Day 5 - Port Wrinkle to Kingsand – 11 miles

Today had promised to be a better day weather wise, but as I slumbered in the early morning a couple of drizzle showers passed over the tent... sigh. I decided to get up slightly later today, and I had a wash instead of a shower. Melon and kiwi fruit for breakfast. I had the bike on the back of the car and was ready to go under overcast skies by a little before 9am. It also wouldn't take me too long to drop the bike off at Kingsand as it is quite near at the moment. Tomorrow will be a different matter entirely as I'll have to navigate the Tor Point ferry over into Plymouth and get through the city centre to make my way to somewhere on the far side of Plymouth Sound...and all at round about rush hour! whoopppeee! Still once I am past that barrier its plain sailing and I get progressively nearer to home for subsequent trips down.

I dropped the bike off and chained it to someone's railing outside their house.. hope they didn't mind! I drove back to Port Wrinkle and parked in the privately owned car park, though there was no one there to pay in the shed.

I watched a couple of surfers, who'd arrived just before me, paddle their boards out and then set off up the road before taking a path off to the left that made its way along the edge of a golf course for some way. The climb wasn't too bad compared to a lot of the ones I have had this trip!

At the end of the golf course I encountered the MOD firing range and the red flags were flying. If they hadn't been, and a gate had been unlocked, I could have followed a permissive route through the range itself, which I knew nothing about anyway, so instead I had to follow a waymarked permanent path around the perimeter, to the road as marked on the map. The trudge around Tregantle Fort on the road was made slightly more bearable by the fact that a path had been made between the perimeter fence and the hedge of the road most of the way round, so reducing the amount of actual road walking. I got my first glimpse of Plymouth in the haze, across the estuary, as I walked around the back of the fort and began my way back seawards again. I turned right off the B3247 along a lesser cliff top road that ran high at the cliff tops at the back of Whitsand Bay. The sound of machine gun fire from the rifle range quickly subsided.

For much of the way the route stayed very close to the road and kept joining it for short stretches and around Freathy the path actually joined the road for quite a way. To be honest though this was preferable to some of the stretches beyond, that meandered pointlessly up and down the cliffs threading its way between lots of makeshift houses/chalets. This would have been fine if it afforded a better view than the road above it. Hey Ho!

Eventually sanity is restored and there is a gradual descent down the cliffside all the way to Polhawn Cove at the far end of Whitsand Bay. There was then a fairly gentle climb up behind a now privately owned fort and out towards Rame Head itself with a ruined chapel on its conical summit.

I didn't bother walking out to Rame Head itself and instead followed the coast path from the headland's neck out along to Penlee Point. It was now predominantly blue sky or high cirrus cloud so I stopped off for a short sunbathe along this stretch. It was nice to have a view out across the mouth of Plymouth Sound to the headlands I would be walking across in a couple of days time.. all being well!

At Penlee Point the path turns northwards to begin its circuit of Plymouth Sound itself, though unfortunately I didn't get to see much as the route all the way to Cawsand was through dense woodland... which was very tranquil, but a bit view blocking. I arrived at Cawsand and sat watching people on the beach for a few minutes before walking round to the next tiny inlet of Kingsand, where I'd left the bike. A nice, pretty, end of the world kind of place really. I'd got there by about 3pm and after my walk around I set off up the hill at about 3.30pm.

The hill out wasn't tooo bad especially compared to some others of this trip! and instead of going down to Millbrook and having to climb back out again i took to a lane that continued to climb gradually all the way to the high coast road above Whitsand Bay that I'd walked along quite a bit of earlier. Although undulating this was generally downhill all the way, with fantastc views of course until just before Tregantle Fort which I had to climb up around the back of again. It was a bit uphill afterwards to Crafthole and then downhill all the way to Portwrinkle. I went to pay for the parking at the shed which was now manned... a much more respectable 4 quid than parking charges of late. I also bought a Solero. I went back to the car to find a note under my wiper blade telling me to pay. So much for trust huh!?

I drove back and had a sit in the jacuzzi at the site for a while, then typed up the diary in the warm sun and after that wandered down to the village to investigate a meal out for a change!!