The Mystical Salt Path

That wasn't made up

The love affair started in 2002 When staying in St Ives, my first official holiday as an adult. I thought after seeing so many beautiful places, I was inspired to walk the South West coast path from Marazion to St Ives. I arrived in the afternoon at Penzance on August 14th a Saturday. I had dreamt of visitng Land's end as child thinking it would be a magical place. That stayed with me into adulthood, when visited for the first time in 2002, it lived up to my expectation. I had a deep connection that I couldn't explain nor did I want to try.

What I couldn't have known at the time was I had started a long standing tradition with hiking in Cornwall that continues to this day. Something I have shared and passed on to my Son and previous partners and friends. I have started my 2026 adventure but, there is a discussion and a booking. You can follow us by visiting the main page and clicking the icon. Also there are a couple of podcasts.
'Greetings from the end of the kingdom'
& '5 nights in the south west'. these are all part of the 'Hikenpod' podcast
on 'The Last Broadcast' channel.
By design, I wanted a website, I could upload to and share information, a blog and photos to. In 2004, that was a tall order really. By comparision, data was a premium and slow, images were huge. When I revisited my images from back then, they are tiny by todays standards. Now this site is different matter, 20 years later I get the site I wanted, something I can access on my smart phone, record and write. In 2004, I was using the 1st generation windows phone and I thought it was awesome.
I have just managed to get it working again with the Last Broadcast number. The technology is still stuck in the early naughties but it will make a good back up phone.

Back to the story...

I left London on the Saturday 14th August 2004. It was an early morning start to get to Paddington station, nothing at all I remember of that. I don't have any recollection of getting on the underground with my camping kit. My earlist memory is sitting at the station waiting for my train to arrive, drinking coffee. I remember walking on to the platform and then finding my reserved seat on the train. There was a Woman with her disabled adult son who was very excited about going on holiday to Devon.
With the same level of excitement as me, I finally arrived at Penzance, grabbed my bags and left the platform and went looking for the number 1 bus. There was a short wait and once I boarded, I asked the driver to drop me at the nearest stop to Boleigh farm, he laughed and promsied to drop me outside instead.

Standing outside the sign I suddenly felt self conscious mainly because I realised I was new to this, so with my Motorola mobile phone, I phoned the farmer. He sounded very confused and said no one had ever phoned from outside before, and I should find a spot and pitch up,so I did. Once I had surveyed the site, which didn't take long because it was and still is very basic, two toilets, showers and a couple of 13amp outlets to charge stuffs, I went back to my tent to relax. Laying in my tent, I could hear the noise and hum of the generator nearby and I was alarmed by the stillness of the environment. I eventually fell asleep and woke up at around 5am, once I am awake, I usually can't get back to sleep easily and I thought getting up and starting the hike was the best option. I pulled out my map and gathered my day pack headed to St Buryan the nearby village where I knew I could get a bus to Penzance to start my epic journey.

I made my way out of the campsite and headed past the merry maidens (stone circle) and then arriving in the village. The local shop was just about to open and I thought, I'd wait outside to get a drink and a snack before checking the bus schedule. Once refreshed, I walked to the bus shelter, 10 yards away. I checked the bus schedule and discovered that there 2 buses that day. I worked out that if I walked to Penzance I would arrive the same time as the first bus. The enorimity of the task I had set myself sunk in. This was not like London, it was the edge of country. I couldn't go back home having not completed this walk, that was not an option. I talked a big talk, now I had to deliver. I picked myself up and headed east and walked for just over 2 hours to Newlyn and watched the bus past sail past me. When I got to Penzance, I was already tired and my hike hadn't even started. I popped into the Wimpey for breakfast before making my way to the bus station to Marazion and St Michael's mount.

I stood on the causeway and took a photo of myself with the castle in the back ground, with the caption of 'The first of 50 odd miles', my journey proper had begun, on the south west coast(al) path. Totally ill prepared, not knowing what to expect and unsure if I could actually finish it.

The journey out of Penzance and back into Newlyn and then into Mousehole (Mowzal) was straight forward and unchallenging. This was not good, it gave me a false sense of security that the rest of the hike was going to be similar. This was not the case, I then made my first big mistake.

In my inexperience of walking the path, I didn't think following path applied to me and hugging the cliff tops was both a good idea and not dangerous at all. I found this out to my cost somewhere around 'Penzer point', I reached a cliff face that acted like a ski slope. Climbing it was not that difficult but, due to the smoothness of the rock, if I slipped and gained momentem meant sliding down off the cliff into the sea below. I stood there for 5 minutes deciding my next move, going back would take 30 minutes and I didn't want to do that. So I grabbed my courage and ran up the cliff, made it to the top and pulled myself up and was faced with a wide field full of Heather. The national trust or farmers sow heather to regenerate the soil and stop idiots like me from walking across. I tried to look for the end of the field at either side but couldn't see anything. I opted for an unpopular decision for both myself and the land owner and that was to make a beeline to the otherside, a direction I hadn't worked out. Then on the horizion, I saw a couple with back packs and realised that must be the coastal path, so I reluctantly made my way in that direction, trying hard not to think about the fact that the heather came up to my knees and this was Adder country.

Once I was back on the path, I made the decision to never stray from the path again, something I have stuck to, to this day.

After what felt like an age, I made it to Lamorna cove, my turn off. This is a deep forest in the most unlikely place. I moved up through the forest not knowing really where I was going and then I made it to main road, somewhere tha was familiar. I entered the campsite and pulled out the gas canister I bought in penzance and carried all that way to make myself some hot food and a cup of tea. It didn't fit, it was the wrong gas cannister.