The adventures started here.

I decided to walk round the south west coast path from Marazion to St Ives. My very first idea that I was going to go out alone and camp, hike, walk, adventure. I considered myself a serious hiker/ walker. I had after all being at it for years, so walking around west Cornwall would not be a challenge and also I had camped a lot as a boy and a teenager, so that was going to be easy too. Here is a list (to my best knowledge and remembrance) of my kit list.

Eurohike tent (£40)
Cheap sleeping bag (£12 was summer, so did n’t need to be good)
large inflatable camp bed (Hmmm)
Duvet and house pillow (least said about this one)
Stove attachment complete with zero knowledge of different gas canisters and which one was required
Suitcase and trolley (because I over packed, I couldn’t carry it all on my back)
Merrell hiking boots (this one I got right, without knowing)
Jeans (after day 3, I wore shorts and have been 9 months of the year ever since)
A day bag (rucksack)
Mug
Plate, bowl, cutlery
A kettle
More clothes than I needed
A Motorola 1st generation Windows flip phone (still have it)
Compass (didn’t use but still have)

You get the idea, mostly unsuitable kit and some kit didn’t get used. After 3 days of attempting to buy the correct gas canister, I got it right. 3 trips to Millets in Penzance before I got it working and was relying on public transport and could only make 1 trip per day. Once I bought the right one I bought a small frying pan, so I could at least cook some food. This was before most campsites had a stocked shop, the site (Boleigh farm) I stayed at was in St Buryan near Land’s end and they didn’t have a shop. They had two showers and a sink for washing up. One Gentleman turned up with a bivi and I had honestly never seen one before, I thought it was a sleeping bag.

This is the year a hurricane came over the Atlantic to Cornwall and pelted it with savage rain storms throughout the night. I became desensitised to rain in a tent and to this day it doesn’t bother me. I hope I have made it very clear how I was totally unprepared for this trip, ok, so that is enough of my naivety and arrogance. The first thing I learned was not to take anything for granted, the second get a better tent and sleeping system, the third was to camp not use home comforts and the drop the weight.

Now the hike (which now seems laughable). The plan was to walk as I previously said from Marazion to St Ives on the South west coast path and do it in as little time as possible. With very little experience of the terrain. I arrived on the Saturday, set up camp and tried to sleep. I woke up the following morning at 5:30am and decided the start the day, I thought I’d walk to St Buryan and get the bus to Penzance and then onto Marazion. This didn’t happen as there were only two buses a day, so I walked to Penzance and travelled nearly 9 miles before even starting hike back. The week panned out as follows;

Sunday: St Buryan – Penzance. Bus to Marazion. Walk, Marazion – Boleigh Farm via Lamorna. (BLUE 8.7m + GREEN 10.7m)
Monday: Boleigh Farm – Land’s End. (RED 11.9m)
Day off and finally managed to get a gas canister.
Wednesday: Land’s End to St Just, a very short distance. (PURPLE 6.3m)
Thursday: Day off.
Friday: St Just – St Ives, by far the hardest walk of the trip and the most soul destroying. (YELLOW 17.8m)

Just before lock down (2019), I walked from Penzance to Land’s end following the same path and it didn’t feel like it needed the same time and attention I gave it before. The day after I rode the same distance on my bike and it didn’t cause any strain on my body. I am looking forward to doing it all again.

Since this was 2004, camera phone technology was in it’s infancy. I had an attachment for my phone which was a pain to keep putting in the phone to take grainy photos. The size of the pics ended up being something like 240 pixels wide, hence the poor quality of the tent pic below.

Day 1 wasn’t too bad after I finally got going, I had walked from Penzance to Lamorna before.

Day 2 was the next big shock, Lamorna to Land’s end . It seemed never ending. It’s laughable now but I both enjoyed it and found it really difficult.

Day 4 (3 was a day off) was easy< i even found someone to walk and talk with.

Day 5 was just boring.