St Michael's Way

St Michael's Way is usually described as going from St Uny's Church in Lelant (on the north coast of Cornwall) to St Michael's Mount on the south coast. Thus it is a 'coast to coast' walk, albeit a short one. It is also a 'pilgram route', one of an extensive network throughout Europe, all leading to St James' Cathedral in Santiago de Compostela (so presumably this one involves a swim too...). The route is signposted using a stylistic scallop shell, apparently the traditional pilgrim's symbol and the Council of Europe's sign for pilgrim routes.

We actually walked the path from south to north, from St Michael's Mount to St Ives, on an unexpectedly free day in the area created because we'd walked further than planned along the South West Coast Path yesterday, reaching Lelant, and we'd walked between Lelant and St Ives previously - so we didn't need to walk along the coast path between our pre-booked B&Bs in Hayle and St Ives today. We thoroughly enjoyed St Michael's Way and would recommend it, especially as a way of 'joining up' the coast path between Penzance and St Ives (we walked along the coast path from St Ives to Penzance in 2007).

The taxi dropped us in Marazion, just by the causeway to St Michael's Mount. The tide was out, so we were able to walk across to the island. The castle wasn't open yet, but we probably wouldn't have had time to look around in any case (and it would probably have been hideously busy). We had a very pleasant potter around the harbour area and tried (but failed) to obtain more information about St Michael's Way, then we walked back to Marazion and bought provisions for lunch.

We walked a short distance back along the coast towards Penzance, then crossed a car park and followed our first St Michael's Way sign onto a very attractive footpath across Marazion Marsh. The signposting for the first part of the walk was generally excellent but we went slightly wrong almost straight away, following a permissive path that took us to a bird hide but nowhere else. This was easily corrected and we crossed first the railway then (at Bog Farm) the A394 then, after a slight climb, the A30. We followed a minor road up to Ludgvan Lease then climbed, through crops of sweetcorn, to Ludgvan and up the hill to the Church.

Just past Ludgvan Church we turned onto a footpath; as was the case frequently today, the path followed a hedge boundary and was pleasantly shady. We descended to a stream and climbed to a road then down and up again...and again. We crossed a most attractive ford by way of a footbridge then climbed steeply by another hedge. We emerged into more open countriside; it felt vaguely like something from 'The Sound of Music'.

We crossed a sunken track - and the signposting and all trace of the path suddenly disappeared. We eventually gave up and followed the sunken track to the west and then walked along the road to Trembethew, where we discovered that the route we should have been on was effectively blocked by some new farm buildings and a herd of cows. The next stage of the path was signposted, but after a couple of hundred metres all traces of the path disappeared again. By now we were determined not to be beaten by an unfriendly landowner and after some wandering around we found the correct route; we know this because we emerged at a stile with a sign on the other side - even if it was also blocked by a supposedly electric fence. We crawled underneath the fence then photographed it. We reported our problems to Cornwall County Council on our return home and are delighted to report that they are working with the landowner to re-route the path and ensure that the signposting is adequate. Putting the signposting difficulties behind us, we emerged onto the road at an attractive converted chapel and row of cottages at Ninnes Bridge.

We'd been admiring the granite outcrop of Trencrom Hill for some time; St Michael's Way just skirts the hill but we decided to climb to the hill fort at the top, stopping part-way up for lunch. It was definitely worth the climb; we'd had good views back to St Michael's Mount all morning and it was still visible, but now we could see the north coast too. The views towards Godrevy Island and the Hayle Estuary (i.e. yesterday's walk) were particularly good.

We descended to 'The Bowl Rock' and another kilometre or so of walking across fields brought us to a holiday park that we were supposed to go through the middle of, with no indication of the approved route. We took the easier (and shorter) option of a sunken track leading to the road. After another kilometre of walking on pretty country lanes, with a hovering bird of prey for company, we turned right onto a track to Knill's Monument, where there were more good views to the Hayle Esturay and Godrevy Island, and 'The Island' in St Ives was visible too. We descended through a nature reserve and attractive housing to the main road on the outskirts of Carbis Bay. More descent through more attractive housing brought us down to the South West Coast Path - and so to St Ives.

St Ives was rather busy and we had a couple of hours to occupy (we had said that we would get to Cornerways guest house at about 6pm). However things soon looked up - We stopped for an ice-cream/sorbet at a little shop selling only 'Moomaid' ice-cream (from Zennor) and the raspberry sorbet was probably the best that either of us had ever tasted. Then we pottered around the town and I went for my customary end of walk paddle on Porthmeor Beach. It was almost high tide and the water had just reached a steeply sloping bit of the beach, so I managed to get rather wet trousers. But it was very pleasant. Then we walked around 'The Island' and along Smeaton's Pier. We turned up at Cornerways at around 5.45pm and after some confusion (another guest had accidentally been allocated to our room, but they moved her) we found ourselves in a very tastefully decorated room. Daphne du Maurier stayed here in the 1940s and all the room names have a du Maurier link - we were in Daphne.

We had a quick shower then went out again, hoping to get a 'pre 7pm' (i.e. relatively cheap) table at Alba (where we'd enjoyed a meal in 2007), but they were fully booked until much later in the evening. However we then stumbled across Spinacio's Vegetarian Restaurant, upstairs in the Old Custom House. We had a table with superb views of the harbour and a delicious meal, whilst watching tide go out. We drank our last local Cornish cider for a while - Black and Gold again this time, which we hadn't had since we were in the area two years ago.