A Weekend on the Penwith Peninsula, Part 2

We spent our the rest of our time on the Penwith Peninsula visiting beaches and gradually working our way toward Land’s End but first visiting two prettier locales: Lamorna Cove and Porthcurno.

Lamorna Cove lies just down the coast from Mousehole. There is a tiny village a bit inland and then a small beach set a bit further down the road. Its setting is pretty stunning – it lies in a very narrow valley and like everything else down here, the South West Coast Path goes right through it.

It was a beautiful morning, so we opted to walk down the coast path a bit. Gwendolyn had opted for her ice cream allocation first thing, so she enjoyed hers on the trail.

The coastal relief here was steep, so we were working hard to make our way down the path. Note the Celtic cross perched on this bit of the trail. You may even be able to spot the girls.

There were several spots with sheer drops to the water. We’ve gotten used to these and the girls have become quite good at not getting too nervous going through. We eventually came to a high headland, however, and were rewarded with a nice view of a lighthouse. As you can see, the weather was fantastic.

After about a mile and a half, we returned to Lamorna Cove via the same trail – no circular route, unfortunately.

The girls couldn’t wait to dip their feet in the water. There was a very flat and safe beach here, and they dug in the sand

and as they always do, they ran all over the beach.

The parents, meanwhile, enjoyed some excellent coffee at the quayside café.

A good coffee at a café overlooking the beautiful Cornish coast is enough to keep us quite happy.

Well, the bit in Lamorna Cove took up our whole morning and our plans for the day were beginning to look overly ambitious. We continued on to Porthcurno near the southern tip of the peninsula, designated an ‘Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’, as is the area where we live.

This area was once the eastern end of the Transatlantic Cable and during World War II was the scene of a large, underground communications center. After lunch at the appropriately-named Cable Station Inn, we headed down to the beach, yet again looked after by the National Trust.

As we reached the beach, I realized that I had seen pictures of this place before. Finally I realized that the beach is the site pictured on the cover of our Rough Guide to Devon and Cornwall.

The granite of the Penwith Peninsula has weathered to produce very large sandy beach here. It was beautiful, although I can’t seem to replicate the beautiful colors of the book cover.

As at every other beach, the girls loved this place.

We all did quite a bit of chilly swimming, but Rebecca was the champion – she stayed in the longest. I have to say that the British are a pretty hardy bunch. While many people were swimming in wetsuits, many others just had on regular swimming suits (swimming costumes here!) and would get in and swim, non-stop, for 15 or 20 minutes. We couldn’t last more than five minutes at a time. There were even those swimmers who would get in for longer stints, swimming back and forth parallel to the beach for perhaps 30 minutes. Crazy! That was it for our second day at the end of Cornwall. We headed back to the hostel in the early evening, had a nice dinner in the hostel café, a walk on some public footpaths that leave from the hostel, and called it a night.

Sunday we headed home, but not before quickly exploring Land’s End. This is, of course, a long-time tourist attraction. People have been coming here since Victorian times, and now there is a miniature theme park operating here. It is also a big deal for the British to go from Land’s End to John O’Groats, the northernmost point in Scotland. Neither of these places is particularly appealing on their own, however. Fortunately, Roland had told us that the best option to see Land’s End is to park about a mile away in Sennen Cove, and hike along the coast path to the tip, so that is what we did. The car park in this village is right on the water, and Rebecca was amused by one of the signs.

Amazingly, we set out for one of the biggest tourist attractions in the South West without anyone else around. Things don’t start very early in England, but it was a bit surprising to have the whole path to ourselves. It was a pretty walk, and the weather was lovely,

but this stretch of coast isn’t any more breathtaking that any other stretch in Cornwall. In fact, we were commenting that we had hiked on many prettier stretches. Still, the views weren’t awful

and we all had an enjoyable walk.

Here are the girls looking at the rock formations at Land’s End. I had also challenged them to try to spot the Isles of Scilly, a small archipelago about 25 miles to the southwest that is part of Cornwall. Rebecca ended up winning the contest and was rewarded with a snow globe of Land's End.

We headed back to Sennen Cove via the coast path for a quick swim before heading the two hours back to Harrowbarrow. We were able to see some nice geology, like this exfoliation pattern in the granite.

We also had a nice view of the Sennen Cove beach in the distance.

We headed to the beach straightaway

and the girls went right for the water.

There is something about beaches that makes the girls smile uncontrollably!

This is the beach where the girls taught us the RNLI rules: swim between the red and yellow flags,

surf between the black and white flags.

Rebecca went right out into the water to ride the waves. She is becoming quite brave in the water. Keep in mind that the water temperatures are in the 50s! Years of swimming in Lake Superior has paid off!

We all enjoyed ourselves, although Christine and I didn’t get in the water – we’re not crazy!

That was it for our trip. We were glad to have seen this last and famous end of Cornwall. As a parting shot, here is a picture of Gwendolyn’s interpretation of Mousehole based on The Mousehole Cat, which she did for a class project.

A Weekend on the Penwith Peninsula, Part 1

We decided to go as far to the southwest as is possible in Cornwall, and England for that matter, with a weekend trip to the Penwith Peninsula to round out the half-term break.  A couple of towns on the peninsula are fairly well known: Land’s End and Penzance. We planned to check those places out, but we were really more interested in seeing a couple of other places: St. Michael’s Mount, the English counterpart to France’s Mt. St. Michel; Mousehole, the location of Gwendolyn’s favorite book The Mousehole Cat; and Lamorna Cove, Porthcurno, and Sennen Cove, all three of which had been recommended by Roland. The Penwith Peninsula is essentially an “island” of granitic rocks that sticks out from the rest of Cornwall. Here you can tell where the granitic rocks are because they form a circular tip to Cornwall.

It was about a two-hour drive to get to this part of Cornwall. Our first destination was St. Michael’s Mount, picturesquely positioned on Mount’s Bay. In silhouette, it definitely resembles its French twin. It also looks like Brentor, which you may recall is also dedicated to St. Michael and has a church at the top as well.

After the long drive, the girls, of course, had to get their daily allotment of travel-day ice cream. The walk across the beach was the perfect place for them to eat it.

St. Michael's Mount has a dry harbor on the north side. At low tide, you can walk the 400 meters across the inlet; however, at high tide you must take a ferry.

The ferries actually go across the path that we’re walking across here – the highest tides in the bay are above five meters (>15 feet!).

The National Trust operates the island, and once again we were impressed with how they’ve managed the site: St. Michael’s Mount was so much less touristy than Mt. St. Michel!

The two places are related. Fishermen in the 5^th Century had a vision of the archangel Michael, built a church, which was followed in the 8^th Century by a Celtic monastery, and then the building of a chapel in the 11^th Century by Edward the Confessor. He brought in the Benedictine monks from Mt. St. Michel to inhabit the abbey. It became more of a fortress in later years due to its strategic position on the bay. In fact, it was the first location in Great Britain to see the Spanish Armada arrive in the English Channel.

There is a very small village on the north side of the island, with one hotel, one bakery, one café, and one souvenir shop. Other than that, it’s operated by the National Trust except for a few portions that are still lived in by the St. Aubyn family, who have lived there for hundreds of years. This map mural on the side of a building that you see as soon as you cross to the island will give you an idea of the setting (north is down in this map!).

Getting to the fortress and chapel is a bit of a chore, just like in France. We took the very rough Pilgrim’s Steps, so called because pilgrims used to make the trek to the chapel at the top of St. Michael’s Mount,

and eventually reached the fortress. Ironically, the place was crawling with French teenagers on a school trip, possibly seeing what a non-touristy Mt. St. Michel would be like!

The inside of the castle was impressive. We were particularly impressed with the Chevy Chase room, which was the monks old refectory. Armor adorns the walls

and coats of arms are on display all over the room. The one on the left in the next picture has the same ermine spots as the Breton flag, showing the connection between this castle and Brittany. We saw similar coats of arms throughout Brittany.

The Chapel of St. Michael sits at the top of the island.

Here you can see Rebecca working on a National Trust quiz. Also, to the right, you may notice an interesting statue of St. Michael holding a cross high above a prostrate Devil.

The view from the top was excellent. It was low tide at this point, and the beaches are wide and the harbor is dry.

The gardens surrounding the fortress are also visible from up here. They looked great from above but we did not take the time to explore them.

We ended our time at St. Michael’s Mount with a delicious lunch at yet another great National Trust café, The Sail Loft Restaurant.

It was time to leave the island and head to the car, but not before we got a quick parting shot of the cobbled path. Gwendolyn is proudly presenting the badge that she earned for successfully completing the quiz. She continued to wear it the rest of the weekend. Rebecca got one, too.

As we drove around Mount's Bay, we had visions of France: just as in France, we were able to get glimpses of St. Michael’s Mount throughout the weekend. It really is striking out in the bay. This picture doesn’t really do it justice, but you’ll get the idea.

Our next destination was Mousehole on the other side of Mount’s Bay. Mousehole (pronounced ‘Mowzell’ by the locals) is a tiny fishing village that has been made famous by the children’s book The Mousehole Cat. The story centers on the tiny harbor,

which has been beset by a major winter storm that has prevented the village’s fishermen from venturing out to sea. Finally, Tom the fisherman and his cat, Mowzer,

decide that they can’t let everyone starve and head out to fish. The townspeople figure out what is going on and light all of their lanterns so that he’ll be able to find his way back. He is, of course, successful. We love this book. The illustrations are beautiful and the story is quite touching. Mousehole has a big harbor lighting ceremony on the 23 December to commemorate this event. Gwendolyn wants to come back some day to see it.

Gwendolyn was our driving force in coming to Mousehole. She was able to wade in the harbor.

You can tell here that she is quite excited to be in Mousehole.

We had dinner in The Ship Inn, which also appears in the story as the place where one of Mowzer’s kittens lives with her owner, the pub landlord.

The pub overlooks the harbor and the girls were able to sit in the window, look at the view, and play a new favorite card game, Top Trumps.

Christine and I enjoyed some food and some local ales: St. Austell Brewery’s Tribute Ale, one of our favorites, and St. Austell’s Tinners Ale, named after the Cornish tin-mining industry and sporting a logo of a mine engine house and chimney.

The rest of our time in Mousehole was spent exploring the harbor walls and their narrow opening

and going on a coastal hike on the omnipresent South West Coast Path, which snakes its way through Mousehole. Here is Gwendolyn in front saying goodbye to her favorite place

and one more of the harbor. The evening light was fantastic!

We spent the weekend at a youth hostel, the YHA Penzance. We’d never stayed at a youth hostel before, but we really liked this one. We had an ensuite family room that was very clean, and there was an on-site café where we ate breakfast each morning and even had evening tea one night. The location of the hostel was great and the building was a renovated Georgian mansion. Here are Christine and the girls in front of it,

and as a parting shot, here they are doing the YHA logo.