Falmouth to Portscatho

The Grove Hotel was quite busy and I'd wondered if we'd be disturbed in the night, but all was fine. However we timed breakfast badly and were kept waiting for quite a long time. The scrambled egg on toast was lovely, but the requested refill of my teapot never materialised and by the time we left hotel we'd given up all hope of catching the 9.15 ferry to St Mawes. I was left thinking that although the Grove is a nice hotel, I prefer the personal touch of a good B&B. We had nearly an hour to fill in Falmouth, and many shops didn't open until 10am. However we were able to buy provisions for lunch and, in stopping for the 'missing' pot of tea, we discovered that the M&S cafe has delightful views over the harbour.

We went down to the Prince of Wales Pier and waited for the 10.15 ferry to St Mawes. The crossing was quite misty but we still had reasonable views to Pendennis and St Mawes castles, to the lighthouse at St Anthony Head and back to Falmouth. The ferry is the 'Duchess of Cornwall' and from the photographs it looks as if the Duchess of Cornwall had rather worse weather than we did when she visited. The man on the boat wouldn't take money from us - he told us that it would be cheaper to buy a combined ticket for this ferry and the next one (to Place House) from the ticket office in St Mawes and we did this, saving £2 - the total fare for the two of us was £16 instead of £18.

We also discovered that there were not any ferries running to Place between 11.30am and 2pm because of the low tide, so we decided just to have a quick look around St Mawes and to catch the 11.30 ferry. This was sufficient time for us, because we've been here before (we visited St Mawes Castle in 2004) but it seems a pity that most visitors just step from one ferry to the other - St Mawes is a pretty little place and certainly deserving of a short stop between ferry crossings. If we'd had longer I would also have liked to have walked north from St Mawes to see the church at St Just in Roseland, which is reputed to be very pretty.

I'd feared that the Place ferry might be busy, with the approaching break in service, but we had it to ourselves! - it's very much smaller than the ferry from Falmouth to St Mawes. There are various landing places at Place, for various states of the tide - unsurprisingly we landed at the lowest of the low, at the bottom of 'Toddy's Steps' and fortunately it was not as slippery as I'd feared it might be. The landing place is in a beautiful wooded setting, by Place House, a slightly odd house (described in the guidebook as 'French looking') that has been owned by the Spry family (now with a different name and who also own half of the Roseland Peninsula) for generations. We went inside the adjoining (literally!) St Anthony Church, currently undergoing some restoration work (though the builder told us that they were not able to do much work at present because they have bats). It was an unusual and pretty little place.

We left Place through more woodland and had to stop near Cellars Beach to put on waterproofs because the misty drizzle had turned into proper rain. We cut across a field and then descended to the coast again (two other walkers who we got talking to later in the day attempted to take a level route rather than descending, but apparently it was a dead end). There was a panoramic view to St Mawes and its castle, Falmouth, Pendennis Castle and, out to sea, ships waiting to come into Falmouth Docks. It stopped raining and we stopped for lunch at a well-positioned bench (though there were plenty of benches all day - most unusual!).

The sun came out and we stopped just before St Anthony Lighthouse to take our waterproofs off - and the weather stayed nice for the rest of the day. As well as the lighthouse there is a former battery at St Anthony Head and, joy of joys, a tea garden. We stopped for another cup of tea and for a chat with the couple we'd seen earlier. They had parked at Porth and were walking the circular walk described on page 32 of the guidebook. There were a few other people about as we continued around Zone Point, past Porthboer Beach and around Killgerran Head, but past Towan Beach it was much quieter, so it seems likely that others were doing the circular walk too.

We went down to the beach at Towan and from here the walk to Portscatho was very straightforward. We'd visited Portscatho when we were staying near Dartmoor in 2004, but I didn't recognise it at all. We'd arranged for a taxi to pick us up from Portscatho at 5pm (for safety) and we reached the pretty little fishing village at 3.45pm; after exploring we sat on a bench overlooking the harbour, writing postcards.

We walked up to the Plume of Feathers at about 4.45pm and the taxi was already there. He was a most pleasant driver, trading as Roseland Taxis (highly recommended). The roads between Portscatho and Portloe (where we were staying) are very narrow, but it was a pretty drive. The taxi dropped us off at The Ship Inn after arranging to meet us at 9.30am the following day, along with another Mr & Mrs Jordan, also staying in Portloe and also going to Portscatho!

In the evening we had a lovely meal at the Ship Inn, sitting next to two elderly sisters, originally from Cornwall but one of whom now lives in California - and with a confusing accent to match. We walked the short distance down to the harbour both before and after dinner; Portloe is a tiny but delightful place.

Following day