After a planned day of in Falmouth for laundrette work I was setting off to cross another river at Helford. This time I had a “lift” organised across the river, but the way things had been going, I wasn’t overconfident.
The rain was falling fairly steadily as I entered a Cornish area of Natural Beauty according to the rain soaked sign.
As I plodded along through the mud I was surprised to find a Home Guard monument tucked away along the path and I was even more surprised when a local, James, passed me while running and then returned to bring me hot tea and Christmas Cake.
The Helford river is quite impressive and with the sun finally putting in an appearance it was a pleasant amble to the Ferryboat Inn where I was due to be picked up at 3.30 when the tide was high. My instructions were to meet the boat on the beach as the jetty had been taken down for the winter. When I arrived there was no beach as the tide was coming in.
Still the pub was there for a coffee and I waited expectantly at the riverside reading the signs telling people if they saw people being put on and off boats at odd times to report it to the police or immigration authorities.
Rowley came across the river at precisely 3:30 in a small launch and we were soon on the other side where I was met by Rowley’s friend Dave.
my plan was to wild camp that night not far from Helford and then walk to Coverack the next day.
Dave came up with the suggestion that the New Inn at Manaccan was near the coast path and they let people camp in the garden. This seemed a good plans and Dave gave me a lift there.
The pub was very hospitable and even did breakfast so things were looking up. One of the local farmers told me the coast path was blocked where I was planning to go the next day and I needed to go straight to Porthallow as I couldn get from Gillan Creek to Porthallow. it was a proper local pub where you could get into discussions about the costs of machinery for destoning potato fields very easily.
I had a relaxed night in the pub garden accompanying by the usual owls which Cornwall seems to have in abundance.