Tintagel Walk

After a few days of really dreadful weather, gales and rain and ice and hail and sleet (sometimes all at the same time) I was quite surprised when Sunday dawned calm, clear and even warmish. Surprised but grateful, as we'd scheduled a walk around Tintagel for the morning. A walk described in the book as 'tough' - and it was!


It didn't seem too bad to start with, crossing muddy fields from stile to stile with three dogs on leads because there was different livestock in each field (cows, sheep, horses, more sheep, etc) although the stiles were those lovely traditional Cornish stone ones with a big sharp blade on top, which the dogs don't like, and I managed to fall off the third one! Muddy but only slightly bruised I was happy enough to carry on. Down into the valley of an unnamed river at Halgabron the path took us upstream a little way, over a bridge then back up the other side of the valley, passing St Piran's well and along lanes into Rocky Valley.


Rocky Valley was somewhat of a disappointment to Roz, who remembered it from her childhood, because half of it now appears to be a holiday compound, with 'keep out' and 'dogs on leads' signs and lots of fences and lawns. We had a bit of a problem with the injunction to keep the dogs on leads because the path was very slippery, very steep, moss covered tarmac, most unsafe when being pulled along behind a dog. Still, that was only the top part of the valley, and we carried on through the rocky bit, past Trewethet Mill with its bronze age labyrinth carvings and trees decorated with votive ribbons. Not quite sure why, but there's one elaborate wind chime made from limpet shells, the caps from champagne corks and a newcastle brown ale crown cap, among other things. As we crossed the bridge below the mill we met a young lady walking in the opposite direction - the first walker we had seen all morning.


Where Rocky Valley meets the sea there is a narrow gorge into which the sea was pounding with considerable force and greater spectacle. From the top above the valley we had looked down and seen that there was a considerable swell running, but from sea level it was much rougher, after the gales of the previous few days, pounding into the gorge. The cliffs there are slate and form natural steps down the side of the gorge - tempting to the dogs, but not to me!

From there we were on the coastpath and turned back along the cliffs towards Tintagel. There had been nothing 'tough' about the walk up to this point, but the last bit was pretty difficult. There are steps cut into the steeper (well, almost all the) bits, but the whole path was very, very muddy. Climbing fifty or so steps at a time when you can feel the mud trying to suck the boots off your feet at every step is quite wearing. And then, of course, there are another fifty steps down, only to go straight back up again. Several times. Lovely views, though. Right down at the bottom of Bossinney Cliffs was a bay full of tiny surfers, a couple of hundred feet below us on the path - they must have been really dedicated to have walked so far down off the road to play, and then having to climb back up afterwards. From what I could see, they weren't getting much opportunity to surf anyway, just paddling about beyond the surf line being patient.

Half way up the third or fourth flight of mud steps we met someone coming down - the same girl who had crossed our path in Rocky Valley! I still haven't worked out how she could possibly have done that...

By the time we got back to Tintagel we had used all the three hours recommended in the book for this four-mile walk (having reckoned originally to do it in half the time, of course). The sky was clouding over and the wind was getting up, but at least we had had beautiful weather for our walk. A big all-day breakfast in a local hostelry was very welcome before the long drive home in the rain.