South West Coast Path  2023  Falmouth to Bournemouth 500k 

Sunday: 14th May:  Weather: 10°C to 16°C: Cool start but sunny skies all day

Portscatho to St Mawes:  10k walk: 3h 30m: 12.30pm to 4.30pm: 1x 30min stop: Ascent/Descent: 350metres

Accommodation: Ship and Castle Hotel, Marine Pde, St Mawes 

Highlight of our day 1 was just starting our 400k walk in Portscatho.  The saddest part was saying hooray to my brother John, and his wife Suzie, who now live in Newquay.  I chat with John two or three times a week about our common interests of travel, building and history. Next year maybe another UK walk and another visit to Newquay? 

We’re up early and chat to our kids back in Oz, who have rung for mother’s day.  Suzie has a great idea to go to the Lewinnick Hotel for a mother’s day coffee, even though mother’s day in the UK is not today but in March. It’s a beautiful  1.5k walk (but a very cold 10‹C) to this old hotel perched on the headland and the coffee is lovely.  Returning, we re-pack our back packs, and sort out a box of airline clothes for John to send Poste Restante to Bournemouth where we will finish our walk in 24 days time.  After a quick snack of bread and cold lamb, the last of the roast leg, John drives us to Portscatho where we start our walk at 12.30pm.

It’s rather complicated to explain that the first leg of our walk from St Mawes to Portscatho, was the reverse from Portscatho o St Mawes. Why?  Because I refused to pay £1,200 for a one night stay in Portscatho which is a secluded small village where tourists throng to be part of the village scene.  So we made a decision to do this section in reverse and for John to drop us at Portscatho from where we would back to St Mawes, stay the night in the £80 Ship and Castle hotel, then catch a bus back to Portscatho to begin  the next day’s walk.

The pretty road to Portscatho through farmland was lined with hedges, and an hour later we arrived to begin our 400k South West Coast Path (SWCP)  walk. The water is crystal clear as we climb out of the village to the grassy clifftop and 2 hours later we’re at St Anthony’s Headland where there’s an old wath tower left over from WW2 teaming with visitors who have driven there for teh historical tours.  Around the headland, we soon stop for a cup of tea on a grassy hillside looking across to Falmouth.  The fig rolls go well with the tea. 

 An hour later at 4pm we’re at a place called Place where we catch a ferry that’s not much bigger than a surf boat.  I drag out £5 in coins thinking that will cover the two of us for a 5 minute boat trip but no, it’s £8 EACH - and it’s too late to walk the 50k around the roads to St Mawes.  The ferryman was doing a roaring trade boating people back and forward between Place and St Mawes across the Percuil River, a tributary of the Fal River between Falmouth and St Mawes.

The Ship and Castle Hotel is only 100 metres from the ferry terminal and our room is clean and warm, but the bed is small.  Offloading our packs, we walk back to Marine Parade to check out the St Mawes Bakery, which is renowned for its Cornish pasties.  It’s closed Sunday afternoon but we hope to buy two pasties in the morning to take with us to our horse float at Porthallow, our destination tomorrow.  The Bakery has a very professional website set up to do mail order pasties, but we are surprised to see that the shop is just a tin shed on the waterfront with a counter 2 metres long.  It claims to have been operating since 1912 and to have the world’s best pasties - we’ll keep you updated on how good thy are!

Next stop is the small co-op just 200 metres from the Ship and Castle.  It’s buzzing with locals and tourists and sells everything including alcohol.  We walk out with one large Peroni beer, a bottle of McGuigans red, and a packet of sliced prosciutto.  Back to the hotel room for a picnic dinner of bread, ham, prosciutto, dried tomatoes and cheese - washed down with a beer and wine.  

Three hours later I’ve finally sorted out my blog photos and it’s time for bed.