey in historic Falmouth, where we visited the excellent maritime museum, and where I discovered monuments celebrating the the place where the first news arrived in England of Nelson's triumph at Trafalgar, and the place where Darwin returned to England on his craft, the Beagle. It was hard to forget that England was a seafaring nation, a nation that considered the sea both its highway to the world and its defense against invasion.
Jim and I left Falmouth by train for London, where we were later met by Dorothy. London -- very much the England of the cosmopolitan present, after a week of dwelling in its picturesque past. As mentioned in an earlier post, I was enticed by Jim and Dorothy to a Mark Knopfler concert at Greenwich's O2 Arena, joining tens of thousands of enraptured spectators. It was, um, loud.
We spent our last night watching a local production of Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution. Somehow, Jim and I ended up cast as members of the jury. We of course vote for acquittal, to our later bemused chagrin. Excellent production, very good acting. Clever jurors.
Would I do it all again? Of course. But there are other hikes in Britain, just waiting to be sampled.
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** "Welcome to Cornwall." In Cornish, a Celtic language closely related to both Welsh and Breton.
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