Sunday 13 July 2014

Lamorna Cove to Porthcurno (South West Coast Path 61)


There's not really much to Lamorna Cove: a few houses, a cafe and shop and a ruined quay - and a surprising amount of car parking. We climbed up past the car parks to embark upon a very rocky path towards the headland of Lamorna Point. Above is the view from Carn Mellyn to Carn-du on the other side of the cove.

We continued along a very rocky path to soon have a great view of the small lighthouse at Tater-du.


We walked behind Boscawen Point and looked back towards the lighthouse. The land on the horizon is the Lizard Peninsular.


The coastline ahead was rock-strewn.


We were also struck by the rock formations of the point itself.  


We descended right down to sea level and the back of the boulder beach of St Loy and were puzzled by this rusty three-legged structure.



As we left the beach a little stream entered it flowing under a stone bridge that carried the Coast Path.


We climbed through woodland and passed behind Merthen Point to reach a high point above Porthguarnon Cove. Here there was a classic Coast Path descent to almost sea level and immediate climb back to the cliff-top.



A further descent soon after this brought us to the tiny fishing village of Penberth and another climb up to the cliff top. Now there was a grassy plateau to cross behind the Teryn Dynas iron age hill fort.

As we approached Porthcurno we could see below us a sandbank just visible above the Mediterranean sea. By walking a few steps down the hillside I could see that a golden beach lay on the shore side.


We stopped for lunch in Porthcurno and walked past its fabulous sandy beach towards the Minack Theatre.


It was reasonably uncrowded, but must presumably be manic in the school holidays. The view back to the rocky headland mysteriously called Horrace was delightful.


We finished today's leg by climbing steeply to reach the Minack Theatre. This was founded by Rowena Cade and had its first performance as long ago as 1932. Minack means rocky place in Cornish.


Conditions: warm and sunny.

Grading: Strenuous.

Distance: 5.7 miles (distance now covered 367.9 miles.

Map: Explorer 102 (Land's End).

Rating: four stars.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thankyou for adding this walk and confirming the distance which I completed myself this week. I did both ways as I was staying on the campsite and it felt quite strenuous:)