Camel Trail 2

After a good number of non-walking, i.e. light drizzle and 13 degrees days, yesterday was dry and hot.Very hot. Too hot to go for a walk? Maybe, but I went anyway. To walk a bit more of the Camel Trail - see earlier post for details of a stretch near Bodmin.

The walk started at Wadebridge, going towards Padstow. Although not the full 5 miles. 10 miles in the heat is too much for me.

There is no car park near to the start point in Wadebridge, unless you are prepared to go into Lidl and purchase a 69p bottle of Petronas zero alcohol beer and leave it in the car in their car park for 2 hours. That strikes me as rude so I didn't do so, leaving myself with a 15 minute walk from the nearest car park to the trail start point. So I'm tired before even getting started.

The river is in sight for pretty much all of this stroll, although it was low tide. The Camel Estuary is a designated Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and hosts a plethora of bird life. Waders on the salt marshes in winter and migrating birds such as the occasional Osprey in Spring and Autumn. The river's pièce de résistance, though, is the colony of Little Egrets. Partly because I had no binoculars with me, I sadly saw none of these beautiful birds yesterday. Those I have seen on previous occasions have been nearer to Padstow, I think, so perhaps they nest further down river. Maybe next time.

 The first exciting thing encountered was a cafe selling ice cream in scoops. Needing energy in the heat (as though I needed an excuse) I had a scoop of salted caramel and one of honeycomb. Mm, delicious.

The second, less exciting spot was a sewage works. More correctly the Water Treatment Works - an obfuscation of gentrification presumably meant to make it seem to smell less. It doesn't.

There are lots of people along the way, mostly cyclists. These vary from jovial, relaxed chaps (that's gender-non-specific, FYO) who give a cheerful "hi" to fierce, determined individuals presumably looking to set a PB and who don't even see, let alone acknowledge me. And why are they all going in the opposite direction to me? Not one cyclist has overtaken me, although that could easily be because they can't keep up with my pace. More likely, they have ridden to Padstow in the morning, had a pasty and an ice cream there and are now on their way home.

There was one jogger, who looked so hot and bothered that I wondered "why are you doing that?". She was gone before I could ask her. Just as well,  I guess.

In all honesty, my pace wasn't its usual brisk one, conserving energy in the heat. There is a fair amount of tree shade though, which helped. Other walkers panted an exhausted "hello" in response to my equally brief and weary greeting.

On the way back from my halfway point, I wrote this post. In my head. So it wasn't all a waste of time!