Day 32 - Coverack to Helford Passage:  23.99 km

Oh we’re half way there

Whoa oh living on a prayer

Today was a milestone: the halfway point of the SWCP. There’s a big-ass marker and everything. You’d think we’d arrive like conquering heroes, crack open a bottle of bubbly, and bask in the glow of our own magnificence. Instead, we sort of stood there looking at it. The truth is, it felt oddly anticlimactic. We have thoughts about that….

Part of it is the weather has spent the last several weeks methodically beating any trace of joy out of us. We’ve not had a single day without rain. Maybe three days of actual sunshine. The rest have been varying combinations of fog, wind, drizzle and cold. It’s the middle of June and we're still layering up every morning like pensioners preparing for an Arctic expedition. Every day starts with rain. Around noon it eases off. By four o’clock it's back again, laughing at your optimism.

At this point we are less walkers and more ambulatory sponges. The constant damp changes everything. One of the great pleasures of a long-distance trail is finding a glorious spot, unpacking lunch and sitting for twenty minutes doing absolutely nothing except admiring the view. We've had precious few opportunities for that. Most lunches involve standing awkwardly in the shelter of a hedge while trying to stop a sandwich from becoming a marine habitat. Cafés become objects of near-religious devotion. The problem is they're as unpredictable as Cornish weather. A café with glowing reviews  Monday can be closed on Wednesday indefinitely because someone couldn't get staff. You learn quickly not to make plans. 

Then there’s the daily blood sport known as finding lunch.

You cannot count on a café. You definitely cannot count on a pub. Since leaving Penzance, we have not passed a single shop. Not one.  Lunch, therefore, becomes less a meal and more a scavenger hunt designed by a sadist. Packed lunches? Forget it. Places you stay don't do them. Cafés, when they miraculously appear charge ten to twelve pounds for a sandwich. Just a sandwich. Served on bread pale and uninspiring. The price alone raises your blood pressure. The calorie count does nothing to lower it. An hour later you're running primarily on low blood sugar, resentment and the vague fantasy of murdering a family-sized trifle.

Then there’s accommodation.

Five months ago, when I was booking, finding somewhere near the route felt like trying to secure front-row tickets to a reunion tour of a band that broke up in 1987. Anything remotely convenient has been swallowed whole by walking companies. Independent walkers are left picking through the scraps. What follows is a daily logistical ballet of mild despair. Your bed is rarely on the route. More often it's five or six kilometres away. So after walking all day, you arrange transport to your accommodation. The next morning, you arrange transport back to where you left off. Repeat until financially or emotionally exhausted.Expect to take taxis. A lot.

Expect to pay  a lot for taxis. The South West Coast Path is becoming a surprisingly expensive hobby involving weatherproof clothing, logistical gymnastics and a growing familiarity with every taxi driver in Cornwall and Devon.

If you are lucky enough to find a pub on route, or better yet stay somewhere attached to one, reserve a table the night before. This is survival advice.

Fail to do so and you may find yourself eating dinner standing at the bar. Assuming you eat at all. Evening food service  runs for a two-hour window, usually from six to eight. You want to be there at six. By seven, half the menu has  vanished. Securing a plate of food can feel like a competitive blood sport.

And the prices. Sweet Jesus, the prices. I am not a fussy eater. Give me something simple, hearty and made with love and I'll be happy. But there is no elegant way to describe paying  forty Canadian dollars for a handful of chips and a meat pie scarcely larger than a respectable tart. If you've spent the day climbing cliffs in horizontal rain and require enough calories to feed an elephant, expect to part with fifty or sixty dollars. The  heartbreaking part is that most of the people serving it are trying their best. You can see it in their faces. Someone in the kitchen is sweating bullets and panicking while doing the work of three people because finding staff in Cornwall has become about as easy as finding a unicorn.

It leaves you with a strange mix of sympathy and frustration. Everything is expensive. Nothing feels worth what it costs.  Some nights I just cry. Out of frustration and sadness of what the UK has become since Brexit and Covid. Sadness because I see it happening to the US and I know now what’s coming. Sadder still that my province could also be heading this way.  Perhaps that's what keeps me awake.Not the cost of the pie. The uneasy feeling that so many of us, in so many places, are trying to hold together communities, livelihoods and futures that suddenly seem far more fragile than we ever imagined.

Today’s stage is one I would politely describe as “character building.” I do not recommend it. Much of the route is inland, and what does hug the coast is a landscape scarred by old quarry mines.  The trails are not well travelled, which means they are less “charming rural path” and more “nature has reclaimed this place and is now charging admission.” Add several weeks of relentless rain and you get mud. Ankle-hungry, boot-swallowing mud.

Then come the river crossings. Two crossings that require perfect tidal timing. One needs the tide out so you can walk across. The other needs the tide in so the boat can operate. Unless you bus and cab, you cannot realistically make both.

When the weather is kind, you can wade the first crossing. We did it the first time we walked it. But when it’s cold, windy and miserable, the idea of standing thigh deep in freezing water while holding your backpack above your head feels less like adventure and more like a low-budget survival documentary. Of course, if you want the full SWCP Vietnam experience, grab your pack, channel your inner Hegseth and march in. I will not judge.

Much.

It was a long day.

The final ferry only carries six people at a time, and if someone arrives with a bike, that bike becomes the equivalent of two human passengers with wheels and entitlement. There are also three hours each day when the ferry cannot run because the tide is too low. The later ferry,  the one every tired walker wants, becomes a floating rush hour.  So yes, you may be waiting in the rain for a while.

The consolation prize? The ferryman looks suspiciously like Michael Fanone.

 

Tonight we about 5 km off route at Hotel Meudon. Go ahead, look it up. The website is a seductive siren song of sweeping gardens, spa treatments, fine dining and the sort of refined elegance where everyone appears to own a blazer that has never encountered mud. It is not where I would have chosen to land, but it’s all there is.  The staff are lovely. Genuinely. The problem is the place is severely understaffed, which seems to be the unofficial theme of the coastal hospitality industry right now. The food, exists in a realm of its own. A realm where prices are ambitious and portions are working as minimalist art installations. We did not have the proper attire for the dining room, so we ate at the bar. Ken ordered a burger and fries. A sensible, beautiful, honest meal.  I ordered sticky BBQ Char Siu ribs and a rocket salad with parmesan. The burger arrived. It was good.

The ribs arrived. Four bones. Four tiny, tragic monuments to what might have been. They had plenty of sauce, because the barbecue had to carry the emotional burden of the entire dish. The salad was a coffee cup of rocket with a gentle dusting of parmesan. That was it.  After a full day of walking, my body was not asking for a Michelin experience. It was asking for calories. It wanted fuel. It wanted something that said, “Congratulations, human, you survived!” Instead, it received lawn clippings with cheese confetti.

I cried. The quiet, exhausted tears of someone who has spent weeks being battered by weather and hills and has finally been defeated by a salad.

I sent it back. Could I please have the burger? The burgers were sold out.

Of course they were. The bar menu had now achieved a Zen-like simplicity:  rib bones or chicken Caesar salad.  Thankfully, we had four emergency packets of instant oatmeal in our bags.  And because the evening needed one final punchline, the hotel had also run out of tea supplies for our room. Tea. In England. At a fancy hotel.

Welcome to the SWCP in the post Brexit, post Covid era and whatever fresh hell the world has decided to throw into the pot. In other words, we are walking it like your grandparents might have in 1943.  Complete with no heat and food rationing. Boris Johnson and TACO can fuck right off.

 Day 31 - The Lizard to Coverack: 21.58 km

Holy fuck.

When they say the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, they neglect to mention that sometimes He takes away your knees and whatever fragile optimism you woke up with that morning. If yesterday was a warm embrace today was a prison shanking in the courtyard. This wasn’t the hardest stage we've done but it was a stage relentlessly determined to remind us comfort is temporary and gravity is forever. By the end I was dreaming of fries and rosé.  I have earned those fries. I have earned those glasses of rosé. I have earned enough calories to alarm a nutritionist.

Last night we stayed at Haelarcher Farm House, where we booked ten years ago during our first SWCP trek. It's now run by the original owner's son and his wife. Unlike Tricia's Ministry of Breakfast Compliance, this place radiates warmth (and you get a kettle) When we arrived, they had a Canadian flag flying for us. I nearly burst into tears. After weeks of being asked which part of America we're from, I felt seen. Ken has entered into a passionate interspecies love affair with their dog Bosco. The feeling is mutual. Bosco greets him with the enthusiasm reserved for soldiers returning from war or drunken newlyweds on a honeymoon. Their relationship is moving forward quickly. The Lizard itself remains one of my favourite places on earth. People call it "delightfully Bohemian," which is British shorthand for "everyone here is gloriously odd and nobody is interested in pretending otherwise." I bought a serpentine necklace from a man whose house was covered in eccentric signs, warnings, declarations, and observations. This man either knows things the rest of us don't, or he desperately needs a podcast.

He hated Mark Carney because of his eyes. Believes chemtrails explained Covid. Thought Brexit had been a disaster. Also believed the EU wants Britain for its oil.

Distrusts the French with an intensity normally reserved for serial killers and telemarketers. Loves animals.Thinks most humans are a waste of perfectly good skin.Naturally, I liked him immediately. Despite the conspiracy theories and wildly creative geopolitical analysis he also guarantees his work for life.  I believe him.

Beneath all the eccentricity was a kind, funny, warm-hearted soul.

I didn't get much sleep last night thanks to the Lizard Lighthouse foghorn, which spent the entire night bellowing every thirty seconds like a wounded sea monster.

In fairness, the fog around here is no joke. There is a lot of it and it swallows horizons, ships, common sense, and your will to live. The coastline has a long history of wrecking vessels that got a little too confident. Which is why nearly every able-bodied person in Lizard is trained by the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. When things go sideways, these people launch themselves into monstrous seas so strangers get to go home for dinner. The local lifeboat crews have rescued countless sailors over the centuries, including passengers from several unfortunate White Star Line ships. As it turns out, Titanic wasn't exactly an isolated incident. White Star had a habit of introducing expensive vessels to rocks shortly after launch. Lifeboat crews would row out through appalling conditions and save everyone they could. The historical accounts always praise the bravery and composure of the women and children. The men tend to get less coverage. Draw your own conclusions.

The fog stayed with us all day. Visibility was sometimes six feet at best. The landscape drifted in and out of existence like a half-remembered dream. Cliffs appeared without warning. Headlands materialized from nowhere. More than once I found myself expecting an army of White Walkers to emerge from the mist. The first half of today's route was surprisingly reasonable. A few climbs. A few descents. The usual Cornish undulations. The second half, however, can fuck right off. Swamps. Rocks. Steep climbs. More rocks. Then additional rocks for variety. The fog concealed every summit, which meant each climb came with the psychological torture of not knowing whether you were almost finished or only halfway to misery.  What was supposed to be a 4.5-hour walk became a 7.5-hour slog. I no longer trust Mapy.cz. The app claimed today's stage involved only 147 metres of elevation gain and loss. This is an outrageous lie. One particularly savage climb was listed as 52 metres. Fifty-two metres my ass. I am convinced it was 520. A DOGE intern armed with a spreadsheet and dangerous levels of power deleted a zero.  I’m certain of it. By the end I was exhausted, muddy, and questioning my relationship with all topographical data.

Tonight we're staying at the Paris Hotel, which sounds like the sort of place where elegant people sip champagne beneath chandeliers while discussing art and infidelity. In reality, it’s a pub on the waterfront in tiny Coverack. When we arrived at 6 p.m. the place was empty. Thirty minutes later it was packed tighter than a lifeboat during a maritime emergency. There is one place to eat, therefore everyone eats there. The food was not Harbour Inn levels of despair, but my relationship with British pub grub remains complicated. I am convinced vegetables are illegal in Cornwall. Fries, however, are mandatory. Fries appear beside everything.  Order  a light salad and someone in the kitchen will throw a  handful of fries onto the plate while muttering, "for her own good." Ken ordered the meat pie with mash and vegetables. It was advertised as beef. Whether it contained beef remains a matter of ongoing scientific investigation. As plates arrived diners began comparing notes like detectives at a crime scene.

"Nope, that's not what I ordered."

"Mine neither."

The dish acquired the nickname Mystery Pie. I ordered the special: pork tenderloin with mushroom risotto.It was food. It possessed flavour. As far as I know, it was pork. By the end of the day I had hiked through enough fog, mud, and rocks, and I would have eaten seaweed if somebody covered it in gravy. The risotto was creamy, the pork was tender enough, and nobody had to identify it using dental records. Sometimes that's all you need.

 Day 30 - Porthleven to Lizard: 25.41 km

If yesterday was memorable for food that landed with all the excitement of damp cardboard, today more than settled the debt. Mind you, yesterday’s entertainment did not end with dinner. A little drama  did spilled over. God, I love it here. Wild horses could not drag me away. 

I should give Porthleven its due. I feel guilty for savaging the microscopic burger. Not because it did not earn every the take down but because we discovered Porthreath is much more than the little harbour cove where we washed ashore. The place stretches up the hill into a proper town. For all I know, hidden somewhere among its lanes lurks a chef performing acts of culinary wizardry worthy of a Michelin star.  If you cannot be bothered climbing the hill, do yourself a favour. Grab a pizza from the cart at the harbour  or a burger and fries from the surf shack. Both understand the sacred contract between hungry hikers and hot food. As for the Harbour Inn, give it a wide berth unless your doctor has advised portion control.  I have seen larger specimens served as complimentary canapés at wine tastings.

Our stay last night was one for the archives.

Ken was giddy. After our microscopic room in Penzance, this place was advertised as a "huge room with large bay windows and private bath," and that was all he heard. Once those boxes were ticked, the rest of the intro could have contained warnings about dire wolves, poltergeists, or outbreaks of plague and he would have  handed over his credit card. To be fair the room was huge. The bay windows were magnificent. The bath was private. The bath was also unusable because of water conservation measures, which made it a porcelain monument to dashed hopes.

Then there was Tricia.

Tricia did not so much greet guests as process them. At well over six feet tall, she carried herself with the authority of someone who had either run Holloway prison, a particularly terrifying boarding school, or an underground dungeon catering to Members of Parliament with unresolved childhood issues. Quite possibly all three.

The moment we arrived, our shoes were exiled to the garage. Then a lengthy orientation session delivered with military precision. Fire exits. House rules. Emergency procedures. If the alarm sounds, use the front door. If the front door is on fire, throw yourself out the bedroom window. No food in rooms. No tea in rooms. No kettle. No garbage bin. One rogue digestive biscuit could Result in the rack.  Her husband Roger was delightful. A gentle little man who most likely is kept in a box with a ball gag at night. ”I knew a professor from Calgary," he said. "Met him in a subway in Moscow in 1974."

"No one needs to hear about that, Roger," Tricia barked.

Actually, Tricia, I do want to hear about Roger's tryst  in a Moscow subway in 1974. If Roger had shared vodka with a spy, smuggled state secrets, or accidentally joined a gay Soviet chess syndicate, I was fully invested. Later that night I found him shuffling about in a nightie , quietly making tea like a pensioner conducting a covert resistance operation.

"How was dinner?" he whispered.

I told him about the burger. "Yes," he sighed. "That place is a bit off. But Tricia likes the owner, so I couldn't really say anything."

The poor man glanced over his shoulder before speaking. I half expected him to slip me a note written in code. I wished him goodnight and watched him disappear down the hall. If he spent the evening being disciplined for unauthorized restaurant commentary, he remained stoically silent on the matter. A professional to the end.

Tricia likes to have breakfast with her guests.

That statement sounds warm and wholesome until you realize it is less an invitation and more a constitutional requirement. Breakfast at Tricia's operates according to a rigid social hierarchy. Cereal comes first. Toast comes second. If you decline cereal, you are expected to sit there and watch other people eat theirs like some kind of grain-based parole hearing.  Roger was nowhere to be seen. Whether he was sleeping in, ball gagged in a cupboard, or buried in the back yard remains unclear. I can only hope the poor bastard has a safe word or a panic button. Today's stage was supposed to take six and a half hours, which immediately triggered flashbacks to recent encounters with Cornwall's sadistic topography. Fortunately, Cornwall decided not to kick us in the groin today.

The walk took seven hours, but the terrain was civilized. There were climbs. There were rocky bits. But there were also long stretches of green pasture, wild ponies standing around looking like hairy pub regulars, and three café stops strategically placed by a benevolent deity. Do not stop at the first café.

Not because it's bad. It's perfectly fine. It’s a beach shack proudly advertising that it’s open 363 days a year. Any establishment boasting that level of commitment has either admirable work ethic or owes money to the mob. We sat outside in the wind, clutching our food while being exfoliated by sand. We made the sacrifice so you don't have to. Push onward to the second café.

Open since 1947, it appears untouched by the passing decades.  The tea is excellent, the atmosphere immaculate, and the place has the comforting vibe of somewhere your grandparents would have stopped for cake before heading off to overthrow fascism. The final café appears just before Lizard. Food options are limited, but the baked goods are excellent and the sock selection is absolute madness.  I bought cow socks. Not because I needed cow socks.

Because somewhere between the cliffs, the sea air, the ponies, and Tricia's breakfast dictatorship, I stopped listening to my better angels. The cows are on my feet now. Let cow chaos reign.

Tonight we’re in The Lizard Peninsula, which sounds like a place you’d find a swamp monster but actually comes from the Cornish Lys and Ardh, meaning court and high ground.  The coastline here has been quietly murdering ships for centuries. They call it the Graveyard of Ships, which is a nice way of saying “this bit of sea has no patience for drunk navigation or imperial overconfidence.” Spanish galleons used to come sniffing around for loot and land, and the rocks would rearrange their ambitions into splinters. There is an “authentic” Mexican place called Chimichanga’s. We skipped it. I have standards. Instead we landed in the Witch’s Ball, a pub that feels like it was built by druids on a pub crawl that never ends.  Driftwood, beer, and the lingering stare of a woman in the corner who could hex your genitals with a well-timed wink. 

Outside, a fisherman runs a trailer kitchen like a one-man seafood insurgency. You buy booze inside, and then are you allowed to receive food, like some beautifully corrupt exchange system. It’s honest. It’s filthy. It works. The crab salad with potatoes was indecent. It makes you briefly question monogamy and whether you should just stay here and become a coastal crone who smells permanently of lemon and brine. I left my body multiple times. I came back every time a little more grateful and a little more in love. The locals were already halfway to legend status, joking about an imagined UFC card: Farage, Boris Johnson, Starmer, TACO, and Bibi thrown into a cage with rabid lions and black adders. I’d max out my credit card for that pay-per-view.