Perranporth to Portreath

Friday 19th June 2009

12.5 miles of walking, virtually all on South West Coast Path

Click here for all our photos from this walk.

We left Perranporth by climbing back up the hill past Chy an Kerensa, then behind the 'castellated apartments' and the youth hostel and up onto the cliff top. There were splendid views behind us of the sandy expanse of Perran Beach at low tide and there was early flowering heather on the slopes; the views remained for several hours and we had heather and/or wild flowers for company for the whole day. The weather (sunny but quite windy) was excellent all day. As we reached the cliff top we met another couple (perhaps German or Dutch and very friendly) who were walking from Perranporth to Portreath today, as part of a 3-day walk from Newquay to St Ives; we met them again several times during the day.

Today could be described as our 'industrial archaeology day', with much evidence of mining. We walked through spoil heaps on the way through Cligga Head; some of the spoils were very pink - could this be evidence of tungsten as well as tin? There were also mineshafts capped with attractive conical mesh caps, to allow access to the bats that live in the disused mines. We walked past Perranporth Aerodrome with occasional light aircraft and, bizarrely, lots of picnic tables. We descended to pretty little Trevellas Porth then walked up the valley past disused engine houses etc. to Blue Hills Tin, just slightly off the path. We didn't feel we had time to look around but we bought a necklace for Helen and earrings for me. Then we climbed out of the valley, along the track used every Easter for the London to Land's End motorbike trials. We were overtaken by the walkers we'd met at breakfast, with the man moaning about the fact that they were carrying heavy rucksacks. Rather them than me! - I prefer to enjoy our long-distance walks than to treat them as a fitness or endurance exercise.

We were soon at Trevaurance Cove, the site of the industrial St Agnes Harbour but is now a pretty little place. From here we climbed up and around St Agnes Head, stopping for lunch around Newdowns Head. It was glorious coastal walking. After St Agnes Head we turned south, past various chimneys including the photogenic remains of Wheal Coates. Then we descended to Chapel Porth and bought 'Hedgehog ice cream' (ice cream, clotted cream and hazelnuts) at the National Trust cafe in the car park; the South West Coast Path Association Guide describes these ice creams as 'legendary', they were certainly very good! Chapel Porth is also reputed to have a very good beach but it was high tide so we didn't really see it at its best. The path took us slightly inland then we climbed steeply out of Chapel Porth, walked along another short section of cliff, then descended into Porthtowan.

Porthtowan is a bigger village and we again went slightly inland (past the Unicorn Pab) then climbed steeply up a road and onto a cliff-top path. The guidebooks don't make much of the section between here and Portreath, but it was excellent walking. We were walking alongside MoD land for much of the way, but this wasn't really a problem and there were beautiful wildflowers in abundance and birds that I didn't recognise. We descended steeply to the amusingly named Sally's Bottom, and the icing on the cake was the fact that there were seals there. We climbed back to the top of the cliff then, about a mile later, there was a descent and ascent at a disused quarry.

We followed the path past Gooden Hearne Cove, but we were then diverted down the road into Portreath because of a land slip. We found the Portreath Arms very easily and after having a shower we went out to explore. Portreath isn't a pretty place in the conventional sense of the word, but there's lots of interesting industrial archaeology - in addition to the harbout (built to ship local copper ore to South Wales, where they had coal) it has a tramway, now used as a coast to coast trail, and an incline. There was a 'taste of italy' evening at the Portreath Arms, which didn't appeal, so we went to the Basset Arms instead and had a wonderful fish stew. The Bassets were the lords of the manor who used Portreath Harbour for recreation; indeed Portreath Harbour was once known as Basset's Cove.

Following day