West Cornwall Holiday

We started today by driving to Long Rock, between Penzance and Marazion, to the free car park we found the last time we were in the area.  From there we walked along the edge of the beach towards St Michael's Mount.  The tide was out so we were able to walk across to the Mount.  However it was too early to go into the castle and gardens.

As we walked back to the car I decided to stay by the waters edge.  The tide was coming in and already the water was coming into the harbour on St Michael's Mount.

There were quite a few birds feeding at the edge of the sea.  This one group seemed to be a young family.  They were like little children running in and out of the waves.

From Penzance we drove to Sennen Cove.  We parked at the beach car park and walked towards the harbour.  We should have parked at the harbour car park as it was cheaper!  From the harbour we climbed steps up to the cliff and then walked towards Lands End.

After walking round Lands End and photographing the iconic signpost we headed back to Sennen Cove.

 After watching the surfers at Sennen beach we drove to Porthcurno.  The beach there had beautiful fine sand and the light yellow contrasted with the blue of the sea.

We walked across the beach and up steps to the Minack Theatre.  We saw that there was a steep flight of steps but thought we would manage that.  however when we reached the top there was more!  The steps were uneven, with no handrail and carved in the side of the cliff.  It was very scary!  There was no way we were going to go down so we had to keep going up.  However, when we looked along the coast the view was lovely.  Eventually, with signs of relief, with reached the top.  However, because there was a performance going on we were not able to go into the Minack Theatre.  Instead we walked down the road back to the car park.  The road was narrow and bendy, but not as bad as the steps!

St Ives

While staying at Hayle we drove to Carbis Bay to catch the train to St Ives  The station is right on the coast by Porthminster Beach

The train that took us to St Ives

We walked around the coast from Porthminster Beach past the harbour and across the Island to Porthmeor Beach.  This was an evening walk, but unfortunately there was no spectacular sunset although the light was still good.

St Ives Harbour

The Island, St Ives

Newquay and North Cliffs

On Friday 23 September for the first time we visited Newquay.  We stopped on the road just by the Western Beach and had our coffee on the cliff top watching people learn to surf.  We then walked through this end of the town seeing what shops were there before our hour had run out and we had to move the car.  We then drove on to the other end of the town and after parking near Towan Beach we walked along the coast past the harbour around the headland to Fistral Beach.

We then walked back and ate our lunch in the gardens overlooking the island.

We then moved on towards Hayle.  We stopped again just past Portreath at North Cliffs and walked along the coast to Hells Mouth.  This is a very easy part of the south west coast path, a good path and no steep slopes.  Reskajeage Downs was covered in heather, but unfortunately most of it had finished flowering.  It must have looked spectacular a week or two ago.  However, the sea views were lovely.

Hell's Mouth

Warren Point to Stoke Beach

Yesterday the sun was shining so we decided to join up two walks we had done previously.  We drove to the National Trust car park just outside Noss Mayo (Should have turned right just at the Noss Mayo sign).  Probably won't use that car park again - very narrow road to reach it - the next car park along at Stoke Point is easier to access.

There was a steep walk down the side of the field to the coast path, but the coast path was a broad firm path and it was easy walking.  There were no steep sections in this walk.  The sea was dark blue and the foam on the top of the waves contrasted sharply to it as they hit the black rocks.

When we left this broad path to walk through woodland near Stoke Beach the path was muddier, and as we have found in the past there were lots of butterflies around, particularly red admirals.

The leaves had not started to change colour yet, but there were signs of autumn around, such as the chestnuts that were beginning to fall.

Bigbury to Westcombe Beach

When we walked from Wonwell in an eastward direction we went as far as Westcombe Beach.  Previously we had walked from Bolbery Down to Hope Cove and  Hope Cover to Bantham which is just across from Bigbury, so we wanted to 'join the dots' and link these walks.

We parked at Bigbury and walked to Chalaborough.

Chalaborough 

There was then a gentle hill up to the top of the cliffs.  From there there were wonderful views back to Bigbury and Burgh Island.

As we approached Ayrmer Cove there was a steep path downhill and an even steeper hill out.  Then we came to Westcombe Beach with an even steeper path downhill!  Although the walk was not that long (less than 2 miles out) it had taken us longer than anticipated because of hilly nature of the walk.  So we turned back.  This is not a walk I would want to repeat.

The path down to Westcombe Beach

Portwrinkle

We parked the car in a residential road parallel to the coast road.  We started walking eastward.  After a short portion up the road we turned into a muddy path that climbed up to the golf course. After walking through a couple of golf holes we came out to a cliff top walk with views across to Whitsand Bay.

We walked on to the edge of the firing range at Tregantle Fort.  The red flag was flying so we could not go across the range.  We had already walked this way when we walked from Whitsand Bay so we turned back and retraced our steps to Portwrinkle.

After lunch we walked in the opposite direction.  To begin with we came to the harbour, but it was low tide so there was no water in it.  We then climbed up to the cliffs to walk towards Downderry.  There was a lot of   hills in this walk and we were walking into the wind and it was very windy so we turned back after walking abut 30 minutes.

Perranporth

The sun was shining when we left Plymouth, but the forecast was for showers.  When we arrived it was sunny but windy.  We drank our coffee sat in the car looking out on to the beach.  It was high tide and the surf was up, but the waves were not  as large as had been forecast.

We started to walk westward towards St Agnes.  From the cliff top we had a great view across the bay.

The waves were crashing against the rocks further along the cliff.

The heather was just beginning to come out which made the scenery even more beautiful.

It was so windy we did not fancy walking on the cliff edge so we headed inland on a path, this lead to a disused mining work and the path disappeared.  After sheltering while a shower went through we walked back to the coast and followed the coast path back to Perranporth.

After lunch we walked along the beach.  The tide was still in so we could not walk around the rocks but had to climb up the sand dunes.  We continued through the dunes until we came to Perran Sands where there was a concrete path down to the beach.

We walked all the way along the sand to the end (Ligger Point).  We then turned around and came back.  Because the tide had gone out we were able to stay on the beach all the way back to our car.