72 Holywell to Newquay

Holywell Bay

We resumed the route at the pub in Holywell we ended up at last night and promptly took the wrong path - ending up heading away from the beach rather than towards it. That sounds ridiculous, but the beach is concealed behind a complicated network of large dunes. Once we realised our mistake we took corrective action and soon found the first of a series of waymarks which kept us straight thereafter.

These guided us from the back of the dunes and soon we had a good view of the beach and Carter's Rocks offshore. We also spotted the first Wall butterflies of the year.

Soon we climbed up to a grassy clifftop area with a lovely view back. The beach is noticeably quiet and lacking in amenities. We suspect it may be owned by the MOD whose training camp dominates nearby Penhale Point. 

Easy walking, a relief after the soft sand of the dunes, brought us round Kelsey Head to the wonderfully named Porth Joke, a long shallow cove of golden sand. The tide was out and suddenly there were lots of people on the coast path and on the exposed sand - then we noticed the car park half a mile inland.

The path follows the outsides of the cove. Although it might have been tempting to just walk across the sand there was no visible way up on the other side. Anyway, it would have violated the ethos of walking the coast path!

The clifftop path continued around Pentire Point West to reveal the massive sandy Crantock Beach, with Pentire visible in the far left corner.

 We carried on round the edge, passing a colony of Kittiwakes nesting on the cliff face.

Passing behind more dunes and crossing a car park brought us onto a track leading down to the Gannel, which flows out of the back of the beach. It is a quite shallow, but wide, tidal river. There is a ferry but it is not yet open, and at Penpol there is a foot crossing available only within three hours either side of low water. We were delighted that we were within that magic window as the next crossing point adds about three miles to the route.  As we approached the foot crossing it became clear that a wide loop around was necessary to negotiate a creek of the river.

This we duly followed and then headed across a wide expanse of sand to cross the little walkway you can see in the picture above.

You then walk through the streets of Pentire to find yourself at one end of Fistral Beach, home of the National Surfing Centre. The massive Headland Hotel can be seen at the far end.The waves were clearly not good, as there were very few people in the sea.

We took a pause here to enjoy an excellent lunch at Rick Stein's newly opened fish and chip shop. Afterwards we walked up to Towan Head and unnecessarily as we realised once we looked at the map, walked right to the very tip, marked by a small open hut with a gothic doorway.

We headed on into Newquay passing the wonderful Huer's Hut by the wayside. This was where a watchman kept a look for shoals of pilchards and urgently signalled to the fisherman in the nearby harbour when he spotted some. The chimney and external staircase are apparently 15th century and the overall effect is rather like a small church of the kind you find in Greece.

A bit further on we descended to view Newquay's small harbour. The beaches can seen in the background. The tide is fairly full now.

It remained only to walk through the fairly ordinary town.

Conditions: sunny and mild.

Grading: Moderate.

Map: Explorer 104 (Redruth and St Agnes).

Distance: 8.1 miles (distance traveled now 439.8 miles).

Rating: four stars.

71 Chapel Porth to Holywell

Chapel Porth

We set out from the delightful cove at Chapel Porth and headed uphill. The forecast had been bad, but the sky was pretty clear and there was a great view back towards Godrevy lighthouse and St Ives, with a little sandy cove in the foreground. 

Soon we saw again the tin mining buildings we spotted yesterday. 

As we approached the area of St Agnes Head I attempted one last picture of the massive sweep of coast back to St Ives.

Round the corner from St Agnes Head, Newdowns Head concealed our first destination, Trevaunce Cove. 

This was in fact not very pretty, but we stopped for a restorative drink and then climbed up to the high plateau above. The view back was more appealing.

We descended to Cross Combe, another mining area, and encountered a party who had caught the bus from Perranporth who enquired after the route, having first checked if we had been that way before. We pointed out the acorn symbol and yellow arrows used as direction signs, but they looked a little unprepared. We think the steep climb up from the Combe may have deterred them.

This led to another high level plateau, with Perranporth Airfield inland of us. We saw what looked like air raid shelters and guessed that it probably dated from the Second World War and Wikipedia confirmed that this was right - it was a Spitfire base. It is still in use for gliding and small planes.

Further on I admired some lovely rock formations.

We were now in another former mining area and looking down we seemed to see copper deposits. 

The next phase of the walk was rather depressing: the remnants of mines and quarries abandoned without a care. Cigga Head was especially desolate.

Soon however we approached Perranporth and could admire its two sections of beach split by high dunes because the tide was in.

As we got nearer to the town we were charmed by this structure, which turned out to be the Millenium Sundial.

We had originally intended to finish here, but for various reasons we decided we would continue on to Holywell, four or so miles further on. After a break for refreshments, we headed off across the sand to reach and then climb the high dunes. The view back was wonderful.

The dunes here were both surprisingly high and far-reaching. When we finally reached the other side, the view ahead was simply magnificent.

We now walked along the beach for well over a mile, noting that the stones seemed to become smaller as we progressed.

At the end we climbed up more, higher, dunes and enjoyed a great view back. After Ligger Point, we thought we were nearly there as Penhale Point came into view. But gradually it became clear that we would have to circumnavigate an army training camp before we could reach Holywell. This we duly did.

Conditions: mild and quite bright.

Grading: Moderate.

Map: Explorer 104 (Redruth and St Agnes).

Distance: 11.4 miles (distance traveled now 431.7 miles. Now under 200 miles to go!).

Rating: four stars. A sort of averaging out of the wonderful and the grim.

70 Portreath to Chapel Porth

 Portreath harbour

We resumed the Coast Path by walking inland from the beach and harbour of Portreath to climb up out of the village. The view back shows them both.

Soon there was a diversion inland because of subsidence and we rejoined the Coast Path proper above Gooden Heane Cove.

We were struck by the amount of wild flowers: Celandine, Red Campion, Violet, Bladder Campion, Primroses. Soon there was a classic Coast Path descent and ascent at a seemingly un-named cove ...

 ... and later a fine view ahead over the broom towards St Agnes Head.

As we approached the famous Sally's Bottom, there were fine rock formations and a curious tower on the horizon. 

Sally's Bottom turned out to be a small cove requiring a steep descent from the clifftop at maybe 80 metres to sea level and back up again. The degree of erosion on the far side was striking.

But why Sally's Bottom? It had a very industrial look and a helpful plaque revealed that it was once the site of a bottom mine (presumably under the sea bottom) called Wheal Sally (for some reason many tin mines have women's names). It was plugged in 1998. So it seems like a rather fanciful piece of naming, guaranteed to provoke a snigger.

Earlier we had skirted MOD land and seen a curious round shaped structure. A giant tomato? A massive topiary? Who could say? But once it appeared on the near horizon behind us I thought I could get away with a photo without falling foul of the Official Secrets Act. Godrevy Island can be seen in the distance, with St Ives behind it.

Soon we reached the obelisk viewed earlier. Rather disappointingly it seemed to be merely another mine structure.

The coast towards St Agnes Head stretched out invitingly ahead ...

 ... And after passing through a disused quarry we reached Porthtowan, evidently a surfing centre.

 After a climb out of the village and a short walk along the clifftop we reached Chapel Porth and admired a selection of mining structures on the opposite hillside. It was a pretty cove.

Conditions: mild and quite bright. We were quite relieved as before we left home the forecast had been for heavy rain.

Grading: Moderate.

Map: Explorer 104 (Redruth and St Agnes).

Distance: 5.3 miles (distance traveled now 420.3 miles).

Rating: three and a half stars.