LLG Travels: St Anthony’s Headland, Roseland Peninsula, Cornwall

I’m still longing for Cornwall. We had such a glorious long weekend staying in St Mawes at Dreamcatchers:there wasn’t a huge amount of activity. I arrived on Friday morning, headed straight to Land’s End, and Mousehole, and then spent Friday afternoon & evening reading, baking cake and watching the Olympics.

Hannah & Mark arrived very early on Saturday morning, and I drove into Truro to fetch them. The day passed in a blur of pootling, a forage around St Mawes Castle, and a fairly epic blow out supper at Hotel Tresanton after watching Usain Bolt do his thing.

On Sunday it was clearly imperative that we did something to burn off the Tresanton’s most excellent ice cream, so we decided that instead of staring across at St Anthony’s Headland,

we would sail across St Mawes Harbour on the Place Ferry and explore in person.

This is the Place Ferry.

It is quite wee.

Here’s my fellow adventurers with happy holiday faces:

The journey across to Place on the other side of the harbour takes a mere ten minutes.

The Ferry dropped us all off on this wobbly pontoon, just next to the rather splendid looking Place House (built in 1861 by Sir Thomas Spry in the style of a French Château).

It all felt rather Swallows & Amazons, as we jumped off the boat and trotted up & through woodland. We came out into the sunlight into the churchyard, which is attached to Place House.

The Church is described as the best example in Cornwall of what a parish church was like during the 12^th and 13^th centuries, and a holy well and Medieval stone coffin are located in the churchyard. (The church is now  maintained by the Churches Conservation Trust.)

We carried onwards and upwards, heading towards the lighthouse.

We passed this glorious field, and resisted the temptation to cross it.

The path finally led us through this stile and out opposite St Mawes. We were almost exactly opposite Dreamcatchers at this point.

Being all meta.

The coastal path leads leftwards, past hidden coves and dells.

This beach is only accessible by boat.

Here it is from further along the path.

Unfortunately we didn’t make it to the lighthouse, as we suddenly looked at our watches and realised that the 2pm afternoon ferry was leaving in forty minutes. Because of the low tides that day, it wouldn’t be coming back until 4pm, and we needed our lunch.

So we romped back the way we had come.

And of course were early. So we sat in the sun and dangled our feet in the icy water.

Then it was back to St Mawes.

Hungry after our hiking endeavours, we hoofed it to the Idle Rocks Hotel on the quayside for lunch.

There was lager.

The fish and chips were, I am told, wonderful. My baked Camembert went back to the kitchen twice before I gave up and just ate chips for lunch. Note to the kitchen: a baked Camembert takes longer then ten minutes to go molten in the middle. (You need to bring it to room temperature before it goes in the oven for a start, and give it at least 20 minutes, if not longer.) A fingertip of melted cheese and a styrofoam middle is revolting.

Nice chips tho.

The full set of photos is over on the LLG Facebook Page