Cornish Beaches

Today we then headed out to Lizard Point, the most southerly point in England. We parked in the centre of Lizard village and headed down the footpath to the most southerly point , we then walked along the coastal footpath past the lighthouse and YHA until we found a lovely little cove beach with steep steps going down to it. We headed down until the steps turned to rocks, out of the blue another lady came down with her dog and showed us the way to the sandy beach. We had a look around the rock pools and coves and Linda took some photos of all the life in them before we headed back up to the path.We carried on along the coast path past the volunteer lookout station (where we gave a donation) and then headed back to Lizard via a farm track. The dogs (particularly Prince) and our trousers got filthy, so much so that when we saw some signs for Church Cove we headed down to see if we could wash Prince off in the sea. We were pleased we did as it was a lovely approach to the cove with thatched cottages down a windy little lane, which became a very steep slipway with little boats rowed up along it before giving way to the sea. Later we drove a little bit up to the coast before parking in the National Trust car park for Kynance Cove. This was a stunning setting, a lovely blue/green sea colour, with big waves beating down on near perfect sand. The beach was a little difficult to get to but well worth it, it had lots of little caves and coves and we only saw 2 other couples the whole time we were there. We reluctantly left as the tide was coming in and headed back to the van.

Next we headed out to Falmouth for the day, which turned out to be a great town. First we went down to the harbour via the town centre (a narrow long strip of shops which was very inviting). The harbour was very nice with some small fishing vessels on the inner harbour and some large ferries and navy ships on the outer. We had a walk further around and saw a massive oil tanker sitting in a dry dock. There were loads of workmen dotted all round the ship busying themselves with welding, cleaning, painting and supervising (or whatever standing around achieves!)
After this we headed up to Pendennis castle, a Henrician fort built between 1540 and 1545, before heading around the headland and down onto the beach. After a while we decided to head back over to the harbour to a pub called The Chain Locker, where we were allowed to take the dogs in while we had a pint. They got a biscuit from the landlady, while the pub’s resident dogs came and gave their own welcome (a crazy Jack Russell and a grumpy Staffy) after this we headed back up through town to Tonks. We drove back around to the headland in front of the castle where we sat on the car park looking out to sea to eat our picnic.

Next day Phil got up at early and went out on his bike to Redruth on the Bissoe trail (30k on tracks and roads) and went up to Sunrise Hill which had a panoramic view over Rudruth.
We then went to St Agnes as recommended by Zoson, as it was lovely and sunny. Walked up to St Agnes Beacon first as we though it was likely to be muddy (it was!) and that we could go to the beach afterwards. Lovely 360 deg view from the top but very windy, then walked along the coastal path to Trevaunance cove. Had picnic on a bench looking out to sea then onto the cove. The surf was amazing and there were 9 surf dudes doing their stuff. Then up into St Agnes which is a lovely little village with some nice individual shops before heading back to Tonksand driving over to Chapel Porth beach which is another surfers beach. The waves were enormous with spray coming off the top of them as they rolled, no surfers here so Linda decided to take her boots off and have a paddle, it was freezing!

As we’re enjoying it so much here in Cornwall we have decided to stay another week, but that meant that today we had to change pitch as someone else is booked onto ours next week.
It’s a lovely sunny morning, so we moved pitch, then went for a lovely 6 mile walk from the van, still in the sunshine. The walk took us down to the quayside villages of Penpol and Point, on the way Prince got filthy down the muddy bridleway (we all did!), we had a chat with a nice lady who popped out of her house and said “Tell me about your dog!” before carrying on down the hill where we found Penpol creek to clean him off in. We then walked around to the next village along, another lovely place called Devoran, all the locals were very friendly and we stopped at the pub and had a pint while sitting on one of the benches outside. This was my “Real Cornwall” – sun setting over the bay with a few boats dotted about and a picturesque little village.