The Lizard to Porthallow

Half way day!

We left after sunrise from the YHA saying hello to the resident garden rabbit on the way back to the path.

We headed around the point until we had to wait for a heard of particularly short cows to be shooed back into the field after they had escaped through an open gate.

Continuing on we passed one of the volunteer coast guard watch stations. The funding for these was removed in 1992 (and given to a small number of centralised offices). However in 1994, after a small fishing vessel with 2 aboard was wrecked off the Lizard Coast (with no witnesses), the local community decided to set up a volunteer watch which is manned at stations though the country in daylight hours.

The guy manning the station said it was unusual to see coast path walkers before 10am! A little further around the coast we passed the new location of the Lizard life boat. The old slipway at Lizard Point was destroyed in a storm so the decision was made to move the lifeboat to a more protected location. The RNLI is all run on volunteers and through donations which always amazes me. 

We made it to the quaint village of Cadgwith by 10am and were in Coverack for lunch. Lots of Coverack was damaged in a flash-flood last summer, a volume of rain equal to filling the Royal Albert Hall more than 4 times fell in 7 hours over a 2.2 mile catchment area. Many shops and houses were flooded, residents had to be rescued from their roof by helicopter, and lots of the roads were destroyed. Additionally, a larger chunk of the coast path was destroyed and there is now a large diversion. 

The second half of today took us through some inland routes and through the villages of Polthoustock and Porthallow. The inland section bypasses the coast line at Porth Kerris which is owned by a diving company. The University of Bristol dive club has the annual Easter training trip here every year (so I have been there a lot). It never occurred to me before that it was odd to own a section of coastline. But this is the biggest inland diversion we have done yet. 

The village of Porthallow marks the South West Coast Path half way point, 315 miles! There is a large marker but we somehow managed to miss it so the picture below will have to suffice.  

We found a flat spot near the coast watch point at Nare Point to set up camp.

I was beginning to despair that I had not seen a new species of caterpillar in the last two days. Then at 4pm I saw this one! I think it is a Brown Tail moth caterpillar. Fun fact; the hairs are incredibly irritating to human skin, if an infestation of these caterpillars occurs in an urban environment the hairs carried by the wind can cause problems for the public.