Coastwalk , South West Coast Path

Lizard Lighthouse → Coverack

Distance: 10.5 miles
Ascent: 568 metres
Duration: 4 hours 53 minutes

After a year off
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Three hundred and sixty days have passed since our previous coastwalk. Clearly this is why I like to try completing a segment each calendar month: not in order to collect twelve months of walking each year, but to act as a catalyst to get to the coast frequently. (It's been difficult not seeing much of the sea of late.)

Sometimes when we come away to Cornwall we just nibble at the coast. This year, with the knowledge that 2010 has been exceptionally light on coastwalking, we've decided to take a bigger bite and try to close the gap in our walking between Lizard and Mevagissey.

Communication was a strong theme in today's walk. We started at Lizard lighthouse which has been signalling Britain's most southerly point for over 250 years. A little further on the path was diverted from the cliff top where a new facility is being constructed for those who didn't quite get the message: a replacement lifeboat house at Church Cove.

Throughout the walk the satellite dishes of Goonhilly Earth Station were visible inland. If you believe the taxi driver who delivered us to our starting point, these have gone silent themselves in recent months while there is an increased risk that unknown parties "out there" may misinterpret Earth's messages. Personally I suspect it's more likely another wave of BT redundancies in the face of transatlantic fibre optics.