Apprehensively Almost Underway

Walking a "coastal" path sounded, and still sounds, like a good idea.  What could be better than a long stroll at sea level, along grassy headlands and sandy beaches, with friendly English seaside towns to welcome me every evening?  It all goes to show, once again, the devil is in the details.  The details here are that the headlands are 200 meters or so above the beaches, and the architects of the South West Coast Path around Cornwall (and a bit of Devon) seem to have seized every opportunity to descend from headland to beach and back to headland, whether to cross a stream that has carved a steep narrow valley down to the sea, to inspect a secluded cove, or just out of sheer spite.  This would merely attract me except that an overzealous spinning or running regime after a travel-dictated layoff has left me with a knee that protests such punishment.  But I have five days to complete my recovery, so who's to worry? Tuesday it's off to London, Exeter, Barnstaple, and at last Westward Ho! (the exclamation point is officially part of the town's name, uniquely for English towns).