I’ve finished the trip!!!!
Simply amazing seems to some up Tuesday to Friday....not least the weather, with temperatures staying well into the mid 20’s each day and not a hint of rain. A nice change to previous years!

Tuesday St. Ives to St. Agnes Beacon – From here on I’d decided to pack a bit heavier, taking the tent and air bed etc. However with the heat, carrying the minimum of 5 litres of water I needed per day meant my ‘light weight’ rucksack now tipped the scales at 32 lbs. This began to show with my running speeds considerably hampered......so 4 days to Hartland Point was looking questionable. The stunning coastal views however easily compensated for the lack of speed and helped me pass away the hours on foot effortlessly. Plus towards the end of the day, the generous donation of dinner at a great little fish and chips in Porthtowan really lifted spirits ready for the morning.

St. Agnes Beacon to Mawgan Porth- Possibly my favourite day in terms of stunning scenery and hints of times gone by. The coastline and cliffs from St Agnes to Perranporth I would thoroughly recommend to everyone. On the cliff edged you pass through considerable old mine workings with shafts scattered everywhere and addits peppering the cliff faces. The path also meanders through one of the best preserved WWII Spitfire airfields I’ve ever seen, at RAF Perranporth (now still used as a civilian airfield). It was great fun wandering through command buildings and grass covered bunkers, marvelling at a time gone by. From here the dunes of Penhale sands dominated the walk for many miles, before revealing a very picturesque Crantock beach and then the sprawl of Newquay. With an England match just finishing I didn’t spend long in Newquay, although did receive a few bewildered looks from the many inebriated people celebrating. In full walking/running gear, covered in dust with an over-packed rucksack, map case and collection pot I looked a little out of place! I finally settled at Mawgan Porth beach and camped amongst the dunes. Not before being given possibly the best meal of the whole trip by the owner of the fantastic Fire Bar Bistro and Grill right on the beach at Mawgan Porth. The blood red melting sunset over the beach and sea ended the night perfectly.

Mawgan Porth to Boscastle Lookout – This was a tough day with some of the year’s highest temperatures. I can’t remember much of it to be honest, but do remember a fair few donation to the Help for Heroes charity pot on the Padstow to Rock ferry which boosted spirits. Also thanks to the Rock Bakery for lunch and the various Kelly’s ice cream vans for donating Clippo ice lollies that helped keep me cool. I managed to meet up with my grandparents at Port Isaac briefly (or was that Portwenn....) to update my set of OS maps and supplies. I finished the day at sunset, camping in the rocks beside the Boscastle National Coastwatch Institution lookout building.

Boscastle Lookout to Hartland Point – This was a really long day! However it started in a magical way, watching a large pod of dolphins fishing a mile offshore. The awesome high powered spotting scope in the NCW lookout let me see right in on the action as they leapt out of the water and chased the fish around. I could have stayed there all day, but had set my heart of finishing by Friday night (I had no time limits, but always like a challenge...), so spent much of the day on the A39 covering the miles. Even getting there was hard enough, with the endless Boscastle hill to contend with first. Breakfast was donated by a roadside grill with supper coming from the friendly little Gilletts chippy in Kilkhampton, for which I’m eternally grateful! I never thought I’d still be hungry after eating two double cheeseburgers and two sausage rolls in one day, but that day my body needed every bit of energy going! I finally reached Hartland Point by 10.30 pm having run the last 6miles to make it there before dark. I was treated to the remains of the sunset silhouetting Lundy across the water in vivid colours as I pitched my tent feet from the cliff edge. While I had no one to greet me to the finish (lift not due till the morning), this was the perfect end to a truly fantastic trip.

As for the final total donations to Help for Heroes, money is still coming in and it looks like it may well exceed £1,000. Not too bad really, consider we set out aiming for £200!!

I’d like to thank everyone who has helped me along the way and for donating so generously.

I feel this may not be my last little trip for Help for Heroes, but for now I’m signing off.

Tiff

Weathers still great & I'm no longer held together by micro-pore tape; so am starting from St Ives in the morning!
SPOT shall be with me (link at bottom of blog/under 'older pages'), so hopefully you'll be able to follow my progress online.
As always thank you for your continuing support, in both H4H donations & free pasties to keep me on the go!
I’ll try and update as I go, but internet access is going to be questionable while on the move... Either way hopefully I’ll be at Hartland Point, some 203+ Km away, by Friday night. But will see how it goes....

Thanks again
Tiff

Just to update, (having learnt my lesson from the kayaking stage...) I decided to take a couple of days off to let my little toe recover from the cherry sized blister that had formed!

I will be back in St. Ives either tomorrow or first light Monday, to finish the remaining 200km+ to Hartland Point.

The total money raised so far for Help for Heroes has now exceeded £700!

Thank you ever so much for your continuing support,

Tiff

Wow, what a trip so far! The last three days on foot have been truly epic & amazing.

Monday (Day 1 on foot) Mullion to Porthleven – The weather certainly tried its best to stop me from starting on time. The force 6-8 winds and horizontal rain, made progress difficult at best; being swept off my feet twice along the coast path! After two or so hours I retired for the day at a friend’s house, absolutely soaked and strangely hadn’t seen another sole all afternoon on the coast path……

Tuesday Porthleven to St. Buryan – The weather was much more favourable and this really helped me along. A pasty shop in a village before Penzance (sorry forgotten the name) donated lunch in the form of an excellent large steak pasty, which helped see me through the day.

Around Mousehole some local kids must have moved the coast path signs, since they made absolutely no sense taking me down dead end alleys and into back gardens! By this time I decided a B&B would be a wise move for the night, giving my shoulders & feet a chance to recover for the following day. However I hadn’t envisaged every B&B for the next 5-7 km being fully booked…

Fortunately this led me to Treverven Farm B&B near St. Buryan. All I can say to Rachel & Julian is thank you very much!!! They were amazingly welcoming hosts with an excellent B&B, really going the extra mile to help me out; which lifted my spirits no end ready for day three.

Wednesday St. Buryan to St. Ives - With an 8am start, I set my sights high and planned to get to a friends house at St. Ives by nightfall.

The previous evening along the roads looking for a B&B, highlighted the potential for fundraising inland. While the coast path is a lovely route to walk/run along, in many stretches people /civilisation is few and far between. This I found had limited the potential for fundraising with the collection pot and also didn’t allow me to raise public awareness of the charity Help for Heroes. While on the roads I found many people driving along, who saw the banner on my rucksack, would stop and donate. Therefore I made the decision that from then on I would remain on the coast path on popular sections and in those more remote sections, head inland going along the nearest sea road or via larger settlements.

While not totally sticking to my original revised route of going around the coast path for the whole of Cornwall, I hope people understand my decision with regard to the financial benefits it has for my chosen charity. Plus if anything it is increasing the amount of walking I’m carrying out as I zigzag between the settlements and coast!

As for the day itself, it was by far one of the longest days on my life! By midday I had made it round the coast path to Lands End, where my Mum was able to meet me to say hello and re-supply with new cloths (bliss!). Here I raised a reasonable amount of money with the charity box (over £100 in the last 2 days alone!!), further boosting my spirits. Then I had to escape to apparent invading force of German emits (the coast path temporarily tuned into busy central Berlin!), along the short hop to Sennen Cove. A final farewell from my Mum and I was on my own again.

The beach at Gwynver was magical, with dolphins playing in the waves amongst the surfers!!! It was simply amazing to watch and at only 15 meters from the shore! From here I headed inland slightly, along what has to be one of the prettiest roads in England. Passing through old mining villages and hamlets that time forgot, then over ancient moorlands with cuckoos calling into the clouds; while the whole time shadowing the Atlantic with the sun setting a deep red glow on the horizon.

After over 15 hours on the move, I reached St. Ives…only it wasn’t, but merely a signpost on the moors a good few miles out! With sheer exhaustion setting in, I hobbled into the Royal British Legion on the outskirts of St. Ives. Not only did they donate generously to Help for Heroes, but at the news that my friend lived in Carbis Bay (another 3 miles away) and seeing the state I was in, requested a taxi to take me the last leg of the trip. Something I am eternally grateful for, since those last three miles may well have killed me! However it does mean I now face the prospect of backtracking 3 miles in order to start from where I finished last night under my own steam.

Today (Thursday) I am taking it easy and giving my body a chance to recover. I shall probably walk some distance today, but with my little toe forming one big blister, the prospect of extra pain does not seem overly enticing the moment…..

Apologies about such a long post and thank you for your continuing support,

Tiff

12 hours to go till I start running the remaining 303 km’s along the Cornish coast & I’ve just finished packing, unpacking & then packing again!
My rucksack weighs 10kg (forgot about water before...), BUT that is without food, cooking gear or a tent - I'm leaving these at home, considering civilization (pubs and shops) are never that far away and there must be plenty of friendly rock ledges on the coast under which to bivvy....
As before I will carry SPOT so you can follow my progress and if I’m passing by your area, hot pasty donations are always welcome!

Minds Willing, Bodies Failing

I'm sorry to announce, that for now at least, our epic kayak trip around Cornwall is over. The conditions we faced on & off the water took their toll on us all.

Yesterday morning in the 4-6+ foot tidal races from the Lizard to Mullion Cove I (Tiff) severely aggravated an old shoulder injury and combined with the eye injury sustained the day before, this made me continuing extremely unsafe for us all.

Paul and Ollie faired a little better, but the pace we had been setting also took its toll. Paul damaged his wrist, making rescues/recovery not possible with kayaks weighing 250 lbs+ and Ollie was constantly bordering on sheer exhaustion.

We were all content dealing with the double figure blisters on our hands, split lips and permanent coving of salt/sand on the trip - However with the extremely bad physical state we are all in, we concluded it was not viable/safe to carry on.

We'd like to thank everyone who has donated the £500 + to Help for Heroes and hope our 94 hour run from Gunnislake Weir to Mullion Cove as a team, goes some way to showing our dedication to the planned trip. Plus we all wish to see the full Cornish coastline & may well carry on over the summer doing it in sustainable 2/3 day legs.

I (Tiff) would also like to announce, that I feel it would only be right to try and make it to Marsland Mouth, since that’s where we were being sponsored to reach. I do not wish to try and solo kayak the distance for safety reasons, however will keep as close to the original route as possible by running/walking the Cornish Coast path unsupported! Carrying all my own supplies and sleeping wherever I can find a suitable cave, bush, rock ledge etc. in which to bivvy under.

I need to recover for a few days, but am currently looking at starting my run on Monday 7th June from Mullion Cove. I shall keep this blog running & the Facebook page, plus will carry SPOT on my rucksack.

I hope this continuation of the trip solo (be it by land, instead of sea) will capture your hearts and lead to an even higher fundraising total for Help for Heroes.

We have made it to Polpeor, just past Lizard Point - we are all still alive!!!! The last 2 miles were fairly 'sketchy' with 5 foot tidal races and breaking surf over the reefs.....Paul and I (Tiff) managed to miss most of the rocks...although the boats may not float in the morning!

Prior to this the rest of the trip was good and were accompanied by a friend from Falmouth, who departed at Cadgwith (wise move!). Plus the Manacles were not lively as anticipated, in the calm conditions (but the Lizard made up for that...).

Tomorrow we will aim for Penzance, but conditions will dictate play a little.

I'm currently at a friends house on the Lizard, having gone to Helston Hospital. The day was my toughest so far, with sand clogging up my left eye so I was unable to see out of it.....It is worth noting that I do NOT recommend attempting the Lizard with one eye in roughish conditions - its scary!!!!

Blister update: Paul has 3, Ollie 5 to 9 (doesn't wish to look under his current plasters) & I'm not fairing too bad with most of mine turning into pads.