Friday: 19th May: Weather: 9°C to 17°C: High Cloud and overcast but no rain: Sunny after 5pm
Polperro to Portwrinkle: 24.0k walk: 8h 00m: 9.15am to 5.15pm: 1 x 1hr shop, 1 x 30min stop: Ascent: 860 m
Accommodation: Finneygook Inn Finnygook Lane Crafthole, 800metres inland from Portwrinkle
Leaving harbour of Polperro
Banjo shaped harbour Looe
Morning tea Looe town Centre
Lunch at the bus stop Seaton Beach
Looking back to Looe
2k of long grass covering track
Clear track to Portwrinkle
Looking to Rame Head Plymouth
View from Finneygook Hotel
Highlight of our day 6 was was getting to Looe, a place we had been to before in 1980, and we were looking forward to seeing it again since we saw the UK TV series Beyond Paradise filmed there. It starred Kris Marshall, of Death at a Funeral fame and also Death in Paradise.
Breakfast isn’t until 8.30am and we’re awake at 6am, so plenty of time to have a jug boiled cup of tea, finish blogging, answer emails and plan the days walk. Breakfast is a basic but lovely buffet continental breakfast. Our Norwegian friends are there and so are the six guys walking part of the SWCP, who we have been playing tag with the past few days. There’s hot croissants, muesli, yoghurt, toast, sliced grapefruit and hot tea or coffee.
Today is a long day, at least 22k, possibly more, and we’d hoped to get away earlier than our 9.15 am start. So we walk quickly down the narrow street of Polperro to the pretty harbour, then uphill to the wide, well contoured cliff path with wonderful views all the way to Plymouth. Apparently this section of the SWCP is very popular and can be crowded in summer. But today, there’s just us, our Norwegian friends the 6 guys and lots of locals with their dogs.
The 9k path is easy walking and we’re at Looe at 11.45am. Looe was featured in the British TV series Beyong Paradise with Kris Marshall of Death at a Funeral fame and also Death in Paradise. The series is filmed in Looe, Cornwall but the TV Series is about the fictional village of Shipton Abbott in Devon. Prominent in the series is the Banjo shaped wall of the Harbour belonging to Looe.
Walking along the harbour’s edge through West Looe, we cross the bridge to East Looe where the shops are located, including two co-op stores at each end of the street. The first one looks OK and we decide to buy some more prosciutto and cheese for tonight’s dinner. Then a loaf of sourdough bread from the Looe bakery next door. There’s garden seats in the street, just perfect for a coffee with a hunk of fresh bread and jam for morning tea.
We’ve fluffed around for more than an hour in the pretty village of Looe and it’s 1pm when we start walking again. Up a very steep hill then down again to Millendreath Beach then another long climb (by SWCP standards not Swiss Alp standards) to the Monkey Sanctuary along a narrow Lane which continues down to Seaton Bridge. It’s 2.30pm and we need a break. It’s a chilly 16°C and.windy. The bus stop across from teh beach looks good, so we shelter from the cold wind to have a late lunch of bread and jam with a cp of tea.
The sign says four and a half miles to Portwrinkle - all signs in the UK are in miles, so we need to do quick conversions at each sign post. This one means 7.2k to Port wrinkle. Probably another 2 hours walk, with a 1k uphill to Finnygook Hotel above Portwrinkle. Another steep climb then through waist high grass embedded with stinging nettles that goes on and on for 3k. Until Finally the path clears and we can see Portwrinkle in the distance, and beyond is sprawling Plymouth and Rame Head.
It’s 5pm when we arrive at Portwrinkle and look for Finneygook Lane. Google maps then says it’s another 1k, up hill of course, to the Finneygook Hotel. It’s 5.15 cwhen we get there, just as the 6 hikers we’ve been tagging for teh past 3 days are leaving the hotel having had a few beers before they move on to their hotel just down the road.
Our room is magnificent with a kin size bed and view over the countryside to Plymouth. After dropping our bags, it’s downstairs to have a beer - Ian has a pint of Moretti and I have a half pint of Guiness - at £3 per glass it’s cheaper than £11 for a glass of wine.
Back upstairs to our room where we need to be careful to spread out our picnic without making a mess. Tonight it’s same as, same as again - Prosciutto, tomato, lettuce, onion, cheese, mayonnaise and really freash sourdough bread, with another glass of Guiness each.
It's 10.30pm and bed time after a quick look at our walk to Plymouth tomorrow.
Dinner in our Finneygook Hotel room