Our last day in Cornwall today. We left Minions at 8 and walked downhill to Rilla Mill.
Uphill again until we came to Tug’s place – yesterday he invited us for a morning cuppa as we passed by. “You can’t miss it” he said. “I’ve got a pirate flag flying outside”.

We found it easily! Tug made us a cup of tea each and we spent an hour chatting about this and that. Thanks Tug for your good company and friendliness.
Our plan for the day was to walk to the Cornwall – Devon border at Horsebridge, about an 11 mile walk in total. After a few short showers in the morning, the weather was beautiful. Sunny with just a few clouds in the sky.

Walked to Bray Shop then on along a quiet country lane with views into Devon and Dartmoor in the distance. Crossed over the busy A388 past the Duchy College and Dave joked that we would get to the top of the hill and find a bench. Would you believe it, we did!

Dave made the quote of the day as we carried on. “It’s downhill all the way to Horsebridge now – except for the uphill bits!” Anyway we reached Horsebridge around 2pm and said our goodbyes to Cornwall.

Went into the Royal Inn just over the other side of the bridge. We ordered a pot of tea for two and asked if anyone knew where we could put our tent for the night. Unfortunately neither the pub owners or any of the customers could help. Most of the land, being in the bottom of the valley, was waterlogged. So after much discussion we decided to wend our way onwards towards a place called Chipshop.

We walked a further 3 miles, up and down again with two very steep hills. We arrived just after 4pm and sadly for us the pub at Chipshop, The Copper Penny Inn, owned by Peter and Marion Baker, didn’t open until 5pm. We decided to wait and spent our time updating our Facebook and blog.  Marion invited us in from the cold a little early – thanks Marion.  We explained that we were looking for a pitch for the night but Marion couldn’t help either but she was able to give us a contact number for someone who could – yay! We phoned Declan Ross Thomas who, with his wife Sara runs Tamar Valley Camping Ltd. They are open all year and Declan kindly offered to pick us up as they were another 1.5 miles away. We accepted, as time was getting on and we didn’t want to have to put the tent up in the dark. Marion gave us a donation as we were leaving – thanks again Marion and we’re sorry we didn’t get to stay for a meal as the menu looked really good.  Declan knew we were walking for charity and, aware of our need to walk every step of the way, he has kindly offered to take us back to Chipshop in the morning. Not only that but he loaned us a small camp stove so we could have a hot meal – he also gave us a free guest pack of his own Gloucester Old Spot sausages. The gourmet meal for this evening is tomato pasta cooked with garlic, lentil and bacon cuppa soup, garlic and herb spices and sausage!