Tuesday 13th
Breakfast is scrambled eggs and lots of coffee. Good.
And a much less aggressive waitress.
It’s taxi time again, but only to Morwenstow £20, and our
driver is Joe. He is a Stokey. Came to Cornwall for the lifestyle and is
happy with it. Lives with his wife in a
village nearby.
We have cunningly avoided the deep Morwenstow valley and
walk at height back to the path, where we soon come across Hawker’s Hut. It’s a tiny wooden structure with a turf
roof, in the care of the National Trust.
Free entry, no dainty teas and no frilly jam pots for sale. Parson Hawker hung out here to smoke the odd
opium pipe and write stuff, including this:
And shall Trelawny
live?
Or shall Trelawny
die?
Here's twenty
thousand Cornish men
Will know the
reason why!
This is ‘The Song of the Western Men’, and has become a Cornish
national anthem. Now I have definite
Cornish ancestry. 100% on my mother’s
side, and strong connections on the Morris side too. I can’t help noticing the Black and white
Cornish flag everywhere now. Didn’t
exist when I went to Cornwall as a boy. Cornish
independence? Road signs in the Cornish language? Don’t get me started.
It’s hot. We plod
on. We are passed by a young man wearing
a Henley T-shirt.
“Are you a rower?” I
ask
“Yes, I am”
“Who for?”
“Radley College”
Oh, I remember. We
used to row against them, and got beaten.
He is carrying a large pack, but leaping youthfully along.
“You should be OK for Bude by tonight.” I call after him.
“Bude? No. I have a
room booked at Crackington”
For us, that’s another whole day’s march.
After lunch we reach Sandy Cove. It’s a National Trust beach and very much
reminds me of Chapel Porth. Chris is
going to have to put up with me going down memory lane when we get down
there. In the here and now, we have our
bathers. The tide is out, the lifeguards
are on duty. Leaving our togs in the
care of a friendly family, we plunge into the waves. As in Chapel Porth, you
can’t actually swim. You just get
buffeted by the waves and try and avoid being knocked over. But it is refreshing and exhilarating.
The Sandy Cove break (ice cream included, from the tasteful,
stone-built NT café) gives us the energy to stumble on to Bude. I am not anti-National Trust, by the
way. I am member!
Heading out for an evening meal, the true reality of
overcrowded Bude hits us. We cannot find
anywhere with a table. In desperation,
we go to the Brendon Arms. No luck.
Kitchen shut at eight o’clock.
Finally, we join the long queue at the fish and chips. Word passes back – they have run out of fish!
We get to the counter finally and order fish cakes with chips. We notice that there is a lad behind us.
He goes up to the counter
“No sorry, we are closed now”
“But I’ve been waiting half an hour”
“Well, don’t come here bedtime my love”
It’s barely half past eight.
We sit on a bench eat our fish cakes and watch the sun
sinking into the ocean.
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