Most people drive in Cornwall, but what I loved most about my time there was how easy and scenic it was walking along the coast line!
I know. Walking?! Yes. For real. Walking.
I arrived late afternoon on my first day in West Cornwall, with pretty much no concrete plans for the day. After a 6 hour train ride, my friend and I both wanted to do something relaxing for that evening.
The thing with arriving in the afternoon to a new place is that it is always a weird time for anything. If it was in the winter, I would have just gone for some food, chilled out at a nice scenic place, and watch the sunset. But, since the sun sets later in the summer, arriving to cornwall around late afternoon becomes one of those awkward timings where you do not have a lot of time, but sufficient to do something instead of just sitting around waiting for the sun to set.
Since we had a couple of hours before the sky got dark, and my friend and I had a late lunch and weren't hungry, we decided to walk along the South-West Coastal Path on one of their planned routes to another nearby town.
We started off at Penzance - where we were staying - and headed for a supposedly 3-4 hours long walk. We happened to pass by the tourist information centre, and saw a signboard indicating the various paths to take along the SW Coastal Path, and we just chose to head towards the town of Mousehole.
To be honest, when I hear "walk" I tend to get a bit... jaded. Somehow walking just has this tiring, and BORING connotation in my head. Sure there are nice sights along the way... but it does get boring after a few hours!
When I'm traveling, i'll walk to save $ on transport or when there is no other way to get to the destination point. I'm the kind of person that would want to get to a destination as quickly as possible. Efficiency is key.
Still, I knew wanted to visit Mousehole, and walking along the coastal path is one of the key things to do in Cornwall (plus, reviews online are always saying how beautiful and scenic it is). So I figured, we might as well do it on our first day there.
A 3-4 hours walk was just the right amount of time and fitted in perfectly with our schedule for the day.
Once again, CORNWALL DID NOT DISAPPOINT.
My initial idea of a coastal walk, was literally, by the coast, near the beach and sand. But the SW Coastal Path was way more interesting that I had expected. There were a variety of sights from sandy beaches, rocky beaches, harbours, to abandon shacks and grassy flowery paths. As you walk along the coastal path, you pass by other towns where you can walk through, take a few pictures, explore the area and then continue on to the next.
Mid-way of our walk, Clarice suggsted getting some home made vanilla icecream from a place recommended by her friend in a town called Newlyn, which so happens to be on the way to Mousehole.
Nobody passes up homemade ice-cream, and so we went and got ourselves some!
As we were walking, the clouds got thicker and we considered heading back as it looked like it was going to rain (sigh, british weather...) at one point of time, I felt as though we were walking into the thick clouds/fog. We probably did because it felt as if it was drizzling/water droplets in the air, except it wasn't. Thankfully, we stuck it out, and only had to deal with a light drizzle instead of a full on rain.
Even though we walked for a couple of hours, it completely didn't feel like it. We were so surprised when we saw the sign saying "Mousehole" I was like "What?! We're here already?!"
Walking for a few hours isn't tiring or boring after all - oh and the trail took less than 3-4 hours.
When you have the South West Coastal Path to walk along, walking becomes a MUST!
As you can tell from the chirpy vibes of this post (despite the drizzle!), Mousehole was a beautiful destination point - I still can't get over its name though! How did they ever come up with it?
My favourite part of Mousehole is its harbour. Big boats, small boats, some with a sail, others without, all just floating calmly on the waters. The whole landscape with the boats docked at the harbour looked amazing in real life. I think most of the pictures I saw online prior to visiting Cornwall didn't do it justice. Or maybe it was just the nice the breeze, cool weather, great ice-cream and company that made the experience a whole lot better than expected :)
Instead of taking the bus back, we decided to walk back, and for the next few days, we CHOSE to walk along the South West Coastal Path whenever we could. (Like from Land's End to Sennen Cove - check them out in my previous blog posts!)
Walking on a nice breezy day does turn out to be pretty fantastic, especially when your end destination is worth it, and your journey is filled with fun conversations and wonderful sights.
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