Just Around the Corner

Down the river path from St Gluvius towards Flushing sun was glazing the water of the incoming tide as it swilled up the estuary towards Penryn Bridge. Spring, I thought, is just around the corner.

Summer Still October

naturalised red-hot pokers, St Mawes

St Just in Roseland churchyard

Pasco’s boatyard, St Just

view from the fields adjacent to the A3078 between St Just and St Mawes, looking across the Carrick Roaads towards Falmouth, Trefusis and Mylor

Bosloggas leat

Percuil Creek

parasol mushroom

October’s here. Let’s dress for the weather – you’ll need that scarf. Bright is the blue of sky and sea and creek; fat are the clots of cloud like overwhipped cream piled up over the inland sky and far dispersed to the distance over the coast. Too bright the colours; too sharp the shadows. Not yet the autumn glow

Coastlining 26: Padstow – Port Isaac

Date: Sunday 26th August 2014      Distance walked: 12 miles      Total distance: 255 miles

Padstow-Rock Ferry

It’s good to be back on the (other) coast again. It’s somehow been two months since I wandered down into Padstow with my soggy jacket hung on the back of my rucksack to dry out in the June sun. I’ve got to the point where day walks are no longer feasible due to the length of time it would take me to get to and from my start and end points. I didn’t manage to get two days off work together during July excepting one occasion when it was so hot I couldn’t even sit in my back garden in Falmouth for more than five minutes let alone endure ten plus miles of strenuous coast path.

Coastlining 25: Porthcothan – Padstow

Date:  Thursday 26th June 2014   Distance walked: 13 miles       Total distance: 243 miles

Minnows Islands, Porthcothan

snails at Constantine Bay

I set out from Porthcothan in a lull in the downpour. Pushing through the waist high vegetation up the cliff path on the northern side of the inlet that sloped up from beach to dune to cliff I was glad I’d had the forethought to roll my waterproof trousers up in the bottom of my bag when I set out yesterday morning. 

Coastlining 24: Newquay – Porthcothan

Date: Wednesday 25th June 2014     Distance walked: 12 miles      Total distance: 230 miles

Bedruthan Steps

After two weeks of glorious Cornish sunshine, clear skies and temperatures well into the twenties I finally returned to the coast path. I spent five days visiting family, one day back at work, one day at home to do many loads of washing and hoover up the depositional end of my walking boot coastal erosion up off my bedroom floor, then seven days in a row at work in sundresses and sandals being mocked by my colleagues for my ridiculous sock line. Three days off in a row. We all know what that means: the weather’s going to break.

Coastlining 23: Perranporth – Newquay

Date: Tuesday 10th June 2014    Distance walked: 10 miles      Total distance: 218 miles

Perranporth

It rained on the way up to Perranporth from Truro. Annie tried to talk me out of going. She was opting out, her hip still playing up after turning her ankle yesterday on St Agnes Head. She suggested a movie day but I’d got it into my head that I was going to get as far as Newquay during my time off work and I wasn’t feeling too worn out to keep going. I told her to keep Luna at home rather than send her out with me again, the poor beast was looking, well, dog tired for want of a better turn of phrase. And then the heavens opened.

Coastlining 21: Hayle – Portreath

Date: Sunday 8th June 2014     Distance walked: 12.5 miles      Total distance: 196.5 miles

Carbis Bay and St Ives from the Hayle Estuary

Sunday morning I stepped off the train at Hayle and headed for the harbour. The town’s been given a bit of a face-lift in recent years, embracing its post-industrial status as a haven for nature after several centuries as a minerals and trade port. A regeneration plan for the harbour gathered steam in the early 2000s but never really got further than tidying the place up and implementing a series of trails and a national cycle network route. I followed this cycle path initially, crossing an iron bridge over the river, Copperhouse Pool to my right, the mid-stream mudbanks and reclaimed near-islands of East and South Quays to my left, and around the hard promenade of the eastern shore of the estuary. Across the other side of the river the tower of St Uny’s Church stood solidly rectangular above the golf links at Lelant where I’d left the coastline on Friday.