Perranporth to Portreath

11 May 2024

Distance on Coast Path: 20.2km; ascent: 547m

Total distance: 20.9km; ascent: 547m

Walking time: 5h 09′

Total time: 7h 16′

Overnight: Penventon Park Hotel, Redruth

Staying in an AirBnB last night I had to find my own breakfast. Google directed me to The Dolphin Café, open early opposite the beach car park. I realised that I’m a novice at this style of eating when the bacon bap I ordered came with a fair-sized portion of chips. I left most of them and hurried away before the seagulls noticed.

Also this morning I passed another milestone on my Coast Path journey. I was now on the OS Landranger (1:50,000) Land’s End map! I hadn’t been able to find affordable accommodation in Portreath for just one night so I had booked a hotel inland in Redruth which I could reach by bus.

Tin working buildings, Trevaunance Cove, St Agnes

It was another fine sunny day. A short distance after leaving Perranporth and passing the cliff-top Youth Hostel the Path goes through a large area of spoil heaps and abandoned quarries. Tyre tracks among the slopes and hollows show that the area is used by bikers – I suspect both mountain bikes and trail motor bikes. The exposed rocks and stones vary in colour from deep reddish-brown to a pale cream. This is Cligga Head Quarry: tin was mined here and tungsten too for a short time during WW2. The striking colours are due to a variety of other minerals in the rocks. The evidence of tin mining continued through the day, though not as intensively as I was to find in a few days’ time.

During the morning the path was wide enough to attract mountain bikers. Most were considerate; some either super-skilled (hopefully) or reckless. At one point I stood aside close to a turn at the top of a small rise on the edge of the cliff to make way for a rider coming up behind me who took the blind corner at full speed. I could only admire his bike-handling skills, but also started wondering how often a rider missed the path and went over the cliff.

Most of the day’s walk was over open ground covered in heather and gorse scrub. Trees were few. I spotted orchids and lizards along the way. It was getting warm, and shortly before 12.00 I stopped for a cold drink in the garden of The Driftwood Spars at Trevaunance Cove.

Rounding St Agnes’ Head an hour or so later I came to the substantial site of an old tin mine, Wheal Coates, now owned by the National Trust.

Wheal Coates tin mine

Wheal Coates tin mine

After what felt like a long hot afternoon I finally reached the cliffs overlooking the bay of Portreath around 4 o’clock. The last kilometre was a road walk. My first impressions of Portreath weren’t great; there was a definite smell of sewage and the sand on the beach below had what seemed to me an unnatural glossy appearance. It was a warm Saturday; Portreath and its car park were crowded. I had about forty minutes to wait for my bus and the only place I could see for a cold drink was the pub/café by the car park, and the only seat in the shade a bench by the window where a continuous queue waited to collect takeaway food. I had a cold beer and was happy to leave when the bus turned up on time.

Sadly I didn’t have a good experience at the rather expensive hotel in Redruth – a spa hotel set in its own grounds away from the town centre. To tell the full story would be a post in itself. Enough to say the staff and facilities were overstretched with both a wedding party and a coachload of German tourists which meant that a solo independent traveller did not enjoy the best level of service, though I made my peace with the manager before I left the next morning.