Day 18 - Port Issac to Padstow:  forced rest day

Today promised twenty-one kilometers of brutal undulation and coastal wonderland, but we woke up to a torrential downpour and fifty-kilometer winds. Suffice to say, neither of us was down with the idea of getting absolutely pounded by the elements while grinding on nature’s stairmaster for six hours. So, today’s dispatch won’t feature majestic cliffs or me fighting for my life on another peak. Instead, it is a lazy summary  laced with whatever random musings hit the brain.

If you want to splurge on a decadent sanctuary along this rugged route, the Port Gaverne Hotel is worth every single penny. It was pure, unadulterated luxury. Beyond a gorgeous room equipped with a Dyson fan, they provided a Nespresso machine with enough pods to fuel my caffeinated heart for eternity. Getting a decent cup of coffee in the UK is a notorious struggle, so scoring these Italian pods felt like tasting caviar. And the cookies? Top tier. Not those depressing little Biscoff wafers that budget airlines use to gaslight you into thinking they care.

Historically, this tiny cove was a bustling 19th-century port exporting slate and landing tons of pilchards, which were salted on-site in dark, gritty cellars. Today, the only thing being cured was my hangover, thanks to the greatest "Hugs" ever mixed. I call it a Hugs because when I eyed the magnificent calligraphic menu at the bar, I spotted the Aperol Spritz right next to what looked like "Hugs." I sent Ken to fetch me one. He returned looking beautifully bemused and slightly traumatized. When I asked what happened, he whispered, "Well, I ordered the Hugs, which is actually a Hugo cocktail, and I’m pretty sure the bartender and I are legally married now."

Dinner was an absolute triumph of the senses. It wasn’t cheap, but true pleasure rarely is. Skip the surf and turf, mostly because if your palate is accustomed to the marbling of North American or Japanese wagyu, this lean British beef will leave you feeling catfished. The accompanying shrimp, however, were sweet, plump, and utterly redeeming, sitting alongside hand-cut fries clearly made with love and a heavy hand of salt. Breakfast was another culinary feast, boasting thick, artisanal sourdough.  Sadly, the coffee returned to its baseline of hot garbage. They desperately needed to bring those room pods down to the dining floor.

I wish I could regale you with cinematic photos of quaint Port Isaac, the iconic backdrop for Doc Martin and countless other pieces of cozy television. But the  truth is that this town is dying a slow, agonizing death. The legendary Crab Shack Cafe, once the undisputed champion of the English crab sandwich, is now a hollow shell of its former glory. The reviews are an absolute trainwreck. Tourists complain bitterly of watery meat filled with broken shells, and brine-soaked bread. The owner reportedly yells at dissatisfied customers and has been known to just flip the sign and shut the whole place down out of spite. You almost have to 

But perspective matters. This is where we confront the gritty, sobering reality of the coastal path, a cautionary tale of how bad decisions can reap horrendous, irreversible consequences.

If I can distill the staggering contrast of walking this coastal path a decade ago versus navigating it now, it is the sharp, bruising shock of what the twin horsemen of Brexit and Covid did to this coast. As a North American, you’d be forgiven for assuming any rugged oceanfront property wrapped in a quaint village would be a heavily gentrified, hyper-expensive haven by now, mirroring the fate of our mountain towns back home. Instead, economic isolationism absolutely decimated the soul of this country. If separatist factions anywhere want a raw, unvarnished look at what their political fantasies actually cost, they need to spend two weeks walking village to village. You need that long to shake off the basic tourist mindset and settle into the heavy, heartbreaking reality of how desperate things have become. The erosion is violently abrupt. A cafe boasting glowing reviews online is suddenly shuttered when you arrive, its windows dark and filled with ghosts. The eccentric little shops that once gave these hamlets their magic are either gone or displaying signs reading "Out of business by summer. Everything must go." Historically, Cornwall has always survived on boom-and-bust cycles, from the ancient Romans mining its tin to the 19th-century copper rush. But this current collapse feels deeply poignant, a modern tragedy written in real-time. Which brings us to a crucial, unglamorous truth for anyone planning this route: finding a bed is becoming a high-stakes survival game, as legitimate accommodations grow increasingly rare and elusive along the path.

When I started booking this in January, the lack of options shook me. I chalked it up to hikers flooding the market, assuming digital nomads had snatched up homes to raise their aesthetic toddlers by the sea. The reality is far less glamorous. The sheer volume of permanent "For Sale" signs is both heartbreaking and eerie. Where rows of buzzing B&Bs once lined the cliffs, you might find a single survivor. The rest are abandoned or cannibalized as holiday rentals. The remaining spots have zero interest in catering to walkers. They want the high-spending tourists staying three nights minimum. Sure, campgrounds exist if you want to humble-brag about roughing it, but even pitching a nylon tent will drain forty quid from your Monzo card. Food is another beast entirely. Everything is expensive. Everything. If a Camino de Santiago requires a budget, keeping costs down on this trail is a statistical impossibility. Historically, these coastal paths weren't meant for romantic self-discovery; they were carved out by rough-handed coastguards hunting for smugglers. There was a raw, transactional grit to it. Today, the demographic has shifted. A decade ago, meeting fellow thru-hikers was standard. Now? The path is choked with people on catered, self-guided walking holidays. As the weeks wear on, we encounter chippy tourists who think one day of damp windy weather  is a quirky story for FaceTime and beers. Meanwhile, we are out here looking like battle-hardened soldiers on our sixth tour of duty, deeply fatigued and completely out of patience for the amateur hour.

Today was one of those days.  

As we stood huddled in the deluge, waiting for our rides, we met with a pack of four American women. One of them barked a question in that loud toxic-positivity cadence only Americans can truly weaponize, asking if we were hiking or hiding. I flatly told her we were tapping out, catching a ride to Padstow to dodge the worst of the apocalyptic weather. "Oh, but you are going to miss out!" she proclaimed, her voice dripping not with concern, but with the subtle, competitive gaslighting of a corporate wellness seminar. Ken, completely unfazed, shot back: "We got absolutely raw-dogged by the elements yesterday. Today is supposed to be worse." With peak American exceptionalism, she scoffed, "You can’t come all this way and let a little wind get to you. What were you expecting on a coastal path?"

You could feel the shift instantly. I was being schooled by a woman who clearly spends her summers drinking Pinot Grigio on Cape Cod, probably hit Everest Base Camp for her sixtieth birthday, and returned home to tell her book club that the altitude wasn't even that bad but everyone else seemed to have "such a difficult time." For a fleeting second, I asked myself What would Jesus do? and I was reasonably certain he would have told her to fuck right off. Instead, I channeled papal diplomacy, flashed my most enigmatic Mona Lisa smile, and muttered, "I am perfectly at peace with missing sixty-five-kilometer winds today." Turning to pure retail therapy as a coping mechanism, I marched up the hill to a gorgeous little boutique selling thick fisherman-knit sweaters and high-end English outerwear, and bought myself a blindingly bright yellow raincoat. It was a decadent victory over the elements, the trail, and the haters alike.