Right, last walk of our holiday and this was to be an easy trot over the headland to see the Bedruthan Steps. After all, we’d been out the night before to the Fire Cafe, then onto the Merrymore Pub where the night was ruled by Trolls, fake tattoos and stalking Justin Lee-Collins. That was all before we headed back to our place where ‘Jules Nightclub’ opened down by the firepit and we danced with only my flashing camping lantern and the moon into the early hours of the morning.
I wasn’t even sure that this would count as one of my walks as its not that far. This was the last day of our holidays and having experienced the cliff walk in the other direction we were keen to get this one in as well. Not all our fellow holiday makers felt that same way and only Jane, Pete, Joyce and Enid enjoyed the walk today. The others had a lazy start to the day whilst we went out in the heat. Neil and Steve, who had sampled one too many White Russians the night before made a good impression of getting up early but soon gave up and went back to bed! Pathetic.
The coastal path starts pretty much behind Marver House and we walked past the next door Scarlett Hotel to get onto this. This hotel is where, I subsequently found out, Dawn French recently got married and it must have been quite a party as they hired out the whole hotel. We’d have had a great time introducing ourselves to all her guests – but this week we had to settle for Justin L-C who was lovely.
We also walked through the other houses here which are a mix of older type holiday homes and also now some pretty sleek designer ones. Nothing as cool as Marver House though! We did get a little bit lost but then Enid struck out and found her way onto the actual path. Now we left the buildings behind and started to climb up above the dunes.
The views back down to the beach were great and it was lovely walking through the heather even though it wasn’t quite in full bloom. It was a little bit murky as we set off but already very hot. It was an easy walk then over the tops towards the steps. Again, today the colour of the sea, which was right in, was beautiful turquoise and as we approached the steps it was a very impressive sight. The Bedruthan ‘Steps’ are in fact giant sea-stack rock formations.
It was incredibly hot but I had my little cap on and plenty of sun cream so we should be ok. We admired the views and had to listen to a photographer bleating on about the fact that we should have been there yesterday, when apparently the views were even better. Silly man, we’d been perfectly happy with how it looked today.
We came across the National Trust Carnewas cafe and shop housed in a 19th century mine workers cottage but decided that we’d carry on a bit to get a closer view of the steps. This meant going down a lot of steps ourselves and we all know what that means – we’d need to come back up again in a minute. It was worth it though as the stacks of rock looked impressive from down here. There was a man doing some painting and I was quite jealous as I didn’t have my stuff with me. But it was a bit hot……maybe 84 degrees F.
Next stop the cafe and by now we were desperate for a cold drink. I had fancied having a cream tea but it was all a bit hot for that so I had a zesty slice of lemon sponge and a cold Fanta. Joyce and Enid did have the full cream tea experience and Jane had a cold ice cream. Pete had a Fanta too. Fully refreshed we carried on. I say fully refreshed, that’s not quite true actually we were melting!
Next an essential stop at the National Trust emporium where we purchased some gift items and postcards. Then we just had to make our way back. Again, it was easy walking although Jane and I seemed to lag behind the others. The sun was now baking hot and there was absolutely no shade and no breeze and I only had a v small bottle of water to keep me and Jane going. By the time we got back to the buildings above the beach we were pretty exhausted. I think maybe, as it was so hot and with no wind, we should have drunk a little more water…or maybe taken some Lucozade?
How do I know this? Because the next day, when we were packing I was completely out of it. We tried to spend the day by the pool with the others but it was all too much and after about an hour I asked Jane if we could get off. We left the others to it and we were sad to be driving away at the end of the most amazing holiday. I was pretty zonked out and not well all the way home and by Saturday I was completely on another planet and rather ill.
Moral of the story? It was too hot even for this short 3 miler. Stupid and another lesson learned!
Walky Talky 