Day 34 – Padstow to Port Gaverne 4.6.13

Empty champagne bottle indicates that someone did well at the casino evening. Good brekker, and prompt arrival of LM2 enables us to get to Padstow in time for the second ferry of the day and over to Rock by 8:20. Beautiful day and it’s low tide so we save some time by walking along the beach past St Enodoc to Daymer Bay then back onto the cliff top to Polzeath. More beach action and rock climbing (or scrambling), but beyond Port Quin, we have a bit of a shock. After several days walking with short and/or not particularly steep inclines, we encounter a few long and steep ups and downs. Our pace drops, but we still make sufficiently good time to stop in Port Isaac for postcards at the second shop we see – the first is being used to film an episode of Doc Martin with Martin Clunes and Ben is politely told to replace his chosen postcard in the rack as it is  a prop– and reach Port Gaverne in time for a leisurely lunch. This is fortunate, because The Port Gaverne Hotel is a wonderfully hospitable place serving excellent crab sandwiches, something called blanche bait (whitebait with more fish) and a variety of ciders. We are able to linger before LM2 collects us for the return to Bodmin. He seems to think that Ben resembles Martin Clunes, and despite him (LM2) chatting for the world, John still manages to have a few zeds in the front seat. We agree to use LM2’s services on our next trip when it transpires that, if we’re picked up at Exeter, it won’t be much more expensive overall and will enable us to get to Port Gaverne by 11:00 – about an hour earlier than going via Bodmin. It now does feel that we’re on the homeward stretch, but the steep cliffs/valleys of Tintagel, Bude and North Devon await.