You can’t go to England without doing a proper bit of hiking, and today is my day to show how a Yank does the ol’ to-and-fro marching business.
Yesterday Trophy the wife explained where we’d be hiking by pointing in the general direction of an ancient church on a seaside bluff at a distance I estimated at 7,000 hectares give or take a peck or two. We left the next morning, heading in the opposite direction of the church, which was my first clue we’d not be taking the most expeditious route. By far.
We are in the tiny town of Tintagel and staying in an old castle remodeled as a new hotel and perched along the seaside in a most charming fashion. Other than some crumbled walls from other forts from other centuries the only building in sight is the church we’d be walking to.
And we’re definitely walking to it, just not in the right direction, because the shorter route would cause us to miss picturesque paths, lovely bushes and the opportunity to fall from one of many, many cliffs and into the briny sea.
Wouldn’t miss it for anything, I muttered under my breath. It’s the bloody scenic route for me, dammit.
Hi ho hi ho and all that! I shouted as we skipped merrily along big brambly bushes chockfull of bunnies, hedgehogs and the bleached bones of expired American hikers. Tarry not! I called out to no one.
The place is thick with King Arthur history, and the many ruins give the stories and legends considerable credibility. Shops in the nearby village do their best to turn it all into low-grade commercial marketing no different than the next Star Wars advertising campaign.
Ah well. What ho and all that.
By now we were ambling (staggering) down one hilly footpath linked to half a dozen other trails clinging to the tops of impossibly high bluffs that are in no way similar to the Mendocino County coastline. The stony cliffside at Tintagel is high, vast, craggy and fierce; in contrast the bluffs at Mendocino seem a scale model from a Disney set.
NOTE: Paths, trails, footbridges and precipices here exist with zero consideration for safety. Fencing and protective barriers are nowhere. Peering over the edge to the rocky sands below is the definitive test in diagnosing vertigo. I passed it easily.
Getting closer than 30 feet to the edge of a precipice jellies my muscles, jitters my joints and ignites my fight-or-flight-or-cry-and-crawl instinct. Usually I wind up over there on the ground curled in a knot, sweating.
So I keep my 30-foot distance and manfully march forth, eyes averted, avoiding the wife who knows all too well my allergy to anything more elevated than a footstool.
As we trudge along she cheerfully tells me jolly stories of well-insured spouses mysteriously disappearing off craggy cliffs in foggy mists and no witnesses within shouting distance. My brain softens and my muscles turn watery.
She’ll no doubt get away with it. It’s a long long drop. One hard shove, and the autopsy will show I starved to death before landing on the beach 200 kilometers below. Why is the church further away than when we started? What was all the paperwork she gave me to sign this morning? Where are all the other hikers? Why didn’t I leave a note?
I need a break. I need the voices in my head to shut up. I need a drink.
I burrowed through my brand new Paddington Bear backpack, found a warm pint of Olde Sick Pooch Dog Breakfast Ale and was back on my feet in 60 seconds.
It was the worst hike of my life, even worse than the time I almost walked from Low Gap Park to the U.
We got back to the castle bar in time for Happy Hour and she made a big show of paying for everything. My suspicions only grew.
Why did she sign me up for tomorrow morning’s “Adventures in Snorkeling” classes? She knows I can’t swim.
If her bar tab is still open tomorrow I’ll just spend the day roaming the castle, stopping every 15 minutes or so to go back and get another room tem`p Dog Breakfast Ale.
If I’m not back to Ukiah by Christmas please open a cold case file.
By then Dave Eyster will be unemployed and he can be my lawyer.
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