Headlines
Breakfast: at last, a good breakfast muesli !
We Walk to Looe: a tough start and unpleasant weather
Lunch in Looe: not great, just exactly what we want
We Walk Back to Polperro: a much more pleasant walk
Dinner at Home
Stream of Consciousness
Breakfast: at last, a good breakfast muesli !
With a week of self-catering, we bought new supplies. Mostly for breakfast. Today, we tried the cereals.
Deb has Kellogs Fruit 'n' Fibre. We had it in the Welsh hotel and it tasted quite good. Good enough for Deb to buy enough for a week of breakfasts. My cereal is "dorset cereals' simply fruity muesli". And it's excellent!
I've tried various packaged mueslis. They all have two major faults. First, an insistence on including huge amounts of rat droppings... sorry, bran. As though we all eat muesli for health and bad taste proves that it's healthy. Yuk :-( Second fault is the dried fruit and nuts... You're eating a cereal and suddenly -- a tooth-breaking nut, or a jaw-straining lump of fossilised fruit. Yuk, again :-(
This dorset cereals stuff has a good quantity of dried fruit -- none of it pre-Cambrian. And no tooth-breaking nuts at all. Also... it tastes delicious :-) I eat two helpings.
We Walk to Looe: a tough start and unpleasant weather
Just before ten am, we set off for Looe. Along the Coastal Path, with a few detours. First detour is out our front door, turn right, go up Talland Hill...
It's steep. Thirty to forty degree climb. Scary in a car, hard work on foot. Deb keeps saying, Are we there yet? It's just short of a kilometre before we reach the top. Phew!
At the top is Killigrath Village. Or holiday resort? Perhaps both. We cut through, heading towards a geocache. It's all very peaceful... Bank Holiday weekend but perhaps the weather has kept people away.
The geocache is supposed to be in a hedge. We look at the blackberries and thistles and decide, no, we won't even look.
There's another cache, just outside the village. We find that one, easily. The log is wet, too wet to write on. We'll log it on the website and note, "needs maintenance".
We have bypassed the actual Coastal Path. Now we head off along a narrow lane, to catch the Path at Talland Bay. The weather is cloudy, spitting rain, blowing a chilly wind. I'm wearing my raincoat and complaining about the weather.
The road down to Talland Bay is steep! Very steep! We're glad that we're going down, and will be following the Coastal Path on the way back. More on that later...
Along the Path... Spitting rain, cold wind... With my raincoat hood up, all I can see is a tunnel ahead. If I turn my head I stare inside the hood -- and tend to fall over. With my raincoat hood down -- I'm cold and getting wetter. Mumble, grumble... I enjoy the walking but not the walking conditions.
A dozen or so small groups are walking in the opposite direction, and a few in our direction. Mixed expressions, from smiles to scowls. Disposable plastic raincoats are doing a good trade today in Looe!
It's a five mile walk there, eight kilometres. Five miles back. Both Deb and I are considering taking a taxi back.
Lunch in Looe: not great, just exactly what we want
It takes us two and a half hours to reach Looe. Slow but steady. Not a long walk, just bleak.
There's a celebration on the west side of the river. A lot of people but not crowded. We stay on the nearer, quieter side of the river. Mostly because it's a long way to walk to the bridge across the river!
There's a solo musician on our side of the river, singing under a tent. He's quite good. Sings a variety of songs including what sounds like a local "country" song and a Buddy Holly.
There's a cafe on the corner. Fifty metres further, I spot "The oldest Inn in Looe". I like the sound of that. It's warm and snug and low inside but they don't serve lunch. We try a "food and drink every day" pub. It's almost full and there are at least twenty people waiting on the carvery. There's another restaurant but it looks far too fancy. We go back to the first cafe.
It's the Tasty Corner Cafe. Run by a husband and wife team according to signs inside. If that's them serving, an attractive wife :-) And if the waitress is their daughter, she gets her looks from her mother.
We each select the roast of the day. It's a very standard roast and veg. A good plate-full, thoroughly overcooked, very average flavour, exactly what I want. With a small serve of delicious pork crackling... Lots of salt... Could have come out of a packet... I don't care. We both clear our plates.
We also have dessert. I have treacle pudding, Deb has spotted dick. Both are delicious and large enough serves to satisfy. Feeling better now ! We watch a bus pass by -- on its way to Polperro -- but we are not tempted.
We Walk Back to Polperro: a much more pleasant walk
We've spent an hour in Looe, mostly eating lunch. We look for a geocache on the way out... no luck.
The walk home is much more pleasant. It's still raining, the cold wind is still blowing. The wind is now from in front of us so I can zip my raincoat fully closed and not get hot and sweaty. Yes, that's good, walking is much more comfortable! Also, walking towards home means that getting cold and wet is less of a worry -- we can now look forward to getting warm and dry.
There are sheep grazing in the fields. And rabbits!
Just a few people walking in either direction. A passing woman -- struggling up a hiill -- says, There's a caf round the corner! Which is good news, once we translate caf to cafe.
That's the Talland Bay cafe. We stop for tea. I have a "flapjack", an oats and butter and honey slice. Delicious!
We sit inside. It's sheltered but not particularly warm, the doors are wide open. The cafe has three shelters -- that look like changing rooms at a beach. People are having their afternoon tea in the shelters and looking no warmer than us. No-one is drinking in the open garden...
Then there's that extremely steep hill that we came down on the way out... Turns out, a part of the coastal track is closed due to unstable cliffs. Soooo... uuup we go, all the way up that long and steep hill! Oh well :-)
Half way up the hill -- we're into the clouds. At least that stops the rain!
At the top of the hill we turn back towards the coastal track. At the point where we found the water-logged geocache. Almost back at Polperro. Almost? Well, just one very long and steep mile from Polperro.
The bypass now turns off the road and goes through a farm field. It squeezes down a narrow track between a farm building and a hedge... And the cold wind is funnelled right up that track! Still, it's not too long.
A bit more following signs -- and we're back on the "actual" Coastal Path. Still a long way above the village but it's all downhill from here. Still amongst the clouds.
The Polperro harbour comes in sight... vaguely, though the mist. There are people playing on the Polperro Beach!
Almost at the harbour. We find a geocache... Hidden well, in a spot which is both dry and easy to reach. Thank you, sensible cache owner!
At the harbour -- and it is closed! That is, there's a gate -- like a river lock -- separating the harbour from the open sea. Are they expecting rough weather? I thought that was why the gate would be closed!?
And now we're back in Polperro... It's almost 4:30, a three hour walk home. About the same time as the walk out, allowing for afternoon tea on the way back. We consider buying baked beans for dinner (to eat with eggs and toast) but the shop is closed. They close at noon on Sunday.
Last climb... up the steep hill to home.
Deb checks the outside rubbish bins... They will be emptied tomorrow but have been a bit scattered by (I guess) seagulls. The rubbish bags have been packed full, the bags are overflowing from the bins, there's nothing we can do. Short of major repacking of someone else's rubbish. We'll consider a bit of a tidy up -- after we see how much rubbish is removed on Monday.
Dinner at Home
So it's into the cottage. Change into warm dry clothes. Relax.
Dinner is boiled eggs, toast, marmite and cheese. Plus a few bits and pieces.
Tomorrow... we plan to relax.
Didn't I say that yesterday?!
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Dr Nick Lethbridge / Agamedes Consulting
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"The greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing." — William Arthur Ward.
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