Coast – 2 – Coast 2008,

26^th April – 27^th April, 

Saturday 

We were walking from Portreath to Philliegh and then finishing at Portscatho.

We arrived at Portreath on Saturday at 9:00 where a long line of Scouts, Explorers and Leaders all waiting to get into Admin greeted us.

After we met Neil and Lorna who were to be walking with us we went into Scrutineering and then into a mammoth of a line. We eventually entered the building where Admin was based. The stairs were plastered with sand and the mat wasn’t doing much to stop the sand from coming in.

After getting our tags and bands we set out on the journey that will take us 16 hours and 12 minutes. We made good progress and reached checkpoint 2 and 3 quickly but then after checkpoint 5 the pain started to set in.

As we reached checkpoint 6 we thought that we’ll scrap the idea of continuing after we reach Philliegh.

We crossed the King Harry Ferry slowly, all that you could hear was the slow clanking of the chains passing through the ferry and the engine chugging away.

The other side of the River Fal slowly came closer.

Then it was a long walk along a road until we reached the campsite. We painfully reached the campsite and to our joy and delight we were one of the few Scout groups who had to put up their tents after walking 25 miles(excluding the extra mile thanks to Aiden!). We then checked our feet to see if we had blisters, luckily for some there were no blisters to heal, and unluckily for others there were blisters awaiting to be found.

We then went up for pasty’s for tea. Then we went to bed, but there was the ghost of the field (a.k.a. Zack).

Sunday

We woke up to a fry up where Scott found a new friend (a leader had given him a rasher of bacon). We then had to wait through another line to get to Admin. Eventually we got through Admin and set out again for the last 7 miles but Philliegh is just up the road from Portscatho so we had to go the long way around to make it 32 miles so we walked to the coast but not all of us were to make it.

About a mile in Cameron could do no more and so dropped out after doing around 26 miles. We struggled up the first hill of the day which really took it out of us but we carried on, then after yet more road walking we had finally reached the coast . I then looked at the next set of instructions and saw one of the instructions saying ‘continue to follow the coast path for the next 4 1/2 miles’ as I read this my heart sank.

We were walking up the last bit of the coastal path and the finish was literally around the corner when a couple of  non-scout walkers walked by and the man at the back as a joke said “don’t worry only 20 more miles to go!” but I just said back “thanks for that!” and we then turned round the corner where Paul was there to cheer us for completing Coast – 2 – Coast 2008.

We then sat down and waited for the Mini-Bus until that moment it had never occurred to me that I’d missed sitting down so much.

We got the Mini-Bus back to Philliegh from Portscatho which only took 10 minutes after we just walked from Philliegh to Portscatho, which took about  4 hours. We slowly took down our tents when we got back, however it was a great weekend. Congratulations to all the Scouts who took part and thanks again Neil and Lorna without you it just wouldn’t be possible to do this walk so thank you for that.

LIAM

COBRA (APL).