I’ve been preparing for this Cornish adventure for weeks. A new notebook, now soggy at the corners, has been carefully written up with bus times, Youth Hostel opening times and a reminder to bring my photo ID. But the one thing I couldn’t plan is the good old Cornish weather. Having spent the last couple of weeks going to work in a heatwave, coming home to the to-ing and fro-ing with overflowing watering cans to my giant sunflowers, broad-beans and zinnias, I’m now on holiday and I expect the sunshine to continue!

However, the weather is overcast with dense cloud cover as we drive via Andover (for breakfast with my sister) to Padstow. We find our pre-booked car park space (that’s how organised I am), grab our overnight rucksacks and wander down the hill to the harbour for lunch. The fish finger sandwich from Cherry Trees café (highly recommended by Annie) is exceptional. The birds are eyeing us up but I’m not going to share with anyone. I select salted caramel ice cream from Stein’s Deli at the quay, which, I have to admit, is one of the best I’ve tasted. Salted caramel is my ice cream flavour of choice, but they do vary in flavour, texture, creamy-ness and salty-ness.

The number 56 bus, Newquay bound, takes us from behind the Deli, to the seaside village of Porthcothan, where we left in the mist in February. Sitting behind grandparents and young children on the top deck, we enjoy peeping over the hedgerow to the fields, cottage gardens and, in the distance, the sea. The bus stops and starts frequently in the tight lanes, it looks impossible that anything could squeeze passed us, but they do. Ten minutes into the half hour journey and the rain starts to fall. Heavy rain. So much for the light rain forecast on the BBC weather app. As we step off the bus in Porthcothan, some drenched walkers quickly jump onboard.

The downpour has temporarily slowed a bit, but even if it hadn’t there is nowhere to shelter – Porthcothan has a small shop (but we’ve not spotted it), no pub, no café, just a car park and toilets (not open when we here in February) and a wide stretch of sandy beach. Not even a tree or bus shelter to take cover under. It’s four in the afternoon, we only have two miles to walk so we set off, back up the road, to find the path alongside Porthcothan Bay towards Treyarnon Youth Hostel.

It’s a Sunday in June, the sea is out, but there are just a few surfers and a handful of people on the wide expanse of sandy beach. The Atlantic waves are rolling in at right angles to the cliff path. Cottages perched on the clifftop, the opposite side of the bay, are visible and we can just about make out the large rocks out in the bay but anything further is hazy in mist.

Within a few minutes the pathway, along the grassy cliff top, has turned into a river of muddy water. Raincoat hoods are up, waterproof covers wrap over our rucksacks and our heads are facing down as we just put one foot in front of the other.

The sea is crashing on the rocks below us. Our eyes occasionally rise to peer out at the hazy view and to see the wild carrot flowering profusely in the low grass surrounding us, but all I can think about is how wet my feet and in fact my whole body is. I should have re-proofed my raincoat.

We continue on the path, currently a gushing river, as it weaves around Fox Cove, Warren Cove and Pepper Cove. To our right a post and wire fence, but no sign of cattle or sheep, I hope they are sheltering somewhere dry.

We pass just one couple, nearly as wet as us, but they are clinging on to large umbrellas.

If I wasn’t so eager to get to our destination I might have stopped and tried to video the bright flashes of lightening briefly lighting up the dull grey afternoon, despite it being just a few days away from midsummers day. Seconds later, claps of thunder boom from the sky then echo around the landscape.

As we near Porthcothan I stop to take a photo. Hidden in the hillside is a hobbit-like dwelling with just a chimney piercing the ground and large picture windows facing out to sea. We pass a closed café trailer in the dunes, above Treyarnon Bay, then carefully step down the slippery steps onto the beach where the RNLI guys are sheltering in their truck. It’s not far from here to the shelter of Treyarnon Youth Hostel, nestled on the clifftop. It has a café, bar and a drying room!

It has taken less than an hour to complete the meandering pathway which covers just two squares on the Ordnance Survey map. It’s been the soggiest two mile walk of my life.