Forefathers, Fowey and Fog
Wednesday 14 and Thursday 15 November, 2018
Yes, I’m addicted to alliteration. Sold on series of syllables. Casting my lot with the consonants. It’s the cheats’ way to create a title, loved and abused by sub-editors for years, so why not me?
You can tell I’m becoming bored, and it’s the grey weather that is to blame. I deliberately stayed two nights in Par (Tuesday night and Wednesday night) so that I could keep faith with the “peculiar pilgrimage” and visit the ancestral village of Roche and its Rock. It meant following what is known as the “Clay Trail” that is really just a proxy for the Eden Project, and Saints Way, which may or may not have been how Irish pilgrims for Rome and Santiago crossed COrnwall, rather than risk the trip around Lands End.
Kaolin mining (the fancy name for china clay) may no longer be the big employer around here, but its pretty visible. Par has a great beach but the drying works are at the western end and they are a blot on the landscape. I think the walk would have been quite enjoyable in the sun, but Wednesday was another grey day, just warm enough – and humid enough – to raise a sweat and then get cold when you stop.
Funny details and strange discoveries are what it comes down to on this sort of day. Why is the next town St Blazey? Because the parish is St Blaise – you have to love the Cornish way with language.
It was pretty crazy walking to Roche, but I was keen just to stretch my legs without the pack and see something other than cliffs and rocks, so I belted along at a great pace, not expecting all that much. I walked mainly in the farmland skirting the quarries, all green and with some amazing houses, but I did come across this extraordinary viaduct.
This is the Treffry Viaduct, which dates back to the 1830s, and is quite magnificent. I was not expecting it in the gorgeous valley I was walking though (I found out later it’s the Luxulyan Valley) and was amazed to find this standing abandoned in the valley.
I have to say that, apart from the rock, there is no need for any Bounds progeny to venture into the clay fields as an act of filial piety. I get the feeling that Albert Leonard wasn’t all that keen on Roche and his lack of enthusiasm may have contributed to his willingness to parlay his medical discharge into an appointment as a postmaster in St Austell. The village is rather run down and meh, and I think the photos of the Rock should be enough. You can read all the legends about it on line. I gave up on the idea of visiting the Eden Project – I’d rather share it with Paula.
Thursday was another grey day, and the path was in two parts. The first was the easy 2 ½ hour track to Fowey and the ferry across the river to Polruan; the second, a 3 ½ hour slog to Polperro and the bus to Looe. I enjoyed the morning, scooting along the dunes above Par and then the picturesque inlet of Polkerris.
As you can see, it was clouds rather than sunshine, but I was excited to visit the places associated with Daphne du Maurier, although I couldn’t walk all the way to Menabilly, which is Manderly. However, I did see Rebecca’s cove, although the shack is much more than that!
Fowey was exactly as J.M. Barry described: “it is but a toy town to look at, on a bay so small, hemmed in so picturesquely by cliffs and ruins, that of a moonlight night, it might pass for a scene in a theatre”. Well, today it was as if the fog machine had gone crazy and the spotlight had failed, because the town had a brooding presence, but what amazing houses, perched above the river. I took the ferry over to Polruan – a far more gritty and real kind of sport, and photographed the colourful building crowding down to the river’s edge.
I had a Cornish cream tea in Polruan – mainly because I hadn’t had one yet – and was sure to put the jam on before the cream. This turned out to be the high point of the day, because as I walked up to the cliffs beyond the village, the fog rolled in and I had to stop and put on my jacket and put the cover on the pack. Soon everything was dripping and the undulations assumed Himalayan proportions. It was going to be a long afternoon.
As a consequence, I have nothing at all to say about the natural wonders of the coast between Polruan and Polperro; and, given the bus timetable, I didn’t have anything like enough time to explore Polperro (the most photogenic of the villages, according to the pundits). Of course, I was catching the bus because I buggered up the program – I hadn’t reckoned with the challenges of the coast path when I booked and I had seriously thought I could do the full 30 km to Looe in one day. Idiot.
I staggered up to Schooner Point at 5:15 (by which time it was proper dark) and Tom greeted me with a pot of tea, balm of the walker. The only thing holding me back from a headlong rush to the pub was the need to clean up a bit – the damp over the last few days has required a nightly cleaning of the walking pants, because I’m mud to the knees with the damp and autumn leaves underfoot.
I’ve learned the trick to finding the good pub when there is a choice – the oldest where the locals go. My vote was Ye Olde Salutation: low ceilings, real oak beams and a coal fire guaranteed to remove rheumatism from across the road. It will need a good breakfast to get me moving in the morning: 26 km of that kind of terrain leaves one with a sense of achievement and sore legs!
