Day 07 St Agnes to Newquay

31st March 2018

Weather: A brief heavy shower 5 min after setting off. Then sunny spells in a cloudy sky for the rest of the day. Strong NW wind, cold.

St Agnes is clearly an old mining centre, although not unique as I spent most of yesterday passing mine shafts covered with iron wigwams.

A novel hazard on the SWCP – motor racing, of sorts

I was told a group of motors set off from Exeter last night driving on by-ways. At this point the vehicles have to reverse uphill. Glad to be away.

Looking back before Green Island

This multicoloured cliff around Hanover Cove hints at the metal ores

Cligga head was messy, so here’s Perran Beach/Penhale Sands coming into view

After a trog through the dunes, here’s the goodbye view of Penhale Sands. I was going to visit the Oratory, but a notice told me it was buried. I could see why: the wind was sand-blasting my face.

Next up was Hoblyn’s Cove looking out to Penhale Point

and some installation art

In contrast to Perranporth beach, Holywell was practically deserted

I cut out an up-and-down route (from the beach, along the cliffs and down) at Joke Cove by walking across the sand. I only just succeeded though: a few minutes later and I would have wet my feet on the incoming tide. The name was a hint.

The big dunes above Crantock beach and the nearness of Newquay indicated by people and buildings.

Clearly the tide was coming in, but there were two estuary crossing points for the SWCP indicated on the map.

Helpfully these were signposted too

Leading to this flooded crossing point. Oops!

Which is where you realise that the blue line on a map defines “Mean High Water”. Never mind- the next crossing point along at the footbridge will do

Oops mark 2. If there was a footbridge, it was underwater

I do hope the official SWCP guide book points out that neither of these points are usable at High Water on a spring tide. Being Easter weekend, it definitely was (look up calculation defining Easter if you don’t follow). The result was, as my overnight host called it “getting caught on the Gannel”. A double-back and a longer route in total, down recently familiar territory. A pity, because it had been pretty dry underfoot all day.

Finally the joy of reaching Newquay.

A longer day than anticipated.

The timings include gear stops, camera stops, but I usually pause the track-recording at food stops.