




Apropos that, we had a very amusing discussion about other, possibly inevitable, technological enhancements to this kind of trip. You might, or might not, recall how, previously, Tim cycled the End-to-End (i.e. Land's End to John O'Groats, i.e. one corner of Britain to the opposite corner, i.e. about 1000 miles). He not only did it solo, he not only did it in 9 days (if I recall correctly), but he photo-blogged the whole adventure with only his phone sending photos and comments in real-time from his mobile, with mobile-blogging software he'd written himself.
Anyway, we were wondering what some logical extensions of this all might be. For instance, bluetooth cameras you'd never have to go through exchanging photos after the trip, if every shot everyone took landed on everyone else's camera automatically. And speaking of storing shots: with ubiquitous wireless broadband, cameras won't store the photos you take on your memory card they'll store them on your server, beaming them off as quickly as you take them.
Add video to that full-time connectivity action and you could have real-time video feeds of your trip, so people could just jump in and out of your trip when they felt like it. (A natural if unholy confluence of Tim's mobile blogging, and bedroom webcams.) Essentially, you could take all your friends' trips, and they all yours. I suggested a commenting function, so all the people going along remotely can interact with you on the trip, and with the others. Tim suggested full interactivity, where the viewers can make suggestions as to whether you go left or right. Charles wisely punctured the whole ill-advised balloon:


And of course hot sweaty climbing makes for shirtless men at the top. ↓ Perhaps in revenge, perhaps from sheer perversity, I did this. ↓


Tim: "Yeah."
Me: "I don't suppose that's a coincidence."
Tim: "No."

Me: "I think my phone's actually throbbing."
Charles: "I'm one bar short."
Tim: "How can your phone be one bar short? Send it back!"


Soon enough, it was back to traversing dramatic (and occasionally terrifying) cliff edges and trudging up and down from and to pebbly but pretty beaches. Enough of my yapping for awhile. Cue montage theme music →

So you might previously have noticed how Charles has been carrying a very large bag, and Meeyoung a very small one. Somewhere along here she tired and Charles took both bags (the little one's on his front). → Then he took her camera. The last English gentleman.
Also somewhere along here we chanced on a Cornish ice cream truck (serving day-trippers who had driven up to the overlook parking lot, but heigh ho.) Sensibly, we indulged ourselves. The others got Cornish ice cream, and at the last second I broke down and got an ice lolly. That was a nice stop (though I haven't any pictures).


Tim: "Michael and I prefer a different type of bird-watching. But they need a certain climate."
Me: "Warm enough that they've shed their natural plumage."
Charles: "You like to catch them when they're molting… Now that I've spotted the birds, let's see if I can tag one."
Charles hefts rock and hurls it.
Meeyoung: "Oh, no, Charles… you've killed two birds with one stone."
Also somewhere along here, we rambled onto some pasture, over a stile in a fence, and I saw something I'd never seen in Britain before: a "No Right To Roam" sign.
Charles: "Unlike in Italy, or I think Sweden, in this country there's ."
Me: "A notion of private property?"
Charles: "Yes."
Me: "Yeah, well, in the U.S. you can go wherever you want, too as long as you don't mind a shotgun blast to the legs."
Charles: "Even here, it's incredibly hard to get done for trespassing, unless you damage something."
Me: "Can they shoot you?"
Charles: "No."
Me: "Not even a light peppering of birdshot to the shins?"
Charles: "That would work much to your advantage as a future source of income."
Soon after that we began approaching, in earnest, Godrevy Point just off the tip of which is the little island with the little lighthouse that was the inspiration for Virginia Woolf's book the title of which was our instruction for the afternoon.
We took a lovely long break here, despite threatening weather and a smattering of rain, overlooking the lighthouse. By and by, Charles started kitting up again.
Me: "We've got walking to do."
Charles: "And I don't think it's going to suck itself."
Tim: "It's quite funny when you say that."
Me: "Yes!"



We met up shortly at the one pub, which, briefly confusingly, had an all-new name. But it was just across the one street nothing in Gwithian can be far from anything else in Gwithian. They also had a leopard-skin couch, which continuing our faux-homo theme there was immediate and universal enthusiasm for photographing me and Tim upon. Don't know if I mentioned, but you can see from the photographs, that I'd mainly been wearing a sleeveless top (American: tank-top; English: vest) in the evenings, because it was comfy and clean. Lamentably, there's a certain association of this type of garment with gay fashion. You probably haven't failed to notice Tim's frosted hair, which, ditto. Anyway, I think it was here, on the leopard-skin couch, that Tim made a suggestion for our next trip together.
Me: "What, switch?"
Tim: "No, we both have frosted hair and vests."
Me: "Jesus."
Over an enormously yummy dinner at a big table in a comfy room, we made ourselves a lot smarter than we might have been, and came to a really good logistical decision as regard's the next day's walk. I'll detail this in tomorrow's dispatch, but suffice it to say for now that it involved a cab. I think we all slept really well after that.
Route Follower Alongerer :

