The sleeping-bloodhound profile of Nare Head is veiled in sea fret, and it’s tempting to turn back into the comfortable warmth of the Nare Hotel and seek a nice deep armchair.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window
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But hang the weather! Rather unbelievably, it’s my 200th ‘A Good Walk’ for The Times. On with the boots, then, and out along those misty, seductive cliffs …
From the summit of Nare Head we look back round the great sweep of Gerrans Bay. Portscatho’s houses across the bay are a sloping tumble of white. The sea sighs at the feet of the cliffs where fulmars and kittiwakes are sitting hopefully on nests precariously wedged into the narrowest of crevices. Sea campion, gorse in coconut-scented flower, bluebells half bloomed; self heal, celandine, big bush alexanders and tiny pink cranesbills; the whole power of early summer seems concentrated in brilliant colour along these rugged quartz-veined cliffs.
We walk on slowly over the headlands and round the caves – Rosen Cliff and Kilberick Cove (there’s a grey seal there, bobbing sleekly like a well-oiled Channel swimmer), Parc Caragloose and Manare Point, until we stand looking down on Portloe’s sprinkle of white fishermen’s cottages under grey slate roofs. The neat little slide of houses bends round the tight curve of the valley and down to the slipway with its handful of crab boats. Incredible to think that Portloe in Victorian times was a bustling, noisy, stinking pilchard town, catching and salting, packing and shipping the fish to market – notably to Catholic Italy and its Friday fasters. ‘Here’s a health to the Pope!’ they sang:
‘… may he live to repent,
And add just six months to the term of his Lent,
And tell all his vassals from Rome to the Poles,
There’s nothing like pilchards for saving their souls!’
We climb the narrow street, out into the steep fields behind the village. Trewartha Hall farm is scented rich and sweet with silage. The woods above Veryan are pungent with wild garlic. A pint and a sandwich in the New Inn and we’re set for the homeward road – a pretty lane between high hedge banks, a sloping valley full of bluebells and birdsong, and a last trudge along the rocky sands of Pendower Beach.
Start: NT car park, Carne Beach, near Veryan, TR2 5PF (OS ref SW 905383).
Getting there: Car park is 100m from Nare Hotel (signed off A3078 between Tregony and Portscatho).
WALK (9½ miles, moderate, OS Explorer 105. NB – online maps, more walks at: christophersomerville.co.uk): Follow South West Coast Path east for 3¼ miles to Portloe. Left up street, pass Ship Inn, cross stream (934394); in 100m, right (‘Veryan’). Pass houses; gate into field; cross field, then stone stile (932396, yellow arrow/YA); left to gate into lane. Follow YAs via Trewartha Hall farm and Trewartha to road (924397). Left; right across road, down ‘Roseland Nursery’ lane; on (YAs) along green lane, across field, through wood (920397). Half left down to stile (918396); forward past Veryan church to road. Left past New Inn; in 50m right (916395, ‘Portscatho’) along lane. In ¾ of a mile cross brook (906392), in 75m left up path, soon descending to Lower Mill (902389). Cross brook; along drive; at left bend, ahead through gate; path to Pendower Beach (898382); left on Coast Path to Carne Beach.
NB Coast path narrow, slippery, vertiginous in places
Lunch: Pub, cafés in Portloe and Veryan.
Accommodation: Nare Hotel, Carne Beach, Veryan-in-Roseland, Cornwall TR2 5PF (01872-501111; narehotel.co.uk) – solid, comfortable, friendly, family-run.
Guided walks: www.exploreincornwall.co.uk
Information: St Austell TIC (01726-879500); visitengland.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com www.LogMyTrip.co.uk