A walk on the North Coast featuring a lighthouse, a famous golf course and some of the best beaches in Cornwall

Words and photographs by Sue Kittow.
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One beautifully bright Saturday in November, Luvitt, MollieDog and I headed up to the North coast and visited Treyarnon Bay, where the tide was out revealing secret rock pools and a glimmering expanse of soft gold sand all to ourselves. Then, if coming from Padstow, we took the B3276 and turned right to Constantine Bay and at the Trevose Bay golf course turned sharp left. This eventually leads to Mother Ivey’s Cottage and a toll, signposted Trevose and Padstow lifeboat station, where we obtained a parking ticket before continuing up a rough tarmac drive that led to Trevose Head lighthouse car park.

It was windy here, perched on the edge of the cliffs, and MollieDog squealed with excitement at the prospect of another walk. Turning right out of the car park, we walked out over the cliffs admiring the Atlantic, painted a dark blue, streaked with azure and patches of black, while seals bobbed around in the waves with joyous ease.

The cliffs were covered in bouncy turf, with an almost spicy smell that took me back to my childhood. It made for easy walking, and the ground was littered with rabbit holes that Moll enjoyed sniffing at. Below us was Trevose Head lighthouse and its beautifully painted white and green buildings, standing proud against a clear blue sky.

Coming to a waymark sign marked Trevose Head, we walked along with a tamarisk hedge in front of us, and a telecommunications mast loomed over us on our right. The coves around here have wonderful names: Stinking Cove, Cats Cove and Mother Ivey’s Bay, to name but a few, which we longed to explore. Seagulls squawked overhead as we looked out over Gulland Rock, with Rainer and Newlands Rocks in the distance.

As we continued along the coastal footpath, we encountered a very muddy stretch, and scrambled along a higher path as we walked above Cats Cove. Looking back towards Constantine Bay were more tamarisk trees which again reminded me of my childhood spent in this part of Cornwall. A seat, “In Loving Memory of Dr Kirk Hofheinz”, had been placed here, and I wondered who he was and what brought him to this stunning part of the world.

At this time of year there’s little in the way of flowers, but we spotted a few ox eye daisies and some pink cow parsley in amongst deadly looking grey fungus. Mother Ivey’s holiday camp sprawled in front of us, partly shaded by more lines of tamarisk trees, as we walked past what could have been a gun emplacement.

Past another muddy part of path, we came to another waymark and took the left route with Mother Ivey’s Bay ahead of us which is almost two bays of fresh, untrammelled sand. Down below us appeared Padstow lifeboat station, jutting precariously out to sea, and at the rocks off the far end, “Look,” cried Luvitt. And there was another seal, playing in the azure coloured water, while several jackdaws flew past us.

Looking at the map, it looks like you can just follow the coastal footpath, but there is a fenced off area. So we turned away from the lifeboat station and walked alongside the fence, towards a road and went over a stile, onto the road and over another stile by some tamarisk trees, down a very slippery, muddy path and another muddy gateway. We were out of the wind here which was a welcome relief – out on the headland it had been very blowy and I’d forgotten my gloves – “And your nose goes blue when it’s cold,” said Luvitt helpfully.

The sun came out now, and through a gap in the fence, we came to a tarmac path and turned left, then first right over several stiles, with a laurel hedge on one side while below us was Long Cove, and Mother Ivey’s Bay ahead of us. Opposite us, Cataclews Point, Roundhole Point and Gunver Head gleamed in the sunshine – “This is the best time of year to come here,” remarked Luvitt. “Look, there’s no one on those beaches.”

A squabble of seagulls soared over us, eerily silent for once, followed by a scourge of starlings, chattering loudly, as we retraced our steps to the top of the path and, by an art deco house, turned left down the tarmac track which eventually, we hoped, would lead back to the coastal footpath. Given my sense of direction this was unlikely, which was why I’d made Luvitt In Charge of Map.

Along this route we found unexpected bunches of pink valerian underneath a beautifully built dry stone wall with ragwort sprouting from it. Turning right, we came to a barred route which, in the summer, leads to Booby’s Bay car park on the left and a sign telling us that corn buntings nest here in summer.

Reaching the coastal footpath, we turned right, looking back on Booby’s Bay, with its rock pools glimmering a Cornish black and gold in the afternoon sunshine, while the sand shone like an autumn mirror. “Booby’s a bird,” said Luvitt, in a voice he uses when he’s making it up. Surprisingly, he’s right – a booby includes ten species of long winged seabirds that look as if they’ve flown out of the Hobbit.

Skirting past a vast hole in the ground that led down to sea level – we could hear the waves crashing far, far below us – we hurried back to the car park, past Mackerel Cove and over a stile, before my vertigo could get a grip. Looking round to the gleaming tower of the lighthouse, down the dramatic cliffs, and out over the vast shifting seas of the Atlantic, Luvitt sighed. “This would be the perfect place to come on Christmas Day,” he said. Now there’s an idea.

Discover Cornwall by Sue Kittow is published by Sigma Press, £8.99