Newquay came as a shock. It was big and brash and loud, and smelt of sewage and ersatz Mexican food. I hurried through. Somehow I had to cross the tidal estuary of the Gannel just south of town. The footbridge was submerged - it was high tide - but a ferryman took me across in his tiny dinghy fitted with an outboard motor.From Crantock I rashly decided to head inland and away from the Coast Path for a while. By doing so I hoped to avoid the Penhale Army Training Area. This I did, but it was no short-cut. I had no adequate map and only a rough idea of where I was going. (See pic of an ancient holloway I stumbled upon.) However, by a combination of luck, intuition and asking people the way, I finally arrived at Perranporth, a busy, noisy surfing resort, and another place I wasn't sorry to leave - especially since I had to listen to the owners of my guest house arguing all night.
But the next day I set off in the early morning sunshine in good spirits. I'd now been on the trail for exactly two weeks. So I was almost half-way through my trip, and on track to reach Plymouth by the end of the month. Soon I approached Trevaunance Cove...
... and rounded St Agnes Head. The coastline was quite rugged here, but the path was easy to follow, and the views outstanding. This really was a most enjoyable section. Also the weather was perfect...
In the 19th century this area was central to the Cornish tin mining industry. I began to notice chimneys and engine houses littering the horizons, and I passed capped mine shafts and adits. Here's Towanroath, one of the three engine houses at Wheal Coates ('wheal' is Cornish for 'mine') - preserved by the National Trust in the 1980s as an industrial heritage site. This particular engine house was built to pump water from an adjacent mine shaft. Other engine houses powered winding gear and ore-crushing machines.
Gazing back along the coastal path, you could still see these old industrial relics from several miles away. In the heat haze they looked like grey ghosts in the landscape...
