The times of the morning buses back to Trebah Gardens didn’t work for me so I decided to walk the route in reverse. The light rain of early morning had stopped and the clouds were blowing off when I started and it turned to be a perfect day.

From my hotel it was about a mile on suburban roads to Swanpool beach. There was a lovely promenade with many of the usual dog walkers and pram pushers. This turned into a paved path to the next beach and after that a gravel path and I was in quiet shade of big hedgerows and dappled woodland.

It was a social day. I saw my American trio at Maenporth Beach. They went off-script yesterday and bused a good portion of their scheduled walk and had a great day. They got in at the magic 2pm!

Then I kept running into 3 long-distance runners. One couple kept stopping to chat and I’d pass them. Then of course they’d pass me. Then they’d stop for a wardrobe change, and I’d pass, etc etc. We just started laughing each time we re-met. The other runner is mimicking her upcoming Isle of Scillys 60k so had set times/distances/stops to make so I kept bumping into her.

Lastly was the dogwalker whose 2nd dog was just having too much fun sniffing around so he kept having to wait for it.

The last mile and a half were in sight of Helford sound so made a very picturesque end to an easy day. The route took me directly to Trebah Gardens again so I had a little cream tea while waiting for my bus back to Falmouth.