Walking around Trevose Head

 

Like yesterday I got up at 4.30am. I had breakfast and wrote two blog posts before Drew came down stairs at 6:45am.

At 8:45am we left the house and headed back to Harlyn Bay Car Park to begin another day on the South West Coast Path. Since last Sunday, when we walked the part of the path from Padstow to Stepper Point we had been intrigued by the large headland with a lighthouse that is very visible from Stepper Point. The is Trevose Headland, so today that was the route we took as shown in the photo above.

Harlyn Bay at the start of the walk

We arrived at the Harlyn Bay Car Park at 8:55am and instead of heading east like yesterday we headed west past Harlyn Bay on to the headland.

Not that way

This way

We had a few false starts when we headed onto Public Footpaths not the Coast Trail but we were soon on the Trail

and looking back onto Harlyn Bay as it forms the first quarter of this side of Trevose Headland. 

The trail was narrow than on previous days with a number of styles and gates along the way, but was well laid with many fewer muddy patches than we had encountered on Tuesday or Sunday.

From Harlyn Bay we came across a small headland to the oddly names Mother Ivey's Bay with its broad beach and RNLI Padstow Lifeboat Station.

There were the occasional steep down and up sections where a stream/river entered the bay but it was mainly a flat track which led around the top of the cliff above the bay, with smaller coves off the bay appearing as we got closer.

until we were coming to the strangely familiar art deco house above the RNLI station.

The familiarity of the house soon became clear when we drew closer. This was the house that Rick Stein's family stayed in during his childhood. He said that it was staying in this house which gave him his love for the area. The house features substantially, with Rick standing in the garden, in the first episode of the BBC series Rick Stein's Cornwall. The series is still available on the iPlayer as I write.

From the art deco house the path began to climb and turn around the headland, before long we could see the Trevose lighthouse which has stood here since 1847. 

The lighthouse can be seen for miles around by sea, but by land is only visible when at the headland or when standing on one of the other headlands to east or west of here. Hence our first sighting of it was from the Stepper Point Day Mark on Sunday. 

Once around the tip of the headland the view ahead is amazing, only partly obscured by a bright sun that might look as bright as a June or July day, not a November one.

Like near Trevone, Trevose Head has its own Round Hole formation less than a mile from the tip of the headland. In this one, unlike the Trevone one which is higher up the cliff face, you can hear the sea entering at the base. 

From Booby's Bay (above) 

passed Constantine Bay

to Treyarnon Bay, the path and the beauty continued. The example photos of each bay do not do them justice, there are more photos of all three on Flickr. 

At the end of Treyarnon Bay, and the end of the walk along the South West Coast Path, was the welcome site of the Youth Hostel Associations' Treyarnon Bay hostel. 

The YHA here have a smart cafe and at 11:50am after almost three hours walking we stopped for an Americano and Cappuccino here. 

Leaving the YHA we walked back across the base of the headland via the roads to Harlyn Bay. This last two miles of our 8.8 mile round trip was the least eventful and the least photogenic - largely being made up of farms and one large golf club with three courses (an 18 and two 9s).

We arrived back at Harlyn Bay bright in the sun and drove the 3 miles back to April Cottage arriving at 1:15pm. 

I'm not sure that at the beginning of this break I would have been as comfortable after a 8.8 miles, four hour walk, but I guess the body becomes more resilient the more you do, especially when there are so many lovely sights to see.