Day 28: Climbing steps again

Start: Mevagissey

End: Polmear

Miles: 13

Total miles: 373

My stay in Mevagissey was lovely and come the morning I felt fuelled up and well rested, ready to begin phase 5 of my journey. The path leaving Mevagissey wasn't short of steep ascents, climbing up and down steps repeatedly. It took me back to my days in North Cornwall. My guide book tells me that in total I'll climb over 436 stiles and go up or down over 30,000 steps. I wondered who's job it was to count these and how many steps were behind and ahead of me. Questions I'd never know the answer to. Up ahead in the distance I could see the town of St Austell and behind what looked like isolated snow-capped peaks. Something you'd find in the Cairngorms or Brecon Beacons, looking out of place in the Cornish countryside. In reality, these were just towering spoil heaps from China clay works, but I liked to imagine them as snowy mountains.

Come late morning, I passed a group of teenagers completing their bronze Duke of Edinburgh. They hunched over uncomfortably, not used to carrying such weight on their backs. One of the boys approached me and told me another boy in his team was suffering with his asthma and they couldn't call for help as there was no signal up on the cliff. The ascents today were unforgiving, asthma or not. I'd recently passed a small car park as the route cut briefly out to a road, there was signal there and car access where they could get help. I showed them where this was on the map and suggested two of them went to get help. If the boy could rest here, then someone could come to help him down, take his rucksack off him and he could get a lift once he made it to the car park. I stayed with the boy until the situation resolved, encouraging him to calm down, use his inhaler and take slow deep breaths. Once help arrived I carried on, reaching the town of Charlestown. I had to briefly divert inland to reach town due to unstable cliffs.

After lunch, I moved beyond Charlestown towards Par. The route ran alongside a golf course. Danger signs to my right warned of unstable cliffs and to my left of flying golf balls. From here Par Docks was reached where the route cut inland around unsitely China clay works. Everything was grey and dusty. After a boring stretch of road walking I reached my campsite. On the way I passed a fruit shop and bought fresh peaches and strawberries which I was delighted by. Each day when I arrive at camp, I draw a line to mark my progress on my map. It's barely a couple of centimetres each day but it's remarkable how it all adds up, each day the line edges that bit closer to Poole.