JOGLE 7 Day 9 Tue 9 Sep

Tue  9 Sep Start 0900 Finish 1715 Distance 18 from Portreath to St Ives.

 

We continued along the SW coastal path to Hayle which was moderate to easy and then cut down onto the road to get us onto the beach without having to go all around the headland, the beach walking part was somewhat boring. Ian took time out to conduct a scientific survey into our walking gaits. It seems that my gait thanks to the footprints and the measurements taken (by Ian using a whistle and lanyard) on the sand has been proven to be longer than his. Ian reckons in the overall JOGLE scheme of things that he has scientifically proven that I would have arrived at lands End several days before him due to my longer stride. What can I say? Had we been a bit quicker and perhaps a bit less scientific we could have crossed over the Hayle Bar as it was a low low tide and saved ourselves a  long detour up the estuary, unfortunately the tide had just started to turn and we would have been wading up to our thighs according to the life guard. So we carried on the long way round. We stopped at Johnny’s Cafe and Store for lunch (A French sort of place), where freshly baked organic bread is made every day. It is starting to get very hot with not much of a breeze about. The coastal path around these parts is not well signed especially coming into St Ives and getting out of Carbis Bay was not easy. We stopped at Carbis Bay in café/shack where it was cool and we both had a litre of coke each and spent time to cool down. We made it to St Ives in good order. The Hotel was expensive for what it was and no drying facilities as they use chemicals? We found a launderette and a really hot dryer that subsequently melted Ian’s underwear and walking top, personally I think it was due to the friction and heat generated by Ian walking and having to stride out his gait to match mine and not the fact that the tumble dryer was on super hot!  We had a nice meal out at a pizza and pasta cafe on St Ives waterfront- I tried a crispy duck pizza. We went and found the Tate gallery, although it was shut, it was made from an old gasometer. I was kept awake all night by flushing toilets, the hotel was mostly accommodating the senior generation! (So no more). We managed to see the ultra bright full moon across the bay on way back from St Ives harbour.