Day 6 - I always knew there'd be days like these...

 

The weather forecasters were indeed correct about today. The rain started hammering down on the van around 10pm last night and didn't let up. We were relatively sheltered from the wind but you could tell it was 'gusty.'

My first seven miles were inland from Wadebridge to Port Isaac, following River Amble and it's various tributaries, with the now 50mph winds coming from behind, so that wasn't too much of a problem. The terrain, however, made the Baseball Ground in the 1970's appear more like aan artifical pitch. What I think were usually small brooks and streams had turned into torrents a canoist would not have contemplated. Amazingly, I remained vertical and my feet relatively dry - nothing else was. 

I recuperated with a cup of coffee in Port Isaac: I hadn't passed a soul all day and there was no-one around in the village either. Doc Martin would have had a nice, quiet day - providing he stayed indoors.

I then made a calamitous decision to rejoin the SWCP through to Tintagel. The guide book had indicated it was a tough stretch but that didn't take account of the conditions. There are series of steep up and downs, each with a beck running into the sea. I may have done three or four of these, I lost count. I may have been blown backwards and done the same one twice, I simply don't know. I could barely stand up in the wind, let alone progress forward, Of course, turning back never actually occurred to me.

It would appear Brunel had never visited the North Cornish coast to share the merits of bridges with the locals and I was left to use the half-metre deep stepping stones whilst the force of the water drove my bottom half towards the sea and the wind drove my top half back up the beck. At least it cleaned my boots (and my gaiters).

Via my GPS, I spotted a footpath coming up that would take me to a road about a mile and a half away. The GPS was worth its weight in gold, as it was impossible to take a map out and the 4G guys took the same view as Brunel about visiting Cornwall. 

The path was basically a bog but I ploughed on and came across an 18th Century farmhouse, long abandoned, which provided enough shelter for lunch and some diabetes activity (all was fine, the jelly babies had done the trick). I didn't actually go in the farmhouse, just in the doorway, given the warning signs, but I would have pretty unlucky if it had collapsed today after standing for 300 years.

I stuck to the road for the remaining 5 miles to Boscastle. Tomorrow looks better. Roll on Bude.