Short take: nice walk, light rain.
The day dawned grey and it felt like it would probably rain some, but despite this morale was high. Fresh meat (i.e., new hikers) will do that to a group :-). We were now eight, of which for five this was the first day.
We crossed another arm of the Fal ria in a small outboard boat and were dropped off at the hamlet of Place just before 10AM. We walked around a lovely little manor house and looked in at its church (OK, perhaps the house wasn't that small) -- a little gem! Wood-beamed roof with cleverly designed and integrated skylights along the center ridge, candles in chandeliers and ancient memorial plaques and burial stones... one of the nicest I've ever seen.
Then we started the walk in earnest, going around St. Anthony's head with its lighthouse and WWII-era artillery emplacements, and walking up and down along a varied and pretty coast. After a short while a light rain began to fall, which continued for most of the rest of the day. The only time it got a little heavier was while we were sitting in the atmospheric Plume of Feathers pub in the village of Portscatho having lunch, so my bribes of the weather gods must have worked in a small way.
We saw a deer, some cormorants, a herd of madly mooing cows, and a half dozen of the thus far very rare hikers along the Coast Path (I don't know where they all are this year... we saw many more two years ago on the Northern section of the trail). Other than that, it was all lovely coastline, culminating in the high cliffs of Nare's Head about an hour before Portloe.
We came down into the village about 5:45PM, some of us pleasantly tired, some of us (including Rochelle and Sally, who I baptized the rocket frogs due to their speed and neon green clothing) seemingly as fresh as they were first thing in the morning. Nobody had any particular physical complaints, and our hiking time was about what was predicted (the rain having inhibited Bonnie's unique stop/start/wander slow-motion hiking style :-).
The village is a single street of mostly old houses in a steep sided little valley parallel to and behind coastal cliffs... it looks a little forgotten by time. Six peeled off to stay in the Ship Inn, and Lidia and I continued another 200m up the road to our nice little B&B.
After showers we went back to the inn, meeting the rest of the group for a pleasantly raucous and good dinner. Heard a funny tale from Sally that I'll recount here. After cleaning up they came down for a drink in the bar. While sitting there an old and somewhat odd-looking gent came in, walked by their table, and said to Sally, "Hello Beautiful." He then turned to Russell and said, "Hello Ugly." And Russ, without a moment's hesitation replied in a cheery voice, "Hello Twin!" The guy was speechless. I cracked up... funniest story I've heard in a long while. Nice group we have here.
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