Looe to Portwrinkle

I didn't sleep very well ; we were disturbed by the people in the room above us and by the pigeons outside our window (though, as Richard pointed out, they were quieter than seagulls!). Apart from that, the day went very well. We said goodbye to the group of Canadian and American walkers, who were staying in Portwrinkle tonight whilst we were returning to Bridgeside by taxi - annoying, but there were some advantages to having a second night in Looe, chiefly a far greater choice of restaurants. We weren't being met in Portwrinkle until 5pm, so we knew we could take things easily today, so we started by pottering around Looe, buying rolls for lunch, taking photos, checking the time of the last ferry from Cremyll to Plymouth tomorrow (we felt -wrongly - that we might be late) and trying to decide whether to put on waterproofs! The rain stopped before we had made the decision and it stayed dry all day, indeed it turned warm and sunny.

We walked down to Looe Beach which is at the harbour entrance, by the 'banjo pier' (the long harbour arm). Then we climbed up steep steps to rejoin the South West Coast Path along the cliffs. The path initially brought us to some rather upmarket houses at Plaidy, with more being built, then down to Millendreath Beach. The guidebook (Le Messurier) says that 'the valley is totally given over to the enjoyment of holidaymakers' - shock horror! In fact the entertainment complex by the beach is now closed and boarded up and the beach was wonderfully peaceful. I wonder how long it will be before they build an upmarket holiday village on the site, as on the site of the Cornwall Coliseum at Carlyon Bay. We passed a builder who told us that there will be a major Cornish gig-racing competition here on Saturday.

We left Millendreath on what appeared to be a minor road, but as it climbed it turned into a delightful ancient lane. We emerged onto another road then, at Bodigga Cliff, we took a footpath on the right-hand side, signposted to a labyrinth. The labyrinth wasn't anything special and the path was quite hard going (lots of ups and downs) but the scenery was lovely, quite a lot of it through woodland. We passed a single male walker who we met several times later in the day - he's walking the whole path in one go.

The path emerged onto the road above Seaton. We had a drink at the beach cafe then left the South West Coast Path to walk a short distance though the Seaton Valley Countryside Park. We ate our lunch by a pond then walked back to Seaton, admiring dragonflies and ducks!

We'd delayed at Seaton partly to allow the tide to fall slightly and thus to enable us to walk along the beach rather than the road at Downderry. The guidebooks and map don't seem entirely consistent about the best route, but we just went straight onto the beach at Seaton. We could probably have walked all the way along the beach, but it might have been a bit tricky just around the corner from Seaton. At this point we were able to follow a concrete path just behind the flood defences. We weren't sure that we would spot the path back from the beach to the road, so we used a slipway, just past the inshore crabbers (shown left). This brought us up to the road slightly too soon, but that wasn't a problem.

As the road took a hairpin bend to the left, we left it on a footpath and climbed steadily to Battern Cliffs, at 462 feet (141 metres) the highest point on the South West Coast Path in South Cornwall. It's worth noticing that I found the single climb rather easier than this morning's undulating, so a reminder not to let myself be too worried by the guidebooks! (and it works the other way too - Le Messurier tells us that the path is 'well cared for' in this area; actually it was quite overgrown in places). There were good views in all directions.

We descended to the pretty little village of Portwrinkle. Facilities here are very limited, but just after we arrived so did an ice cream van! We explored the beach and the little harbour (now silted up) then sat and waited for the taxi. The taxi took us back to Looe by way of Downderry and Seaton and Looe Hill. In the evening we had a pleasant meal at Archies (though it has dreadful reviews on TripAdvisor) - I'd wanted fish and chips but didn't fancy eating these outside and doing battle with the seagulls, so the fish of my "fish and chips" was mackerel, eaten inside.

Following day