There was still one section of the Cornish Coast Path left untravelled. Not a huge one in the scale of the South West Coast Path, perhaps, but enough to feel unfinished. This was a stretch of coast I had walked around in fragments, approached from different directions, then written about in different years but not yet joined together.
We started by walking from Penzance to Falmouth (Fastpacking and bivvying along the South West Coast Path, Penzance to Falmouth), carrying a bivvy bag and a fastpacking mindset for the Queen’s Jubilee weekend with three nights in a bivvy and what an adventure we had. We had walked from Padstow to Penzance (https://richardcole.me/2023/05/exploring-cornwalls-coastline-a-multi-day-hike-from-padstow-to-penzance), linking harbours, headlands and beaches. Then we walked from Falmouth to Plymouth (https://richardcole.me/2024/11/tides-trails-and-the-eden-project-a-journey-from-falmouth-to-plymouth-along-the-south-west-coast-path), following ferries, estuaries, military history, wildflowers and weather along the south coast. I had even stepped beyond Cornwall, walking the Jurassic Coast section of the south west coast path from Exmouth towards Ferrybridge, into a different geological story of red cliffs, landslips, fossils and time. But Cornwall itself still had one unfinished edge.
Rock to the Devon border. The northern Atlantic-facing side with its remote rugged headlands and sunsets across the sea.
This week mattered before we’d even started walking. It was not just another section of trail. It was the final piece of a multi-year conversation with Cornwall’s coast. A way of completing something I had begun almost casually, then returned to again and again: partly for adventure, partly for the practical pleasure of moving through a landscape under our own power and partly because being by the water has a way of giving shape to thoughts that life leaves tangled.
Of course, no journey can be allowed to become too grand. Especially not one fuelled by bargain cheese puffs. Somewhere along the way on this trip, the week acquired its own unlikely mascot: Cheezy Dibbles. Or, more accurately, the real-world substitutes I could actually find in Cornish shops, be it giant cheesy puffs, Jack’s cheesy puffs or anything orange, ridiculous and faintly embarrassing to photograph in front of an Atlantic sunset.
In Penguins of Madagascar, Cheezy Dibbles are the team’s favourite snack: orange, cheese flavoured puffed treats regarded not merely as food but as morale, motivation and almost tactical necessity. They’re “fighting food.” That felt about right because however poetic a long distance walk may sound afterwards, on the day itself you are often just trying to keep moving. You are wet, hungry, slightly tired, scanning the map, wondering whether the next climb is as steep as it looks and calculating whether the village shop will still be open. At such moments, the noble traditions of British coastal walking may depend less on spiritual enlightenment than on a crinkly packet of orange carbohydrates bought on a multibuy offer.
This was also the week I listened to Andy Puddicombe’s The Headspace Guide to Mindfulness & Meditation. Sometimes on the trail, sometimes in the evening, and sometimes as a way of settling into the day. Puddicombe’s central invitation is disarmingly simple: take a small amount of time to sit, breathe, notice and come back to the present moment. I had often wondered about the difference between meditation and mindfulness. The distinction that helped me was this: meditation is the formal practice; mindfulness is the state it helps cultivate. Meditation is the time you set aside. Mindfulness is what happens when that attention begins to leak into ordinary life: walking, eating, packing, waiting for a ferry, watching rain move across the sea or noticing the comic seriousness with which you are assessing the quality of a cheese puff.
On a coastal path, that distinction becomes practical. You do not need a perfect cushion, silent room or incense burner to practise paying attention. You can do it while climbing out of a cove with a wet sock. The journey itself becomes the practice.
This post is about that final Cornish gap on the map. But it is also about the gap between endurance and enjoyment, between walking to finish something and walking to notice something, between the serious reasons we go outdoors and the silly details that actually keep us cheerful while we are there.
So, in the words of our favourite penguins:
“Commence Operation…”
“Private, prepare the Cheezy Dibbles!”
“Gentlemen… lock and load.”
Friday
Every adventure should probably begin with a clean line of departure. Naturally, ours began with a delayed train.
There is something wonderfully British about the way a long distance walk can be planned around tides, ferry times, accommodation check-in times, weather forecasts, cafés and supermarkets, only to be immediately humbled by the railway system, where the first real challenge is standing on a platform trying to interpret an announcement that somehow manages to be both apologetic and vague. Eventually, though, we were moving.
The train carried us southwards into the afternoon, not yet to Cornwall, but close enough to feel that the trip had begun. Bristol was our staging post. Dinner was a Sainsbury’s salad eaten on a park bench by the river. Tomorrow would mean the early train to Bodmin Parkway, then the bus to Padstow, then the ferry across the Camel Estuary to Rock, although for tonight it was an early night.
Saturday
At some point during the night, our carefully planned early start encountered its first weakness: snoozing through the first alarm. Fortunately, not the second.
We made it out into the cool morning air and towards Bristol Temple Meads Station in time for the 6:35 train south-west. The station already had that strange early hour atmosphere of movement before full consciousness.
Outside the windows, the landscape whizzed by. Inside, the rhythm was quieter: reading, music, watching bits of downloaded television. As we approached our station, my travelling companion, unusually relaxed, only started packing up to leave the train a few minutes before arrival, the calm apparently caused by thinking we arrived at half past rather than twenty past.
Bodmin Parkway felt different from the last time we had passed through on an earlier Cornwall trip. Busier, with more people with walking packs, more movement. Perhaps that was imagination or perhaps more people were looking for the same thing we were.
From the station, we caught the bus onwards towards Padstow and then, finally, the ferry. At Padstow, the Camel Estuary was emptying with the tide. We boarded the small ferry with walkers and day visitors, crossed the short stretch of water towards Rock and with the tide out, landed lower down on the sand beside the estuary. We found ourselves walking out across damp sand before properly joining the coast path itself.
Ahead lay headlands, cliffs, bays, flowers, rain showers and the long northern edge of Cornwall. By just before midday, we had made good progress from our start and with bags full of food, made the most of the best weather of the day while it lasted. Around five kilometres in, we stopped at a surf shop café for lunch: a jacket potato for me, before heading back onto the path.
One of my favourite aspects of these walks at this time of year is the wildflowers. The coast path seems to turn walking into a slow moving game of observation. We spent part of the afternoon trying to identify flowers growing along the cliff edges and hedge banks, with mixed success. Some we recognised immediately like red campion and others remained uncertain, becoming part of the background mystery of the coastline.
As we continued north, the atmosphere gradually changed. The crowds thinned out as the path became slightly rougher and less defined. Rain drifted in from the Atlantic and the climbs began to feel more frequent. The north Cornwall coast has a particular rhythm to it: descend into a cove, cross a stream, then climb immediately back out again, over and over until distance stops meaning very much and progress is measured more by headlands than kilometres. By the time we reached Port Isaac, we were soaked.
We found chips, walked to the hotel, unpacked damp clothes across every available surface and made hot drinks while rain tapped against the windows. At some point during the evening, I fell asleep watching an old Michael Caine film set in Berlin, tired in the deeply satisfying way that seems unique to coastal walking and that break from normal life. The trip had properly begun now.
Sunday
The following morning began with a swim. There cannot be many better ways to start a walking day than with a swim in the Atlantic before breakfast. Strictly speaking, I suppose we were swimming in Port Gaverne harbour rather than the open ocean itself but that felt like a technicality at seven in the morning with cold salt water. What made it even better was the sense that we were not the only people awake to the day yet. A woman was swimming lengths along the harbour while her husband and baby watched from the beach and nearby a mother and son had come down for an early swim too. Somehow, the shared presence of other early risers made the whole thing feel warmer and more welcoming.
Afterwards, we walked back up the few metres to the hotel in swimming costumes and towels, through the hotel breakfast room and upstairs to shower before heading back down for a full English. There is something wonderfully absurd about alternating between mild expedition mode and ordinary hotel life within the space of fifteen minutes. Somehow, the swim made it feel as though we had already properly entered the day before most people had even opened their curtains.
The weather followed a now familiar pattern: bright and promising in the morning, greyer and wetter by afternoon. Setting out from Port Isaac, though, it still felt like T-shirt weather. There were noticeably more through-hikers on this section. Serious looking walkers with proper rucksacks and trekking poles, unlike us with our little 25 litre bags and running shorts! These were the kind of people who looked as though they had settled fully into coast path life several days earlier.
The landscape itself had changed too. The coastline felt rougher and more undulating now, less sandy holiday coast and more Atlantic edge. The path climbed and dropped continuously around rocky headlands and narrow coves, sometimes descending steeply before immediately climbing back out again.
What looked on paper like a fairly short day turned out to be anything but trivial. This is one of the strange truths of the South West Coast Path: distance means very little on its own. The repeated ascent, the uneven terrain and the constant interruptions of the coastline slow everything down; yet this is also part of the charm.
The climbs bring the views, with every steep ascent seemed to reveal another section of coastline unfolding into the distance: cliffs, fields, rocky outcrops and sea below. Skylarks called overhead, while somewhere along the hedge lines Stonechats called from the tops of blackthorn and hawthorn bushes like tiny feathered lookouts monitoring our progress.
The wildflowers continued too. Thrift, Navelwort, Foxglove, Red Campion, Southern Marsh Orchid and countless others we still could not confidently identify lined the path and hedge banks. One of the pleasures of walking like this is how quickly attention shifts towards small things. You begin the trip thinking about mileage and accommodation bookings; within a day or two, you are discussing whether a particular flower is sea campion or stitchwort while standing in light drizzle beside a cliff.
By afternoon, the rain properly arrived. The further we walked towards Tintagel, the wetter we became. Waterproof jackets on, we plodded steadily onwards.
We passed Tintagel Castle and continued a little further around the coast towards Bossiney Haven and Bossiney, where we were staying for the night. By the time we finally dropped our bags indoors, we were soaked once again.
Naturally, this immediately led to a search for food and expedition morale supplies. Cheezy Dibbles, or at least the nearest available substitute, were acquired and later we ended up at Vega, a vegan restaurant mostly occupied by a large group of Scandinavians. After a long wet day on the coast, the simple comfort of hot home cooked food felt difficult to improve upon.
Bank Holiday Monday
After two wet walking days, Tintagel gave us something different: a day without a rucksack and without a distance to cover. Rest days on long walks are strange things. They are not quite holidays within a holiday, because the body is still aware of what came before and what is coming next. Legs remain slightly heavy. Food still needs thinking about but the pace changes. Instead of moving through a landscape, you have time to let one place gather around you.
Tintagel is well suited to that kind of pause, because it is not a place that offers only one story. It gives you myth, medieval ambition, domestic history, woodland, water, geology, gift shops, cafés, chips, quiet corners and cliff edge drama, all within walking distance of each other. It would be easy to dismiss it as too busy, too Arthurian, too shaped by tourism. But that would miss something important. Tintagel has always been shaped by story. That is not a modern intrusion, it is part of what the place is.
Our first stop was Tintagel Castle: where history becomes story, where the line between myth and reality has always been blurred.
The ruins we see today owe much to Richard, Earl of Cornwall, who built his castle here in the thirteenth century. By then, Tintagel was already tangled up with Arthurian legend, helped by Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account of King Arthur’s conception and birth. Whether Arthur ever existed in any recognisable historical form is almost beside the point when you are standing there. The approach across the modern bridge makes the drama obvious. The castle is not simply on a cliff; it is part of the cliffscape. Sea below. Rock underfoot. Wind moving constantly across the headland. Ruined walls of the castle and the dark ages village that came before it appearing less like complete buildings than fragments of history all telling part of the story.
It is easy to see why Richard chose the site. A practical fortress would probably have been built somewhere easier. Tintagel feels more like a statement. A way of borrowing authority from landscape and legend at the same time. That is what makes it compelling. The castle is not just historic fabric. It is myth made architectural. A place where political ambition, medieval storytelling and Atlantic geology all reinforce one another.
Next, we went to the National Trust owned medieval farmhouse called the Old Post Office. After the exposure of the castle, the Old Post Office changes the scale completely. The Old Post Office is a late medieval longhouse, domestic rather than heroic, shaped by ordinary life rather than legend. Later, in the nineteenth century, it became a post receiving office, connecting a small Cornish community with the wider world. After walking through the property and learning about its history, for me the most memorable part was the garden. Sitting in the sheltered garden with a book felt like stepping out of time, with stone walls, plants, a seat and the rare pleasure of letting a rest day actually be restful.
After the castle and the Old Post Office, we returned to Vega for lunch. Having already discovered it the night before, it felt like a reliable place to come back to: warm food, friendly enough atmosphere when you get over the posters about murdering cows and the quiet satisfaction of not having to make a complicated decision.
Next, we headed out to St Nectan’s Glen. The walk into the glen leads away from the village and into a more enclosed world of trees, water and shade. After the open coast, the change is immediate. Sound softens and the air feels damper. The path becomes less about views and more about approach. The glen is associated with St Nectan, a sixth-century hermit said to have lived here, ringing a silver bell to guide travellers. Whether every detail of that story can be pinned down is, again, not really the point. Some places seem to invite stories because of how they feel and the glen has that quality.
Tuesday
First was the strangely satisfying task of writing postcards: scribbled messages home, envelopes sealed and stamps pressed into place. Then came the growing ritual of the trip. Porridge pots and a hot drink. Leaving the village behind, we made a slight detour from the South West Coast Path, dropping back down into Rocky Valley. We had already visited the waterfall valley the previous afternoon but the narrow wooded cleft between cliffs pulled us back one more time before we committed ourselves to another long day on the coast.
The drizzle returned almost immediately. In the valley, the water threaded through moss covered rock while the valley narrowed towards the sea, and tucked quietly into the stone beside the path we found the labyrinth carvings. Two carefully etched circular labyrinths sat there above the stream as if they had always belonged to the valley.
One interpretation board confidently dated them to the Bronze Age, suggesting ritual or symbolic meaning thousands of years old. Another nearby offered a much more cautious explanation. The design matched classical labyrinth patterns found across Europe, but the sharpness of the carving raised doubts. Ancient sacred symbol? Victorian curiosity? Modern recreation inspired by older myths?
Beyond Rocky Valley, our route returned to open coast. Rain drifted in and out across the headlands while the sea below remained restless and steel grey. The walking was rugged again, the path endlessly rising and falling around coves and cliff edges.
Boscastle arrived beneath low cloud and the lingering memory of disaster. Even years later, it is impossible to walk beside the harbour without thinking of the flood of 2004. The images of cars piled into the harbour and water filling the narrow valley. Now the village seemed calm again, but perhaps slightly quieter than expected for the start of summer.
We wandered around looking for somewhere to eat while light rain drifted through the harbour streets. Eventually, a riverside pub came to the rescue and just before noon, we found ourselves eating a full cooked breakfast that felt entirely justified after the morning’s miles.
Talking to the staff a familiar conversation we had had else where; business, apparently, was down compared to the previous year. Visitors were still coming, but people were making choices, spending more carefully, thinking harder about small luxuries. It was the kind of passing comment that probably echoed all along the coast that trip. Less restaurant meals and more take out pasties.
Back outside, the weather slowly shifted; by afternoon, the skies had begun to clear and sunlight started breaking across the cliffs. Heather appeared more frequently among the wildflowers, while the path itself felt quieter than previous days. There were fewer casual day walkers now and more recognisable through hikers: people moving steadily beneath larger packs with the same purposeful rhythm that we had settled into ourselves.
Near one of the higher sections, skylarks rose alarm calling above the path as we plodded onwards, almost invisible against the brightening sky. Later, meadow pipits darted low across the grass ahead of us before disappearing back into the undergrowth.
Around five kilometres from Crackington Haven, the route climbed onto one of the great viewpoints of the day. From there, the coastline unfolded dramatically in both directions. Looking back south, we could still make out Tintagel far away now: the dark outline of Arthur’s island and the Camelot Castle Hotel perched dramatically above the sea.
Ahead lay the final descent. The path dropped steeply on zig-zags before climbing again over the last high cliff, then gradually softened into gentler slopes leading down towards Crackington Haven itself. After the long ruggedness of the day, the small settlement felt calm and welcoming.
Once we had navigated the instructions for the self checkin we settled quickly into familiar routines. Kettle on. Rehydrated meal. Trail shoes off. I stretched out listening to my audiobook while damp socks were washed using a collapsible bowl, multi-purpose soap, and a pegless washing line. The property was a wooden house build on the concrete roof of the coast guard look out station and what a view it had.
Outside, the day ended completely differently from how it had begun. The drizzle and grey skies of morning gave way to a brilliant sunset over the Atlantic.
Wednesday
We were up early and straight down to the beach while the tide was still in. The sea looked different from the evening before: more swell rolling in from the Atlantic and none of the warmth left by the previous day’s sunshine due to the rain overnight. Even so, once the idea of a morning swim had lodged itself into the routine of the trip, it became strangely hard to resist when we were staying so close to the beach. There was hardly anyone around. We dropped our clothes onto a rock near the edge of the water and my partner headed into the sea first while I lingered briefly behind, taking a couple of photographs of the beach in the early morning light before finally following her in.
The water was cold enough to make every step feel reluctant at first but once submerged, the familiar calmness arrived again. Sea swims on long walking trips always seemed to reset something: sore legs, tiredness, the gradual accumulation of miles.
One distant figure looked to be another through hiker already setting off for the day, while further along the beach someone in a high-vis jacket was striding determinedly towards the water. For a brief moment, we both wondered if we had unknowingly broken some local rule. Wild camping? Swimming restrictions? Dogs? Drones? Something else entirely? Then, seeing our small pile of clothes and us in the water and realising we were simply swimmers foolish enough to be in the Atlantic at seven in the morning, she turned away again.
Later, we discovered the concern was not about swimmers at all but the beach itself. The pebbles at Crackington Haven are protected. Their smooth steel-grey surfaces, streaked and banded with white quartz veins, are part of what gives the beach its distinctive appearance. Beautiful enough that many visitors are tempted to pocket one or two as souvenirs. But over time, that becomes a problem. The stones are not simply decoration scattered along the shoreline. They are part of the structure of the beach itself, helping protect the haven from winter storms and coastal erosion. Removing them, even occasionally, slowly weakens the natural barrier holding the bay together. Signs now ask visitors not to take pebbles away and not to build cairns or stone stacks from them either.
Standing there in the early light, it was easy to understand the temptation. The stones really were beautiful: smooth grey pebbles threaded with white quartz lines running through them like veins. The sort of object people naturally want to hold onto.
But that morning felt like a quiet reminder of something larger that sits underneath good travel and good walking. Not everything beautiful needs to become a possession. Sometimes the better response is simply to notice something properly, photograph it, remember it and leave it where it belongs. So as ever we practised Leave No Trace and took only pictures.
Back at the cottage, the morning settled quickly into familiar trail routines once again. Breakfast. Tea. Swimming costumes rinsed through and hung up to dry. A short yoga stretch to loosen stiff legs before packing everything away ready for another day on the coast.
The path climbed quickly out of Crackington Haven onto open ridges where the landscape seemed split between two completely different worlds. On one side lay softer countryside: rolling green fields dropping inland through hedgerows and farms. On the other, the land simply fell away into steep cliffs and the restless Atlantic below.
There were noticeably more through-hikers on this stage too. A mix of ages, though mostly couples, all carrying the same quiet sense of purpose. Proper walking trousers, decent sized rucksacks, two poles each, weathered expressions somewhere between enjoyment and endurance. By this point, you could often recognise fellow long-distance walkers almost instantly. There was a particular pace to them: steady rather than fast, economical rather than dramatic.
After several steep descents and climbs, Lundy reappeared out in the Bristol Channel, sitting low and dark against the horizon. One of those landmarks that seems to drift in and out of the journey for days at a time, never appearing quite as near as expected.
Then the landscape shifted again. For a while, the coast path dropped into woodland clinging improbably to the steep hillside just back from the cliffs. After the exposed headlands, the shade felt almost enclosed. Moss coated tree trunks and rocks, while the floor of the woodland carried patches of bluebells mixed with Greater Stitchwort. Everything felt greener here, softer and damper, before the route eventually climbed back out towards open cliff tops once more.
The walking beyond returned to familiar coastal patterns: cliff-edge paths, another drop to cross a stream near a road, then the final major climb of the day rising steadily back towards the headlands above Bude. But what I remember most from that stage were the birds. The smaller birds began to announce themselves properly. Stonechats especially. Once we recognised the call, they suddenly seemed to be everywhere, calling from hedge tops and bushes beside the path as though the coastline had acquired its own tiny percussion section. Again and again, one would appear briefly on a branch ahead of us before darting away low across the scrub.
The hedges along this stretch felt alive with them. Hawthorn and blackthorn crowded tightly against sections of the trail, creating sheltered corridors where birds flickered constantly between branches. Occasionally we would stop, hear the sharp clicking call first, then finally spot the bird itself balanced neatly above the path. There was something reassuring about their regular presence. Small companions appearing and disappearing all along the coast.
At one point, even an unusually patterned caterpillar became enough to stop us for a few minutes beside the trail. Long distance walking slowly changes your sense of scale like that. After enough hours outside, small details begin to feel more significant: birdsong from a hedge, moss on stone, the shape of a flower, the texture of cloud moving across the sea.
By the time Bude finally came into view, we had covered just over twenty one kilometres with more climbing than the map ever quite makes believable. But increasingly, the days were no longer separating themselves purely by distance or effort. They were becoming associated with sounds, textures and fragments of landscape and for this section of coast, it was the sharp clicking call of stonechats that stayed with me most.
The late afternoon in Bude brought a trip to Morrisons and the café, maybe the highlight being a jacket potato. Then we stocked up on supplies for the next few days and took an evening stroll to the beach to see lifeguards training, Scouts doing activities and what felt like a snapshot of normal life for the residents.
Thursday
The morning began with the familiar rituals that now framed almost every day of the trip. Porridge. Tea. Phones topped up while we packed. A quick study of the map and the location of that evening’s studio accommodation tucked away inland at Hartland, so we would actually be able to find it after a long day on the coast.
But once we left Bude behind, the character of the landscape began to shift quite noticeably.
The coastline no longer felt as relentlessly rocky or dramatic as the sections further south. Instead, the cliffs became softer looking: grassy, rolling and visibly crumbling in places where the sea was slowly eating away at the land beneath. The path still climbed and fell constantly, but the coast seemed to have changed somehow. The trail was surprisingly quiet that morning. We passed deserted National Trust car parks and long empty stretches of cliff path where the only sounds were birdsong, the steady pulse of the waves below and the occasional gust of wind moving through the grass. After the busier atmosphere around Tintagel and Boscastle, this stretch felt more spacious and remote again.
Sunshine arrived properly for the first time in several days. The kind of clear bright morning that makes you quietly grateful for having taken the time to apply a full layer of suncream before setting off.
A café we had been hoping might provide a coffee stop remained stubbornly closed when we reached it, so we simply carried on. There was something oddly satisfying about that too: accepting whatever the day happened to offer.
The cliffs here seemed less densely packed with wildflowers than earlier sections of the coast, though there were still plenty scattered among the grasslands. Butterflies and moths drifted constantly across the path in the warmth of the morning sunshine, impossible to ignore once you started noticing them.
Then, slightly absurdly against the otherwise timeless landscape, came the great white satellite dishes near Morwenstow, turning slowly above the cliffs. GCHQ listening stations appearing among grazing fields and sea views somehow felt entirely British: wild coastline, birdsong, ancient geology and quiet electronic surveillance all occupying the same horizon.
Lunch was gloriously simple. Bread, cheese and vegetarian ham bought the previous evening from Morrisons in Bude, eaten sitting on a bench high above the sea while looking out towards Lundy once again. In the clear light, the island appeared sharper than before, while the water below shifted constantly between deep blue, steel-grey and sudden flashes of turquoise. The further north we walked, the more it felt as though Cornwall was slowly preparing us for departure.
Perched above the cliffs near Morwenstow sits Hawker’s Hut: probably the most famous writer’s hut anywhere on the South West Coast Path.
Small, turf-roofed and built partly from timber salvaged from shipwrecks, it was created in the mid-nineteenth century by Reverend Robert Stephen Hawker: priest, poet, eccentric and lifelong observer of this coastline. Even now, the hut feels less like a historical monument and more like a place someone has only just stepped away from.
The setting alone makes perfect sense of why somebody would want to write there. The sea spread endlessly westward beneath clear skies while Lundy sat dark on the horizon. Below the cliffs, the Atlantic shifted through impossible shades of blue and turquoise as sunlight broke across the water. The hut itself seemed almost absorbed into the landscape: part shelter, part lookout, part act of devotion to the coastline around it.
Long distance walking creates unusual amounts of thinking time. Hour after hour of moving through landscape strips away distraction until thoughts settle into clearer shapes. Perhaps that is partly why walking and writing so often seem connected. Both depend on observation. Rhythm. Patience. The willingness to notice small details properly.
Standing beside Hawker’s Hut, it was difficult not to think about that connection.
For years, I had carried notebooks, written blogs, collected fragments of journeys and gradually tried to turn walks and adventures into something lasting through words. Nothing grand or literary. Just an attempt to hold onto moments before they disappeared completely into memory.
Places like this make that impulse feel understandable. Not because the hut turns anybody into a writer, but because certain landscapes seem to encourage reflection almost automatically. The coast slows you down enough to notice things and perhaps that is all travel writing really begins as: paying attention for long enough that somewhere eventually asks to be written about.
Not long after leaving Hawker’s Hut, we stepped aside on a narrow section of path to let a faster walker come through. We exchanged the usual brief greetings of the trail and thought little more of it until a little later, when we caught him again, stopped beside the cliffs taking photographs. Offering once more to let him pass, we mentioned that he was probably moving slightly faster than us anyway. He laughed and replied that actually we seemed to be walking at almost exactly the same pace and somehow, from that point onwards, we simply continued together.
Our new companion turned out to be a scientist and, oddly enough, we discovered a shared Southampton connection from years earlier. The afternoon passed in long stretches of easy conversation while the landscape rolled steadily onwards around us. Cloud had begun building through the afternoon, gradually replacing the bright sunshine of the morning with darker skies that looked increasingly threatening, though the rain itself held off for most of the day. In truth, the cloud cover was probably welcome by then. The exposed cliffs would have felt far harsher beneath uninterrupted sun.
At one point, we spotted a bench carrying a Devon Wildlife Trust plaque and experienced a brief moment of genuine panic that we had somehow crossed into Devon without noticing properly. Surely not. Fortunately, the actual county border still lay ahead at the bridge crossing the stream below. It turned out that Devon had simply annexed a small section of Cornwall without warning.
With conversation flowing easily, amazing views unfolding constantly around us and the weather holding just long enough, the long afternoon seemed to pass far faster than the map suggested possible. Birds flickered through the hedgerows, flowers lined sections of the path and the coastline stretched onwards beneath steadily darkening skies. Sometimes the right company appears entirely by accident.
The Cornwall Devon border itself was not dramatic. Just a small bridge crossing a stream near Marsland Mouth and the quiet realisation that something much larger had finally joined itself together. We stopped for photographs and stood for a while looking back south towards the coastline we had followed across multiple trips spread over several years. Penzance to Falmouth. Falmouth to Plymouth. Padstow southwards. And now, finally, this last northern section closing the remaining gap.
At some point along the way, the walks had quietly become a much bigger project than originally intended. I guess things in my life have a habit of doing this.
Crossing that bridge felt strangely emotional, not because the moment itself was dramatic, but because it represented the completion of something followed patiently over time. A line around Cornwall that had slowly pieced itself together through holidays, weekends, storms, bivvy spots, hostels, cafés, cliffs, conversations and countless miles of coast path.
And then, almost immediately, the walk simply continued onwards into Devon. Which perhaps was the perfect ending after all.
By the time we reached Hartland Quay, the skies had turned fully overcast, though the rain itself still seemed undecided about whether to arrive properly or not.
After hours of conversation and walking, we finally parted ways with our afternoon companion. They were heading inland towards Hartland to catch a bus, while we still had a few more miles of coast line on our radar before heading inland to our accommodation. So planned to stop at the pub for a hot drink and a short rest first. One of those brief trail friendships that somehow feels entirely natural while walking together and then dissolves almost immediately back into separate journeys.
For a while, we continued north along the coast path alone again. We covered a little more of the coast path before eventually leaving the cliffs behind and turning inland near Hartland Abbey. The change felt immediate. After days dominated by open headlands and sea views, the sheltered lanes and trees created a completely different atmosphere. We passed the abbey’s formal gardens before following Abbey Lane deeper inland. The route then dropped into what felt almost like an enchanted glen: damp woodland, steep banks, tangled greenery and filtered evening light beneath the trees. After the exposure of the coast path, the enclosed quietness felt strangely calming. By the time we reached the studio room for the night, we had covered over thirty kilometres and nearly fifteen hundred metres of ascent. Trail shoes off, food unpacked, kit spread out where possible. The familiar routines once again. Later, we wandered briefly outside before retreating back indoors to eat, shower and prepare for another early start.
Friday
The final morning on the trail began without much ceremony. We still had not entirely decided how far we intended to walk that day. The only definite plan was that we wanted one last stretch of coastline before heading onwards to Exeter to meet friends later that evening.
So it was the usual routines once again. Packing. Tea. Porridge and croissants eaten while sorting kit and checking maps one final time.
Rather than retracing the inland footpaths from the previous evening, we simply followed the quiet road back towards the coast, judging correctly that there would be almost no traffic that early in the morning. By eight o’clock, we had rejoined the South West Coast Path.
The contrast between the inland countryside and the coast itself felt immediate. The landscape returned abruptly to darker rock, sharp edges and cliffs. Even after several days of walking, this section still carried something wilder and more Atlantic facing than the gentler farmland inland.
For long stretches, we saw nobody else at all. Small isolated houses sat tucked into the folds of valleys running down towards the sea, places that somehow felt both sheltered and exposed at the same time. Streams threaded down through them carrying entirely fresh water right to the cliffs before spilling suddenly over waterfalls onto beaches below. Despite being so close to the ocean, the valleys themselves often felt almost like mountain streams in character.
The path continued its familiar rhythm of rises and descents while Hartland Point slowly drew nearer ahead of us.
Geographically, it marks a subtle but important transition: the end of the open Atlantic coast and the beginning of the Bristol Channel. The lighthouse itself sits inaccessible beyond the cliffs, so the furthest north point we reached was the nearby radar dome standing above the headland. A little after ten, we stopped for sandwiches and started doing increasingly practical calculations about buses.
Clovelly soon emerged as the obvious finishing point: the nearest place where public transport properly reached the coast without requiring a long inland diversion. The timetable, however, introduced some urgency. One bus at 12:45. Another at 2:24. Then nothing for another four hours.
At the time, Clovelly existed in our minds mostly as a bus stop rather than a destination. Only later would we realise how much more there actually was there to explore.
Once we realised the earlier bus was probably achievable, our pace increased slightly almost without discussion. Conveniently, the landscape seemed to encourage it.
Compared with previous days, there were fewer dramatic cliff sections demanding constant pauses for photographs or long stops staring out to sea. The walking became smoother and more flowing: fields edged with wildflowers, butterflies drifting across the path, softer gradients and wider views inland.
Perhaps part of that feeling came from the geography itself. Somewhere beyond Hartland Point, the emotional presence of the Atlantic had quietly faded. The Bristol Channel lacked some of the ruggedness of the western coast. The path still felt beautiful but gentler somehow.
The first section remained fairly level before several steeper climbs reappeared to remind us not to become too complacent. After that, the route gradually eased again into softer walking towards Clovelly.
Woodland appeared as we approached the estate. The coast path slipped beneath trees before entering the landscaped parkland close to the village. After days dominated by cliffs and exposed headlands, the enclosed greenery felt almost civilised.
Eventually, we arrived at the visitor centre slightly hurried and quietly pleased to have made the bus in time. Only then did we properly realise how much there actually was at Clovelly itself: the steep cobbled streets descending towards the harbour, cafés, gardens and the village beyond the gates. Looking back, missing the earlier bus and spending several more hours there might not have been a bad outcome at all.
As the double decker bus pulled away, I found myself looking out across the impressive earthworks of Clovelly Dykes from the top deck window, briefly wondering what stories sat hidden there too.
The journey back towards ordinary life began slightly chaotically. Partway to Barnstaple, the driver somehow managed to shatter the glass on one of the bus doors. By the time we reached Bideford, everyone was ordered off with only fairly vague instructions about which replacement bus we were supposed to catch instead.
At first, we followed the driver’s suggestion and dashed across the road towards another stop, only to immediately spot passengers from our original bus boarding something entirely different back on the opposite side. So we turned around and dashed back again. Eventually, we made it onto the correct bus and continued onwards towards Barnstaple railway station, where the familiar comforts of modern travel slowly began reappearing: hot drinks, departure boards and train platforms. The train carried us onwards to Exeter.
And then, suddenly, the trip dissolved almost embarrassingly quickly back into normal life.
One moment we were still calculating bus timetables and eating sandwiches beside the coast path. A few hours later, we were showered, sitting in a beer garden with friends and holding cold cider in the evening sunshine.
Saturday
The following morning, from the hotel we headed out for a morning run, then after breakfast and a trip to the supermarket, we boarded a train north.
Somewhere beyond Bristol, I found myself thinking less about the larger achievement of finishing Cornwall and more about fragments from the week itself. Morning swims before the beaches filled. Rain moving across the cliffs near Tintagel. The strange quietness of Rocky Valley. Stonechats clicking from hedges above the path. Quartz-veined pebbles left where they belonged. Porridge, tea and our morning routine. The line on the map had finally joined together. But the real journey had never been only about completion. Outside the train window, the landscape of northern England gradually returned. Familiar hills. Motorways. Industrial estates. Everyday life reassembling itself once again. Yet part of me still remained somewhere further south, walking steadily northwards along the edge of the Atlantic beneath the sound of sea, wind and stonechats.