Sunday 24 May 2026

Day 30 of walking
Falmouth to Portloe
Distance: 20.62 km
Total distance: 599.28 km
Climbing: 807 m
Total climb: 19,607 m

English summer arrived today. A cloudless, windless, sunny day. The forecast said it would get up to 22° but it felt hotter than that in the afternoon. The easy walking was in the morning and the harder walking was after 3pm in the afternoon with two up and down headlands to get over before Portloe. We were getting tired by then, ran out of water for the last half hour or so and were wilting in the sun but we are experienced enough to know we are strong enough mentally and physically to keep going.

The day started with an early breakfast at the Membly Hotel and then a 2km walk through the town to the ferry to take us to St Mawes. Falmouth was deserted with hardly a person or dog in sight. Such a contrast to the chaos of yesterday. The ferry was £11 each for the 25 minute crossing to St Mawes and there were about a dozen on the first sailing. The ferry can take up to 100. It chugged along slowly, about the pace I used to kayak! The water was like a mirror. The ferry ticket collector told us yesterday was the annual Castle to Castle ocean swim from Pendennis Castle to St Mawes Castle, a direct line swim of a mile, and the conditions had been ideal. I don’t know how they get on with boat traffic as the Carrick Roads are a very busy sea lane.

Coming into St Mawes you pass the matching Henry VIII Castle to the Pendennis Castle on the Falmouth side. At St Mawes you don’t even get off the quay. There is another little seasonal ferry service that takes you from St Mawes across the mouth of the Fal’s tributary, the Percuil River, to a place called Place. £6.55 each for a fast, short crossing. As we got off the first ferry we were hustled onto the second ferry that was just about to depart. Place has a large manor house with its own church. It was Sunday so we poked our noses into the church, unusual in that it has a cruciform plan.

After leaving the church it was now 10 o’clock and we were just starting the day’s walk. It was easy walking along an undulating grass path passing a succession of small beaches. Porthbeor, Towan, Portscatho, Porthbean, Pendower. The ones with car parking were very popular and even the ones without, had plenty of users who were prepared to walk to their favourite, private spot. There were long lines at ice cream vans and cafes that sold cold drinks. A lot of people were in swimming and we took our shoes and socks off at Portbean Beach to cool our hot feet in the sea. We were wishing we had our swimming togs with us as the water was warm enough for us to have a dip. From now on they, and a small towel, will go into the day pack, along with the rain coats.

The last part of the day was hard because of the sun. There were short sections of woodland but mostly out in the open crossing fields. Nare Head and Manare Point were both hot, steep climbs, and just as you think you will never get there, Portloe appears, tucked into a tiny little cove. It has a narrow slipway, The Lugger, a very nice hotel we stayed at last time, a very nice pub, The Ship Inn, we ate at last time, a church and about 3 dozen houses. We are not staying in Portloe tonight, this is another one of our transfers. We were to meet Shane (female) at 5pm and she would collect us and take us inland to her Jago Cottages B & B, about a 10 minute drive away. We arrived in Portloe  a bit after 4pm, Barbara rang her, and she immediately came and picked us up. It is very comfortable and attached to her farm house. It has a fridge, toaster etc, things we don’t normally get. If it had a microwave it would be fully self-contained. It is not near any place for dinner and Shane offered to drive us back to the Ship Inn but we were too done to think about going out again. We knew about the dinner situation and bought a vegetable pastie earlier in the day in Portscatho to have for dinner. Sorry folks a pastie is just not worth photographing as dinner. When we arrived there was a slab of home made fruit cake waiting for us. It was woofed down before I remembered to get a photo of it.

Tomorrow morning Shane will drive us back down to the coast at Portloe where we continue our walking. This weekend is a bank holiday weekend and the weather forecast is for more of today, so we can expect the path and the beaches to be busy again.