Day 2: Penzance to Praa Sands

March 1

Kilometers: 19

Ascent: 323

Horses: Coos: 

The morning was slow, since I only had 6 kilometers to walk before noon. It was nice but windy, with a couple of light showers and I was already wearing rain jacket and pants, so no problem. 

I got to Marazion an hour early. I was walking to St Michael's Mount and had to wait for the tide to go out so that the causeway to the island was dry. Finally people started crossing and I started too, I didn't want to cross too soon. 

The causeway is almost 1 kilometer and halfway across the wind picked up. Wawes came rolling in and at first I could avoid them but after a while my feet got soaked. Once across the wind picked up even more and it got very difficult to walk. For a while I was just standing, doing my best not to be swept away. And then it started to rain. It was a near biblical downpour, so I ran to the café, where my feet could dry while I had some hot chocolate and a scone.

By now the sun was out and I was soon on my way again. The downpour had made the paths very muddy and after a while I just walked right through the mud. I now had my waterproof socks on, so it was ok and walking in the middle of the mud was somewhat less slippery.

It was quite windy with very strong gusts and walking along the cliff was scary, so when I found a public footpath to the side I took it. It was so much nicer! The problem arose when I tried to rejoin the path. There was 30-ish meters of thigh-high brambles to cross, and every step my feet got caught. Thank goodness for my walking poles, I nearly fell a number of times.

The mud and the brambles made the walk take an hour longer than planned and I just made the bus back to Penzance with 2 minutes to spare.