I set off early today because I knew it was going to be a long haul and I that I'd be navigating my own way since I had already varied from the route I'd planned.
I chose mostly back roads rather than Public Paths because I knew they would slow me down. The only navigation problem I had was in finding the path down to a lovely disused railway viaduct.
I knocked on the door of a cottage where the path disappeared and was told the path had been 'removed' where it passed through their neighbour's property. I hopped over the wall anyway and found the path confirmed by my GPS spot and found myself alongside a lovely babbling brook passing under the viaduct.
Alas the path ended in a pile of rubbish with no way through so I had to hack through some undergrowth to get back on to a laneway nearby.
Walking along these narrow lanes I passed through several delightful little Cornish villages.
As I walked I began to use my strip map in favour of my GPS (until it went missing later in the day).
As I passed through the village of Crankie groups of cyclists appeared. I chatted briefly to one group the same difficult age as me doing a navigation check. So we shared tales of adventure as men of our age do and did the photo thing as more and more obvious End to Ender cyclists passed through.
As I walked through the village I realised I was running short of water and stopped at the house with a man gardening. This is how I come to meet Susan & Keith who recounted to me their own walking and cycling adventures.Later in the day I decided to head into Truro and not stay in between partly because I'd made such good progress in spite of stopping too often to chat.
I didn't even think to stop for lunch except for a few of my own meagre morsels that I had with me.
Things started to fall apart later in the day as they always do when you're tired and spent a full day in the hot sun. First I lost my paper route map which I'd been using almost exclusively in place of my GPS track. Then I kept losing my signal on my phone and then I had trouble in contacting my alternative fallback accommodation.
When I finally found it turned out to be a beautiful Grade 2 listed building built in 1840 with enough charm to please anyone.
It was only when taking off my boots I discovered that I had gained two small blisters and lost one toe nail - a fair price to pay I thought for hauling about 14 kg about 25 miles.
