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| Retro activities |
Breakfast at The Gurnard's Head was excellent: fresh fruit and delicious creamy yoghurt followed by superb scrambled egg and smoked salmon. Mick decided he would start every day with salmon and eggs rather than a fry-up. As we left the hotel we encountered the cows from the nearby farm again. This time the ladies were less well behaved, one of them was greedily tucking into the shrub outside the entrance before being shooed along the road.
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| Gurnard's Head |
On rejoining the path we walked out to the headland of Gurnard's Head before heading along the rocky path. Dramatic granite stacks towering above us and rocky volcanic cliffs formed creases and crevasses where the tourmaline sea crashed and swirled. At Porthmeor we passed a fine looking beach. It was incredibly humid, the weather had not broken here yet, and we were desperately tempted to stop for a swim, but it was too early to stop and so we pressed on. I had been swigging liberally from my water bottle to stave off dehydration but I was now discovering that rehydrating in advance does not really work and only resulted in me having to constantly duck behind a handy bush for a pee.
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| Bosigran Cliffs |
We did stop at Bosigran however, the view was too incredible to walk on by. This huge granite sea cliff is popular with climbers and quite a few of them were hanging in various positions on the rocks. We sat for quite a while watching them before heaving ourselves up to carry on.
A few miles on at Portheras Cove we were by now perspiring profusely and were unable to resist going down to the beach for a splash in the water. I was somewhat disconcerted by the signs on the path down to the beach. Although it looked like paradise it seemed that just about everything here is deadly. The stream may contain harmful bacteria, the beach was apparently strewn with hidden shipwrecks and the currents were waiting to carry one off. Seemingly unaware of the huge risks they were taking, groups of families were sitting on the beach or running barefoot in and out of the sea, without any obvious ill effects. We decided to risk lacerating our feet to ribbons and took our shoes and socks off. The sea felt delicious on my sweltering feet, and we paddled up and down for a while, feeling the sun hot on our backs. Suddenly, just ten feet from the shore, a seal nonchalantly swam past, sleek grey head bobbing along while we all stopped and gawped in amazement. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. After our paddle we returned to the path - refreshed and by some miracle, uninjured. We decided not to use the stream to fill our bottles though - just in case.
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| Highly dangerous beach |
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| Pendeen Watch |
Our dalliance meant that there was insufficient time for the guided tour at
Geevor Tin Mine, I resolved to come back soon to give this place the time it deserved. I was surprised by the size of the site, much bigger than I had expected. But then, at one time Cornwall was the
largest producer of copper, tin and arsenic in the world. We did manage to find time for a cup of tea and a HUGE pasty in the fine cafe at the museum site. Mick said it was the best pasty he has eaten in his life. And he has eaten a lot of pasties in his time, I can tell you. From here the path took us through Levant and Botallack, past dramatic ruins of engine houses and mine workings and Crown Mine, perched on the edge of the cliff. There is a fascinating article
here about the history of the mines. And this site has some fantastic monochrome
images.
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| Perfect pasties at Geevor |
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| Crown Mine |
Soon afterwards we reached England's only cape, Cape Cornwall. A cape is a headland where two bodies of water meet (I've just discovered) and here is where the currents of the Atlantic divide between the English Channel and the water of the Bristol Channel and the Irish Sea. The walk out to the cape was superb, quiet and with fantastic views from the top.
'Bit different to last time I was here,' observed Mick.
'When was that?'
'11 August 1999. I came here to watch the solar eclipse. This was where it made landfall from the Atlantic. Wish it had been a day like this though. It was so cloudy we couldn't see a thing.'
Of course, I remembered all the hype at the time - followed by massive disappointment. Still, the eclipse we had gone to view in Egypt in 2005 had been rather more successful - Egyptian weather being rather more accommodating to eclipse watching than Cornwall for all its rugged beauty.
A trot across fields and up quiet lanes took us to St Just. On the advice of the Good Beer Guide after checking in to our accommodation at the Commercial we called into
. Mick spotted an unattributed photo on the wall of a man in uniform. 'Isn't that Michael Collins?' he asked. 'What's he doing here?'
The woman behind the bar nodded. 'The landlord is half Irish' she explained. Indeed the pub reminded me of many in Ireland; the walls were dark and the lighting dim, just how we like a pub to be and the ceiling was adorned with the six Celtic nation flags of Scotland, Ireland, Isle of Man, Brittany, Wales and Cornwall. I liked it. We enjoyed a couple of fine pints of one of our favourite ales, Proper Job from St Austell's Brewery before turning in for the night.
Breakfast at The Gurnard's Head was excellent: fresh fruit and delicious creamy yoghurt followed by superb scrambled egg and smoked salmon. Mick decided he would start every day with salmon and eggs rather than a fry-up. As we left the hotel we encountered the cows from the nearby farm again. This time the ladies were less well behaved, one of them was greedily tucking into the shrub outside the entrance before being shooed along the road.
A few miles on at Portheras Cove we were by now perspiring profusely and were unable to resist going down to the beach for a splash in the water. I was somewhat disconcerted by the signs on the path down to the beach. Although it looked like paradise it seemed that just about everything here is deadly. The stream may contain harmful bacteria, the beach was apparently strewn with hidden shipwrecks and the currents were waiting to carry one off. Seemingly unaware of the huge risks they were taking, groups of families were sitting on the beach or running barefoot in and out of the sea, without any obvious ill effects. We decided to risk lacerating our feet to ribbons and took our shoes and socks off. The sea felt delicious on my sweltering feet, and we paddled up and down for a while, feeling the sun hot on our backs. Suddenly, just ten feet from the shore, a seal nonchalantly swam past, sleek grey head bobbing along while we all stopped and gawped in amazement. Then, just as suddenly, it was gone. After our paddle we returned to the path - refreshed and by some miracle, uninjured. We decided not to use the stream to fill our bottles though - just in case.
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