The first beach I come to in St Ives is called Porthmeor Beach. I stop and have a cup of tea and a cream scone in a café overlooking the beach. I opt for a booth out of the sun. It is 4:30 pm but still blazing hot.
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The number 508 bus should take me back to the Gurnard Head Hotel. Unfortunately, Western Greyhound does not run a service on Sundays. (Why ever not?!) So I have an expensive taxi-ride from Penzance to Treen.
Too excited to look at my map properly, I head off along the nearest footpath, only to find I am nowhere near the sea and about to rejoin the main road. Wrong path! Never mind I take a photo of the hotel across the fields.
I catch the number 10 bus from Penzance to Botallack. The driver corrects my pronunciation. It’s BOW-ta-lack, not Bo-TA-lack.
From the village I try to take a footpath towards the coast but soon end up lost in a field and have to double back, eventually finding the same boring gravel track I walked along yesterday.
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People say that Land’s End is a disappointing place – dominated by a large hotel and shopping complex, and an even larger car park. Yes, I thought the Lizard was more attractive, both in ambience and scenery. But Land’s End is Land’s End and will always have a special significance for long-distance walkers.
I take a photograph of my husband standing in front of the hotel. Then he sets off on the long drive back to Lincolnshire and I start walking, on my own, heading for Botallack.
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Lamorna Cove is, I am sure, a beautiful place. But this morning it is shrouded in fog. I look back across the cove, trying to make out the route that I walked yesterday. The path winds treacherously above the shoreline. In the distance is the craggy mass of Carn-du.
I set off from Perranuthnoe in brilliant sunshine. My plan for today is to walk through Penzance and Mousehole and to finish my walk in Lamorna Cove. It is a long way. I’m using an Explorer OS Map – more detailed than my usual Landranger Map – and the distance seems huge. I’m nervous already.
The BBC weather forecast today is ‘wet’. The BBC rarely lets us down.
But it is still dry when I start walking along the side of Porthleven Harbour. I stop to take photographs and to allow a group of walkers go on ahead of me. There are around 10 of them and they seem to have an official leader. I rather hoped they would be heading the other way, but no, they were walking the same way as me. I prefer walking alone, so I hang back to get some distance between us.
The sky is grey. My husband drops me off in the small car park at Predannack and I walk through fields, past cattle, to pick up the South West Coast Path again.
I rejoin the South West Coast Path next to The Housel Hotel, standing and taking photos from the exact same place as last time. The rock at the end of the promontory is called Bumble Rock. It looks like a cat to me.
I wake up early to the noise of roaring traffic. What are all those cars going at this time in the morning? Then I realise – the sound I’m hearing is the crashing of waves beneath my window.
Getting to the start point of today’s walk is easy. I walk out of the Paris Hotel and I am on the South West Coast Path, heading southwards towards Chynhalis Point. The only place in Coverack closer to the sea is a house, ahead, perched by the water.
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Report: 1243 Date: 14/5/26 Location: The incident happened on the Dales Way. In the field between the railway line on Lambrook Beck and the Beck houses. This field is in the Dales Way between Sedbergh and Burneside. Rajiv’s post: We were walking on a public footpath on the Dales Way when our path was blocked […]
We published a post recently about being careful while planning new walking routes for fear of meeting cattle Ensuring Safety on a Walking Holiday: Cattle Management – Cattle Safety . This fear is not unusual, and is well founded, we have hundreds of reports where walkers have been frightened or hurt. Below are three recent […]
Report number: 1244 Date: 15/5/26Location: Greywell Hill Estate. Nr Odiham Hampshire. ///reverses.motel.ambitions 1 person no dog Graham’s report: “I was following the bridleway on a bicycle. The cows were 50 yards away from me, I was moving away from them when they came running towards me. Aggressively charging me, pawing the ground with their hooves. […]
Ruth's Coastal Walk (UK) 