Porthallow to Maenporth – The Penultimate Push

The red line below is the ground that I’ve already covered. The thick green line is still to be done. It’s a gap and it vill be closed. SCHWEIN!!!

How odd. David’s pretending to be some kind of 1930s German officer. Whatever next?

I vont to see Herr Nichols.

At de crack of de dawn dis morning Deborah drove down de coast an dropped me off at Porthallow.

Oh Christ! He’s doing some kind of dated Afro-Caribbean mimicry, of an accent which only ever existed in the vocabulary of white 1960s Calypso singers like Lance Percival. Wouldn’t get away with it now. Didn’t even black himself up. Not like the Black and White Minstrels. They were good. Sunday night on BBC TV.

The forecast was for thunderstorms later so I legged it quickly.

I had checked the time of the tides as my first challenge was to get round to Gillan Creek, three and a half miles away, whilst the tide was low. At the point of low tide you can wade the Creek, but if you miss it then you have to add on another two and a half miles walking upstream to the nearest bridge.

The honeysuckle was flowering in the more sheltered south facing cliff sides.

And although I’d missed breakfast I managed to keep up a reyt good pace. Gillan Creek seemed quite full of water when I got there, this should be low tide!

Walking upriver I saw St Anthony in Meneage on the far bank. That is the village that one can wade across to at low tide. Oh heck!

I certainly wasn’t going to walk over two miles more than I needed to so I ignored the coast path and walked up the shore. And an opportunity to get wet was revealed to mine eyes, which had seen the glory of the coming of the Lord, in the beauty of the land, sea and sky.

I took off my boots and socks and began to paddle, then swish, then wade. I was hoping that it wouldn’t extend to,”then swim”, but I had too much electrical equipment to submerge myself. By carefully plotting my path I was able to keep the water at thigh level. Weaving up and downstream it took ten minutes to find a route that didn’t wet my bollocks.

Q. How can David be so crude in a blog that anyone in the entire world can read? A. Because he’s got no filter, he’s out of control, he’s an elderly bigot and he thinks he’s important.

The significance of St Anthony on this pilgrimage is that I’ve been listening to the Sensational Alex Harvey Band for the last 200 miles and St Anthony is one of his most eclectic tracks. It’s about the temptation of St Anthony, a 4th century celibate, who took off into the desert in Egypt and was tormented by devils and temptresses. Harvey screams out his name. ST ANTHONY!! It is remarkable.

His temptation was captured by Hieronymous Bosch.……

and Salvador Dali.

And here I’d landed in St Anthony in Meneage. And here was its church.

And a list of Vicars going back to the 13th century. Before which the role was provided by monks from a nearby abbey.

I had to drag myself away. I knelt in front of the altar and thought that I felt the presence of Christ warm my chest and calm my mind. I’m not remotely religious but I’ve felt spirituality in the past and this was a further blast.

I had to go. Outside was a container for dog shit. Usually he’s full of bull shit. A tyrant.

Then another three and a half miles dash to Helford on the south bank of the Helford River estuary. I dashed it, really quickly. I was hungry.

The thunderstorms didn’t manifest themselves and I made it to the ferry. To attract it over from Helford Passage, I had to open up the red circle.

Hey presto.

Looking back Helford looked nice.

A crab sandwich in the Ferry Boat Inn and then off again like a whippet.

Until I met Debs and Flo on Durgan Beach. Looking back up the Helford estuary was stunning.

Debs took some of my gear, as it was clearly not going to thunder. Which enabled me to get further speed on to make it round another 4 miles to Maenporth beach, where she picked me up.

Dinner at the campsite and an early night. Great day! Hooray!

Night night.