Day 39: Cripplesease to Land’s End 17 miles

There’s no breakfast available at the Engine Inn and no shops nearby, so we break out our old Firepot dehydrated food. It’s certainly filling and keeps us going on this chilly morning. The sun is shining but we can see our breath. We retrace our steps on the B3311 keeping our eyes out for a sock that was drying in his rucksack and went missing yesterday. Sadly, we do not find it.

We head down the road, which is surprisingly busy, and we’re pleased to turn off onto an unclassified road that soon leads to a footpath. We follow a good path that leads nowhere, then reverse our steps and pick up a better one through a field of cattle.

This path leads into open access moorland and, as we are bypassing the summit, Rich suggests we go to the top, just to see the view. We very rarely do detours like this one but, the weather is beautiful and I’m intrigued to see if we can finally see both coasts from one viewpoint. We are not disappointed.

As we reach the top Rich exclaims ‘Holy sh*t!’, not a common phrase for him. The view is incredible, though Land’sEnd itself remains hidden.

On the top of the hill is Rogers’ Tower. This gothic folly was probably built for John Rogers in 1798, so that it could be seen from his home in Treassowe Manor. It was restored in 1960, according to a plaque inside. It looks uncannily like a Duplo tub, but it’s situation is tremendous.

We go back and rejoin the path, past an active granite quarry, that proceeds unerringly south west and is great underfoot. We are now heading towards Heamoor, on the outskirts of Penzance, as it has a shop where we can buy provisions. It is probably a little bit out of our way, but needs must. When we arrive at the Costcutters, the woman behind the counter instructs us to wait a minute as the sandwich delivery man has just arrived. Once the shelves are restocked, we choose our lunch, then head to a patch of green close by for a belated morning break.

We then continue along an unclassified but busy road until we reach Trengwainton Garden. The walled garden here was constructed in Elizabethan times , probably in response to the Mainder Minimum (~1645 - ~1715) a period of very low sunspots within the Little Ice Age ( c. 1300 - c. 1850). The garden is a National Trust property and we take a slight detour here to use their facilities. The house itself is not open to the public. This is the last of our three diversions for the day.

We make good progress along this road route, but soon head off up a track towards Sancreed Beacon. Excitingly, we can see a fire basket here on the top of the hill. We find a good patch of grass here and stop for lunch.

There are several Neolithic, Iron and Bronze Age remains here, including hill forts such as Carn Bran and the Carn Euny settlement, both of which we pass by. We continue on, following St Euny’s Well Way (medieval but waymarked in 2014), bypassing the next viewpoint and following a permissive path down to the A30. Rather than crossing this, we follow it for a while which eats up the distance, but is quite unnerving with the traffic.

We turn of towards Esvalls and follow a variety of paths through Escalls Green towards Sennen Cove. The sea is now our constant companion.

We walk along increasingly narrow roads up and down until we reach a track and a sign that states enticingly ‘Land’s End 1 mile’. We follow this for a while, but it feels claustrophobic, and we soon head down to the south west coastal path. We use this to take us to Land’s End, our final destination.

As we are almost there, I finally spy two choughs hunting worms on the grassland. I have been looking out for these rare birds the entire trip and it’s amazing to find them at last. They are so engrossed, I have time to take pictures

Then suddenly, we have arrived and three years’ of planning, walking and blogging is over. Land’s End itself is an odd kind of place with an incongruous theme park. It’s very different from both Cape Wrath and Lowestoft. The routes have been varied and often challenging, but no two days have been the same.

Next it’s off to catch the coastal bus to Penzance and the Long Boat Inn for the night. We’ll catch the train back to Norfolk tomorrow. There’s still the final chapter and the thank-yous to write, but not tonight.

Total distance: 530 miles