As the causeway didn't open for another hour as it was still high tide, I walked to Penzance in the misty rain, the sort of rain that only makes one side of ones person wet. It's quite a boring walk as its a road on one side or a railway line and the beach on the other, eventually 50 minutes later I arrived in Penzance, it had stopped raining by this point, after walking through another massive car park on the harbour front I made my way up to the high street, stopped half way as I'd got the measure of it by then and so turned round, bought a delicious pasty to take away. I was advised to eat in would have cost another 50p - that's a whole dollar extra! So I walked back to Marazion eating my pasty, so in effect I walked 6 miles to get a Cornish pasty, but this was such a good pasty, it was worth it.
It was about 1.30pm by the time I got back to the mount where a steady trail of people were slowly cluttering over the causeway, at low tide its possible to walk on the beach all the way to the mount which is what I did. On the mount it was heaving, after completing the crossing of the causeway people had stopped immediately to recuperate and contemplate the next stage of the journey which was a stony path up to the castle, some people were dismayed by the presence of big cobbled stepped path so turned back to take refuge in the tea shop.
I'm pretty sure it wasn't this busy when Tony Robinson came for his Walk Through History series. Mind you, he always looked well wrapped up in his red Gortex jacket so it probably wasn't school holidays in July when he films his programmes! Up the steps the castle is a grand sight, of course it was thronging inside, which would have been fine is it wasn't for parents shouting at their children for doing something or not doing something, strangely I never heard any children and they never appeared to be doing anything naughty. People exhibit the same behaviour with their dogs, if these parents could just shut up for a bit, we could have a bit more peace and quiet and perhaps enjoy the experience a little more. That said, after being processed through the castle ahead was a girl posing every few meters around the perimeter to take duck face selfies, I had to look up what a duck face was the other day, I remember it being referred to in Four Weddings and a Funeral, where Hugh Grant character refers in not an entirely affectionate way to a past girlfriend as 'duck face'. A duck face is essentially making a pout and can make people appear somewhat dim. It seems to be an automatic reaction some girls have when taking selfies, so that's what a duck face is. On this occasion the duck face was not required, not that it's ever required, but the girl was Japanese so already looked perfect and will never experience a wrinkle until she is 65, if she could take just one selfie with a simple smile it would stand out a mile amongst all her thousands of duck face selfies.
Back to the stepped rocky path I bounded down past people who seemed to be clinging on the railing for dear life, ok there was one slightly slippery bit in the middle under the trees but that was it. At the bottom of the steps a group of young well groomed people with their sweaters round their shoulders and deck shoes on and whatever else they had attired themselves with from Fat Face and Sea Salt and Joules were heard looking at the steps and bemoaning their existence.
'Steps! I didn't know we had to go up steps!' Said one neck jumper wearer.
'Look at those steps! ' Agreed another.
So they looked at the steps, I don't know what happened next as I was almost running down the steps in a moment of maximum energy, I think I was drawing power from everyone else's sluggishness until I felt I was practically flying. The pasty was doing a great job and I felt great! Near the entrance I was drawn to some lovely singing, a male choir were singing old sea shanties and quite wonderful to listen to. Something you could be lulled to sleep by, I closed my eyes and hummed along.
I headed back over the causeway passed the hordes still making their way over to the castle and back to Bluey where with no sluggish people in sight, my pasty energy suddenly ran out and I sat in the car for about half an hour doing nothing and feeling like going back to the bnb to see if the wine was still dreadful. On the way I thought I'd just pop into the nearby village of Porthleven, I didn't want to drive into the center as that's always a nightmare on these tiny Cornish village roads so I saw there was a National Trust car park just at the top of the village on the hill so I parked there.
On consulting the map, there was no direct path into the village which was only 3/4 mile away but a longer than I really had energy to walk path around in a circle over some fields and eventually approaching the village from the West, so I walked it. Oddly the signs on the roads gave distances in miles but the signs on the footpaths gave distances in kilometers. It was 2.5 kms to town, sigh, so on I walked, but as soon as the sea was in sight my energy levels picked up again and it was in fact a lovely quiet walk. The town was very pretty, I was glad to be on foot as the roads were super narrow and along the harbour side traffic was having to edge through pedestrians which is always be a bit awkward. Les had stayed in this town whilst he was down this way and he generally picks decent places to stay and so it was, at the other end of the harbour was a restaurant called Kota Kai which is Maori for sea food or shell food, just the sight of the word kai was good as I was feeling hungry again by now as it was around 6pm and the fact in was in Maori made me feel at home! So my place of eating decided (and you can never have enough fish) I treated myself to a chowder soup with a side or rice. Afterwards I walked the direct route back through the town to the car park with the last few hundred meters on slightly dodgy bit of road with no pavements. Well walked, back at the bnb an old episode of Top Gear was on where Clarkson, Hammond and May take some slightly older but strangely robust sports cars and go through various unsettled zones in the middle east with a mission of getting to Bethlehem.
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| St Michael's Mount |
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| Porthleven lanes. Which was first, the pink house or the road? |
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| Porthleven harbour |
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