Cornwall has been on our bucket list for years. The name conjures up visions of surfers, beaches, blue skies, and pretty villages. It was also somewhere that felt too far for us to travel to from Scotland, and as soon as we moved down south last year we knew it was only a matter of time before we visited.
Our first weekend in Cornwall was spent over the Jubilee weekend at the beginning of June, staying at the wonderful Mousehole FC campsite in west Cornwall. This clean, peaceful campsite uses the local football club’s facilities, and is open to campervans and tents, and pets (there was even a cat staying while we were there!) and is run by the delightful Sue and Paul, who are incredibly helpful and welcoming. There are toilets, showers and washing up facilities in the clubhouse, thought it is a couple of minutes walk from the site, so if you’d prefer not to do that in the middle of the night you might want to take your own toilet tent. The village of Mousehole itself is a ten/fifteen minute walk though be warned – the way back to the campsite from the village includes a very steep hill!
On our first day, we walked from Mousehole to Penzance, via Newlyn. Mousehole itself is a delight, a picture-postcard harbour village filled with chocolate box perfect houses, gorgeous little independent shops selling arts, crafts, souvenirs and, of course ice-cream (including vegan flavours), and a harbour and golden beach where we saw people swimming, paddle-boarding and surfing.
It’s an hour’s walk along the coastal path from Mousehole to the larger town of Penzance, via Newlyn, a pretty fishing port whose biggest claim to fame is that it was the last stop of the Mayflower before it set sail for America.
Penzance itself perhaps doesn’t have the charm of Mousehole, as a larger working town, but we still enjoyed a delightful swim from its sandy beach before spending an hour with Eureka Escapes in their Penzance escape rooms (they also have them in Truro and Falmouth). I’d booked this as a way of spending what had been predicted to be a rainy afternoon, even though the sun ended up shining! Sadly, we didn’t solve the mystery in the allotted hour – we’d have got it with another minute or two – but it was all great fun and I’d highly recommend if you’re looking for a family activity while in Cornwall. Our only criticism of Penzance was that we struggled to find any vegan lunch options – though there are a large Tesco and Sainsbury’s on the edge of town so do go prepared if you’re vegan and visiting.
We rounded off the day with dinner at the Ship Inn in Mousehole, after catching the (frequent) bus back from Penzance. We all had the vegan banana blossom fish and chips, which were absolutely delicious with a flaky fish texture and delectable crispy batter – highly recommended! They also do B&B if you’re looking for somewhere to stay.
We started our second day visiting Land’s End. Having visited John O’Groats on the way to Orkney a few years ago, Land’s End was very much on our to do list. It’s a short drive from Mousehole, and a real contrast to John O’Groats, which was pretty much visitor-free when we went there. Land’s End was absolutely packed full of visitors in contrast. It has far more of a theme-park feel as you arrive, and after paying the mandatory parking fee you can make your way round well-stocked shops, restaurants, diners, and visitor experiences where you can buy everything from Cornish pasties to old fashioned sweets. We were a bit taken aback at first to see that you had to pay a photographer to take your picture at the famous Land’s End sign, but with the hordes of visitors it completely made sense and meant there was an orderly queue where everybody took a turn to pose for their photo – and the resulting photo was fantastic.
The views from Land’s End are stunning, and you can see all the way out to the Scilly Isles. There are some beautiful nature walks nearby too, though we didn’t do any on this occasion as I’d hurt my foot (it’s amazing how big a blister a pair of new sandals can produce!).
Then it was on to St Ives, which was every bit as beautiful as the guide books promised. And every bit as busy as we’d been warned! We ditched the car in a car park on the outskirts of the town and took a bus into the centre, where we spent an afternoon walking around and taking in the delights of this absolute jewel in Cornwall’s crown – the golden, sandy beach with its hustle and bustle, the colourful harbour, the lovely shops and galleries, the many and varied cafes and restaurants (we had vegan fish and chips and vegan ice cream from the Coned stall on the beach front) and the wonderful Tate St Ives where we whiled away an hour admiring the paintings and installations. St Ives’ reputation as one of the prettiest UK beach resorts is well deserved . I guess it could be said that it was a little bit TOO busy on a hot June afternoon, so if crowds aren’t your thing, it’s maybe somewhere to visit out of season.
Portcuthno Beach was our last stop on our Cornwall weekend. This award-winning beach is one of Cornwall’s most famous, and it’s not hard to see why. The sandy beach sits within a dramatic cove, with the famous Minack Theatre carved from the rocks on one side. It’s a perfect swimming and surfing beach, with clear, cool sea that is actually turquoise! Again, though, if you prefer to avoid the crowds, another beach may be more up your street – we visited early evening and it was still packed. It’s also not the easiest beach to get to, with a narrow road that took us quite a while to navigate as it’s filled with bottlenecks and traffic jams – apparently this is quite normal. If you can, consider parking further up the road and walking down …
As always when camping, at the campsite we ate our body weight in vegan bacon rolls, toasted marshmallows, and a few slightly more healthy things – including our vegan brown butter gnocchi and vegan jambalaya, two camping favourites.
We’ll leave you with a few Cornwall tips that we picked up along the way!
- It takes a long time to get to Cornwall, even from the south east. The roads aren’t great, and the traffic is heavy. We left Mousehole at midday, and didn’t get back to Cambridge until early evening. Which leads us on to;
- Give yourself plenty of time to get to any beaches you want to visit once you’re in Cornwall. The traffic can really be something at peak times.
- Book ahead. We missed out on St Michael’s Mount and the Minack Theatre because we didn’t plan ahead and try to book until the day before, when they were sold out – we’ll save them for next time, but if something’s on your must-do list for your trip, book well in advance.
- It can be difficult to get around without a car, but it’s doable – just make sure you plan ahead and consult timetables so you don’t end up stranded!