Padstow to Porthcothan, 21 km, 479 metres of climbing

‘Honestly, my biggest fear about becoming a zombie is all the walking’

We woke up this morning feeling a bit sore. Not the usual sore toes, feet, ankles, calves, knees, thighs. It was sore butts. The hybrid bikes from yesterday were quite good but typical of most hire bikes they had large, wide, very soft seats. After a while we found them very uncomfortable and by the end of the ride we were a bit sore. Give us our skinny, anatomical, harder seats any day.

The first section of the path today is a very popular local walk around the Camel estuary with long sandy stretches as it was low tide. There is a very easy climb onto a picturesque length of cliffs with a coastguard look out and the 19^th century Daymark Tower, an old stone navigation aid.

The path is now on the exposed Atlantic coast and there are precipitous cliffs and sheer drops down to the sea. There are huge chunks of rock that have split off from the mainland. Walking along the cliffs there were sudden gaping holes opening up in the turf – collapsed caves perhaps? Today we also noticed an increase of wild flowers, sea pinks, cornflowers, kidney vetch, reaching down the cliffs almost to the sea.

We then came to an easy walking section with golden sandy beaches between headlands. Trevone Bay, Harlyn Bay, Constantine Bay, Treyarnon Beach, are all very popular swimming and surfing beaches. All with life guards on duty, all the facilities, and surf schools and surf board hire. There was a bit of onshore wind today and the surf at most beaches was pretty boisterous. The air temp was 17°C and the water temp 11°C. Just about everybody in the water wore wet suits.

We walked across the sand on most beaches, which was a nice change, but the sand was soft and used up a lot more energy than walking on the clay or grass paths on the cliffs. This section of the path was quite busy, there are holiday parks, camping grounds, roads and car parks at all the beaches. For us this means there are facilities, ie toilets, food and drink. It is great walking on the lonely desolate cliffs but there are no facilities out there.

Today was the first time we came across our destination before we really expected it. Usually the last few kms of the day are a bit of a grind to get to the accommodation. We are staying in a 1930s bungalow with just two guest rooms. It was a 10 min walk to the only pub, the blandest, most characterless pub in all of Cornwall.