We woke refreshed, bright eyed and bushy tailed and ready to take on anything this strange isolated backwater (yeah, backwater, I believe Cornwall is the UK’s second biggest tourist destination after the Lake District) had to throw at us…why am I making this sound more like a fight than a holiday? Because I can…why, do you want make something of it reader, you looking at my funny mate?
We headed off to main reception; no I don’t know why I didn’t get any photos of this area either. The main restaurant was situated upstairs overlooking the pool and we grabbed a table, and some free pastries, at the back of the room and waited for things to get started. Deb got chatting to a lady from Ebba Vale, in Wales, who’d heard my Welsh accent and who had used this as an excuse to strike up a conversation with her until a shortly while later the resident comedian, a chap named Paul MaGahan who was to be that night’s “turn”, gave an amusing and rather useful talk about the area and the various attractions. His advice, especially about where and where not to drive to, was to prove very useful during the coming days.
With the intro talk over we decided to explore the surrounding area but without plans to go anywhere in particular. Deb was concerned that now it was out of season many places would be closed on a Sunday and so today would be about driving around and getting a feel for the place. First we headed for Hayle, which is, or so it claims, the “Pastie Capital” of Cornwall, boasting no less than SIX separate Cornish Pastie Shops.
Being the discerning consumers we are we, of course, stopped a the very first one we came across which turned out to be “Philps Pasty Bakery, East Quay”.
For a Sunday morning this little shop was amazingly busy and eventually after a few minutes queueing we acquired some “medium” pasties for Nat, Deb and Me and a couple of sausage rolls for Hannah who had, as usual (because they had meat in them), already decided she didn’t like pasties. I’m sad to say that, as big as these pasties were, I found them to be rather disappointing; they appeared to be comprised of a mass of, slightly undercooked, shredded potato which hid the occasional seam of beef. Anyway, enough of my culinary complaints, we seated ourselves over looking Quay to eat and were soon surrounded by birds of all kinds (mainly huge gulls and hooded crows). Utterly unafraid of people these pesky scavengers scurried around our feet pecking at dropped pastry crumbs. When we actually threw down small pieces for them we were then entertained by an impromptu display of Darwin’s theory of the “survival of the fittest” as the birds competed over these scraps.
Pasties finally consumed we once again set off to explore. We eventually found ourselves at Hell’s Mouth which is a dramatic cliff formation next to the road between Portreath Bay and Gwithian Beach in north Cornwall. The land is owned and managed by the National Trust and Hells Mouth lies on the Southwest Coast Path. Nearby is a car park and cafe. The views from here along the North Cornish coastline were fantastic. Hells Mouth lies on a popular 3.7 mile coastal walk which stretches from Godrevy Navax Point at one end to Basset's Cove at the other. Below I’ve embedded the photographs we took of this spectacular location.
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