Day 2 Monday Nancledra to Porkellis

Walking 9.10am to 5.00pm
Distance walked 15 miles
Distance left 1044 miles

It got wet and blustery in the night and I woke up to rain this morning and it didn't stop till mid afternoon. Still, I've got packing up in the rain down to a fine art now so everything gets stowed away under cover and then the tarp comes down and packed in a waterproof stow sack. Today's rain was nothing compared to last year's on my coast to coast.

Much of today, although by no means all, was road walking. Very narrow lanes with Cornish hedges either side so there wasn't much to see either side until I came to gateways. The route took me through Canon's Town, St. Erth (village shop up for sale so it may not be there for much longer), Townshend and then, at lunchtime I stopped for a pint of Doom Bar at the Goldolphin Arms at Godolphin Cross. Very nice and a friendly pub too. The landlady gave me £5.00 for my charity and a customer at the bar gave me £3.00. This sort of thing is so encouraging.

There are so many primroses along the roadsides

It was a moment before I realised this was a tractor! Ashes to ashes, rust to rust.

By prior arrangement, I was picked up at Porkellis and I am now at Seworgan with friends David and Angela, who I first met on the Wainwright Coast to Coast in 2001. They breed alpacas. There's so much work to do on what is, essentially, a smallholding, that they now have workers staying for short periods as house guests sourced through a web site called Help Exchange. In return for the manual work, they are fed and watered and, I think, paid some sort of wage.

It's shepherd's pie for supper tonight, a shower (an amazing contraption with water jets, steam and a built-in radio - I shall just have a bog standard shower, I think!) and then a real bed.

A shorter day tomorrow. I shall be dropped back at Porkellis in the morning.