Prologue - Portreath - Gwithian
Author: Jason
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Filling in the gaps - part 1
As I'd failed to complete a few stages the previous year I decided to travel down to Cornwall a day early in 2011 so that I could complete one of the sections I'd missed out. This meant that I'd be walking the relatively short stage between Portreath and Gwithian as a “prologue”, before going on to join Dave in St Ives to start week three of the stomp proper.
I won't repeat the route description from Portreath and Gwithian as it's already been covered by Dave (see 2010 Day 7). The only real difference when I did it was that the weather was much better. This made it a much more pleasant experience and allowed me to actually see Godrevy Lighthouse, which had been shrouded in low cloud when Dave has passed it the year before. When I arrive at Gwithian I hopped on a bus to complete the journey to St Ives, as there was little point in re-covering a section I'd already walked. This meant that I arrived in St Ives fairly early, so had a few hours to kill before Dave arrived. I constructively filled my time by doing an advanced reconnaissance mission around some of the pubs of St Ives.
During the course of the day Dave had been keeping me updated with his progress down to Cornwall via a series of text messages. When he texted me to let me know his train had reached St Erth – about 15 minutes from St Ives – I wandered down to the station to meet him. We then headed off to the hotel.
I won't repeat the route description from Portreath and Gwithian as it's already been covered by Dave (see 2010 Day 7). The only real difference when I did it was that the weather was much better. This made it a much more pleasant experience and allowed me to actually see Godrevy Lighthouse, which had been shrouded in low cloud when Dave has passed it the year before. When I arrive at Gwithian I hopped on a bus to complete the journey to St Ives, as there was little point in re-covering a section I'd already walked. This meant that I arrived in St Ives fairly early, so had a few hours to kill before Dave arrived. I constructively filled my time by doing an advanced reconnaissance mission around some of the pubs of St Ives.
During the course of the day Dave had been keeping me updated with his progress down to Cornwall via a series of text messages. When he texted me to let me know his train had reached St Erth – about 15 minutes from St Ives – I wandered down to the station to meet him. We then headed off to the hotel.

One of many beers
_ We had decided to stay in the Western Hotel again this year as it was a known quantity and reasonably cheap. We generally only use hotels when we know we are going to have a big night out, as it avoids us disturbing a B&B owner when we return late after a night on the sauce. We definitely wouldn't be having a late night tonight though, as the following day's stage was massive and one of the toughest on the entire SWCP. Dinner followed by a couple of beers and an early night were definitely the order of the day. It would be utterly ridiculous to even contemplate going on a heavy drinking session with such an arduous stage coming up. No Sir, no big drinking session for us boys tonight. Just a couple of beers – ok, maybe three at an absolute push – then off to bed. The last thing we wanted was to wake up the following morning with stonking hangovers. That would be just plain stupid.
Once Dave had dumped off his stuff at the hotel we headed off into town, along with our still intact good intentions. The evening started off as planned with a couple of beers in a pub on the harbour where we “chilled” and decided what to have for dinner. In the end we decided to go back to the Mexican restaurant we'd visited the year before as the food was excellent. As per the previous year we ordered the House Platter to share. We also ordered a cheeky bottle of red – I know, alarm bells are starting to ring. The food was excellent again, with the added bonus this year of being served by a lovely waitress who looked a bit like a young Catherine Zeta Jones. After the bottle of red had been consumed our assessment of “looks a bit like” was modified to “complete spitting image of”. Dave put a dampener on things though when he pointed out that there was probably a greater age difference between us and the waitress than there was between the real C.Z.J and Michael Douglas.
After dinner it was time to head back to the hotel. At the hotel door we noticed that the folk night we'd seen advertised the previous year was again taking place in the hotel bar. I asked Dave if he wanted to pop in for one final quick drink. I then had the indignity of having to physically drag him kicking and screaming into the bar. At least I would have done if he wasn't already in the bar ordering a round of drinks before I'd even finished asking the question.
On paper an open-mic folk night doesn't sound great. This one sounded even less appealing when we saw the list of “rules” pinned to the wall, the primary one being that all material played had to be original. By this point we'd already ordered some beers so were obliged to hang around for a while.
The first act up was a local bloke who'd written a song about the problems associated with parking in St Ives – apparently a big local issue. He sang the song accapella (no instruments). The guy had a fantastic voice and the song lyrics were clever and genuinely funny. The performance was far better than most of the rubbish that appears on the likes of X-factor and other such “talent” shows.
Next up was a slightly odd looking young lady with a pale milky white skin and lots of black eye makeup and black lipstick. She was wearing a ragged black dress and purple and yellow striped stockings. The look was finished off with a pair of eighteen hole Dr Marten boots. We immediately gave her the nickname of The Witch. Like the previous act she was fantastic, playing an acoustic guitar and singing a couple of her self-penned songs. None of which were on the subject of witchcraft by the way, but instead mainly about blokes and what bastards they generally are.
There was then a succession of performers singing and playing a variety of instruments including guitars, fiddles, banjos and even one guy playing a small set of bongos. The whole show was orchestrated by “Yer Man Jim” - so called because he looked a bit like Dave's mate Jim – who busied himself plugging the various instruments and microphones into his hand-held mixing desk between performances, and generally keeping the evening moving along.
As the night went on the performers started to form small impromptu groups. Suddenly you'd have a combination such as Bongo Man, The Witch and a bloke on a fiddle all plugged in and performing a song together. Despite Jim's mixing desk being about the size of a fag packet it seemed to be able to cope with a large number of inputs, and produced some very high quality sound. The beer also started to go down very well and things started to get a bit hazy. One thing I did notice though was that at some point the rule regarding original material went out of the window, as some familiar tunes started to be introduced. One of my last memories of the night is both myself and Dave singing along to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here at the top of our lungs at about one thirty in the morning, along with the rest of the bar.
Finally we managed to drag ourselves away back to our rooms. Just before I passed out on the bed I could hear the sound of rain falling outside, very heavy persistent rain!
Once Dave had dumped off his stuff at the hotel we headed off into town, along with our still intact good intentions. The evening started off as planned with a couple of beers in a pub on the harbour where we “chilled” and decided what to have for dinner. In the end we decided to go back to the Mexican restaurant we'd visited the year before as the food was excellent. As per the previous year we ordered the House Platter to share. We also ordered a cheeky bottle of red – I know, alarm bells are starting to ring. The food was excellent again, with the added bonus this year of being served by a lovely waitress who looked a bit like a young Catherine Zeta Jones. After the bottle of red had been consumed our assessment of “looks a bit like” was modified to “complete spitting image of”. Dave put a dampener on things though when he pointed out that there was probably a greater age difference between us and the waitress than there was between the real C.Z.J and Michael Douglas.
After dinner it was time to head back to the hotel. At the hotel door we noticed that the folk night we'd seen advertised the previous year was again taking place in the hotel bar. I asked Dave if he wanted to pop in for one final quick drink. I then had the indignity of having to physically drag him kicking and screaming into the bar. At least I would have done if he wasn't already in the bar ordering a round of drinks before I'd even finished asking the question.
On paper an open-mic folk night doesn't sound great. This one sounded even less appealing when we saw the list of “rules” pinned to the wall, the primary one being that all material played had to be original. By this point we'd already ordered some beers so were obliged to hang around for a while.
The first act up was a local bloke who'd written a song about the problems associated with parking in St Ives – apparently a big local issue. He sang the song accapella (no instruments). The guy had a fantastic voice and the song lyrics were clever and genuinely funny. The performance was far better than most of the rubbish that appears on the likes of X-factor and other such “talent” shows.
Next up was a slightly odd looking young lady with a pale milky white skin and lots of black eye makeup and black lipstick. She was wearing a ragged black dress and purple and yellow striped stockings. The look was finished off with a pair of eighteen hole Dr Marten boots. We immediately gave her the nickname of The Witch. Like the previous act she was fantastic, playing an acoustic guitar and singing a couple of her self-penned songs. None of which were on the subject of witchcraft by the way, but instead mainly about blokes and what bastards they generally are.
There was then a succession of performers singing and playing a variety of instruments including guitars, fiddles, banjos and even one guy playing a small set of bongos. The whole show was orchestrated by “Yer Man Jim” - so called because he looked a bit like Dave's mate Jim – who busied himself plugging the various instruments and microphones into his hand-held mixing desk between performances, and generally keeping the evening moving along.
As the night went on the performers started to form small impromptu groups. Suddenly you'd have a combination such as Bongo Man, The Witch and a bloke on a fiddle all plugged in and performing a song together. Despite Jim's mixing desk being about the size of a fag packet it seemed to be able to cope with a large number of inputs, and produced some very high quality sound. The beer also started to go down very well and things started to get a bit hazy. One thing I did notice though was that at some point the rule regarding original material went out of the window, as some familiar tunes started to be introduced. One of my last memories of the night is both myself and Dave singing along to Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here at the top of our lungs at about one thirty in the morning, along with the rest of the bar.
Finally we managed to drag ourselves away back to our rooms. Just before I passed out on the bed I could hear the sound of rain falling outside, very heavy persistent rain!