St Just to Porthcurno, 20 km, 475 metres of climbing

‘All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking’. Nietzsche

 Today started out an easy walk along the cliffs, gradually flattening out to provide a gentle approach through sand dunes to Whitesand Bay (coffee stop) and Sennen Cove (loo stop). Not long after leaving Cape Cornwall we had come to the Ballowal Barrow, This is a bronze age funerary monument. In the centre of the barrow was a mound surrounded by two concentric drystone walls. Inside the ring of walls were five small stone lined chambers known as cists, some which had bronze age pottery and probably held cremations. Two pits forming a T shape may have been graves. This barrow was discovered in 1878 and the excavations and some alterations done at that time make the site difficult to understand today.

From the start this morning we had been able to see the headland of Land’s End. It took us about four hours to get there and we had mixed feelings about what to expect. We had read that the rugged beauty of the coastland was spoilt by a huge coach and car park, a massive hotel, bars and restaurants, a shopping village and masses of children’s theme park rides. It wasn’t too bad and had sort of been done ‘tastefully’. We had the obligatory photo taken in front of the Land’s End sign post with the distances to John O’Groats and New York. The sign post is inside a fence and by paying some money they will put up the distance to your home town and you get photographed in front of it. We didn’t bother –  it’s 11,796 miles from Land’s End to Paraparaumu in case you’re interested. We had a look at ‘The First and Last House’ and walked through the shopping village without buying anything, and got out of there. The path was busy for about half a kilometre and then it was back to the beautiful rugged isolation.

The next three hours were rugged and isolated. Great granite headlands and massive rock outcrops. It was quite windy and felt like it might rain. We were feeling pretty tired when we suddenly dropped down into the tiny cove of Porthgwarra which had a tiny café, The Cove Café.  A lovely hot chocolate revived us and we set out for Porthcurno. Just short of Porthcurno is the fabulous Minack Theatre.

Minack Theatre is an extraordinary open-air theatre constructed above a gully with a rocky granite outcrop perched above the Atlantic Ocean. It is the creation of Rowena Cade, who by hand, with two of her gardeners, moved endless granite boulders and earth to make terraces. The first performance was in 1932 in a much smaller theatre than we saw today. The theatre continued to expand and improve until Rowena’s death in 1983. The theatre operates from May to September with childrens and adults, matinee and evening sessions. It operates rain or shine, bring your own cushion. We were there about four in the afternoon and a rehearsal of Hamlet was taking place, so we stayed and watched the last act.

Today was our 17^th day of 34 on the South West Coast Path so we have reached our halfway point. We are slightly over half way for distance traveled. We are still full of energy and enthusiasm and enjoying every minute of it.  That’s not totally true, sometimes we are tired, hungry, thirsty, sick to death of stumbling over stones, climbing stiles and opening and closing gates. But not much.