Cornwall: Cape Cornwall, Priests Cove & Kenidjack Valley.
When I think about the places that leave the biggest impact, that remain etched in my visual memories, it’s the ones that I dropped in on out of curiositity.
As I edited the photos from Cape Cornwall on the London to Brighton train a red faced man sat opposite me tapping furiously away at his phone, dramatically dropping it down on the table, picking it back up, tapping away furiously again… and repeat. The contrast of what was going on opposite me on the table to what was infront of me on the screen was stark. I longed to be back there, next to rushing stream down to the sea or admiring the view from the car park down onto the beach.
It had been an arse of a journey to Cape Cornwall from Godrevy, an accident had closed the main road so following the sat nav I turned down a narrow lane only to find myself at a complete bottleneck of cars at a complete standstill. These people were angry - it was school run time and no-one was going anywhere. A woman, not allowing me to get a word in edgeways was determined to focus on my refusal to drive my van into a ditch instead of trying to sort the problem. Together with the resident of the house that this whole scenario was unfolding infront of, we managed to somehow direct the traffic round the sharp bend one by one by moving some cars back.
So with an hours delay and shaky nerves behind me I continued on to Cape Cornwall, stopping in on the campsite I had earmarked. Having not got any response from them I carried on down a very bumpy track realising around a mile in that I wasn’t going in the right direction - Maps was taking me to Cape Cornwall View - an unfenced track along the side of a very high cliff at the side of the Kenidjack Valley. While I didn’t take the whole route in fear of driving off the edge I did park in a lay-by and go for a wander. The diversion was a happy accident because the view of Cape Cornwall from this side is immense but that wasn’t the most enjoyable part of it - Monty in ever keenest to get to water starts descending down a path while we made our way back to the van and I figured it would do no harm to check out what was down there. After 200 or so yards I came across a painter, quietly nestled in the grass, completely undetectable from anywhere else. A respectful nod exchanged I carried on down and found Monty paws in water at the bottom of a small waterfall. The tranquility, remoteness and beauty of it all rushed over me in that moment and all I could do was sit down at the end of the rushing water, close my eyes and sit like that for a while. I have no idea how much time passed but when my awareness came back we snaked up the path towards the van passing fairly intact mine ruins giving a sense of stepping back in time.
Hopping back in the van I navigated to the actual Cape Cornwall, eying me with an expression of ‘another walk, really?’ Monty trugged behind until, at the same time, we both spotted Priest’s Cove below complete with an inviting tidal pool. The tide was completely out and passing a crew filming we made our way down to pick about a bit. The pool was slippy and shallow and still struggling a bit from the cold of the Porthtowan pool on my back still I decided against testing the waters bu Monty did a good of it for me. As the sun set we took in the beach in the last of the light and then, still unable to get hold of the campsite, had some supper in the carpark while I worked out where I was going to sleep for the night.
Cape Cornwall is well worthy of your time but you should definitely also take a walk along Kenidjack Valley while there, it’s accessible from the main National Trust Cape Cornwall car park by heading down the hill to the left.