Nixon - Graphic design, Cornwall

Martin says:

Last weekend saw a glorious (and rather rare) sunny saturday with high blue skies soaring over west Cornwall. After a month of rain and mist I rather hastily decided it would be a brilliant idea to take my faithful hound Ruby out for some fresh air with a bracing walk along the coastal path from Zennor to St Ives, where we’d then hook up with rest of the family after their cultural excursion to the Tate. Naively I thought it wouldn’t take that long- after all in the car you can reach St Ives in minutes! Ruby and I tramped down to the coast path path from the Tinner’s Arms in Zennor, after a quick pint and marvelled at the sight of Zennor Head in all its glory.

Picking out the path across the cliffs we encountered some beautiful sights, I put my iphone to the test so you can see for yourself. After a good hour or so, I found myself reassuring Ruby that around the next headland we would see St Ives in the distance, but no such luck, the path wound on to another sweeping bay, and then another, and another… after 2 hours we came across a sign which frankly stunned me- Zennor 3 miles, St Ives 3.5 miles! I thought we were nearly there.. the path on this stretch is pretty tough going and we started to combat some rough territory not least crossing two waterfalls (not easy when you have to carry your walking companion too!)

With no signal on the phone and having seen no other walkers for the entire trip I did wonder what would happen if I sprained an ankle.. or worse if Ruby or I fell off a cliff. At long last with much relief we rounded yet another headland to see St Ives in the not that near distance. We arrived with aching feet and sore paws, exhausted but rather chuffed to have walked 6.5 miles in 3 hours. The experience certainly reminded me that we live in an amazing part of the world and that next time I should check a OS map first.