The storm ended by morning; but my train home was from Falmouth, in three days time, and I wasn't planning on taking another step until then. I spent those three days – and three nights – in tiny little Coverack. I came to know it rather well.
In the mornings, I rolled down the hill from the YHA, and took walks along the Promenade. The Promenade was also the main drag, which was also the only drag. I shopped in the little shop, trying to persuade the pinch-faced woman who ran it to take a cheque, as my cash dwindled. (*) I poked around in the couple of little tourist-orientated shops, until that got dull, which was about on the first day. I sat facing the water and made pages of notes for a novel I'm probably never going to write.
When I'd exhausted the entertainment possibilities of the town – other than drinking, which was the main entertainment, but I was trying to wait until a decent hour – I trudged back up the hill. One nice thing: a house along the way, with a huge garden, vended picked-today vegetables from a box by the side of the road. I'd drop a few coins in the box and take home half my dinner for the night. Then I'd kick around the YHA reading National Geographics,
until it was safe to start drinking.
Then, in the dusk, I'd wander back down and into the one pub, where they never did seem to like me much, and sit in the corner and listen to the music and drink a couple of pints and read and make notes. Then I'd stumble back up the hill in the dark, make dinner, eat, and sleep.
The closest I ever got to the coast path was when I was poking around behind the front, and saw this waymarker. I backed away slowly, and stayed out of that vicinity for the rest of my stay. When Saturday did roll around –
a long, lazy time later – I packed up, checked out, and waddled the length of town to the one bus stop. There a cute little ½-length bus picked me up and chug-chugged out toward Falmouth; and the train home; and the end of my path – ingloriously abbreviated, but I could at least console myself that the trip did what it said on the tin: I had gone beyond Land's End.
Route Follower Alongerer
