South West Coast Path Padstow Day 1

Today marks a new adventure for us!!
We were super excited to start our first section of the South West Coast Path walk from Padstow to Porthcothan about a 22km walk along the coast. It was overcast but not too cold only 15c.

Simon had been up since 3am going over the routes, downloading maps, checking tidal heights for crossings and viewing bus timetables to make our day run smoothly. Sounds rather hectic but it all turned out fine.

After yet another English breakfast at the Old Ship Inn, the pub we were staying, we quickly stopped in at a bakery opposite the Ship to purchase lunch! We bought traditional Cornish (Cornwall) pastries for our lunch along the way.

We set off out of the Historical Fishing Port of Padstow at around 9am. Padstow is made quite famous by Rick Stein (the chef) as he runs a cooking school here as well as some classy restaurants, a fish and chips shop and a beautiful deli. We’ve heard he owns half the town. I also had to google Rick as I was a little curious.

Since his rise to fame, Rick has earned a HUGE fortune. He has an estimated net worth of £32M. This eyewatering amount has been made through his numerous business ventures, which includes his restaurants. His best-selling cookbooks have also helped boost the coffers, as do his BBC shows.7

Our path lead us out of town along the River Camel 🐪 up towards the headlands. This provided us with beautiful views looking back to Padstow.

It wasn’t long before we were face to face with the vast yet very calm Celtic Sea. We walked along the top of very steep cliffs. The path took us up and down following little goat tracks but after rounding a few headlands we were able to experience beaches.
We met up with a rather overdressed life guard. He was wearing polar fleece and track suit pants. We wondered why the flags were set so far back from the water but he quickly informed us of the 8m high tides that come in after 2:30 causing the beach to be swallowed up.

We noticed some peculiar little buildings close to the beaches. On closer inspection turns out they were saunas for swimmers 🏊 to use after surfing or a dip in cold ocean water.

We enjoyed a picnic overlooking a life boat station which had boats inside that could be deployed for ocean rescues. It was rather unique.
The RNLI is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and is made up of 97% volunteers. It is separate from the Coastguard operation.

One of the beaches we were able to walk across. It was very Sandy and heavy going so I collected a few unusual shells that looked different to the beaches from Australia. I also noticed the small muscle shells seemed to be a beautiful deep navy blue in colour. See the photos of the shells washed up on the beach.

We walked on over a few more headlands and the weather seemed to turn a little cold by 3:30 just as we turned a sharp left to reveal the inlet of Porthcothan Bay. We waited about 50 minutes to catch a double decker bus back to Padstow.

We sat up the top of the bus at the very front which gave us wonderful views all the way back through the little holiday villages back to Padstow which was only about 6miles. Seemed funny as we had walked 23km to Porthcothan only to hop on a bus and be back where we started in 32minutes !!

One thing that rather amused me with the bus ride was the fact that the roads were so narrow and winding that if a car came in the opposite direction they would have to stop or reverse back to let the bus pass!! Often these cars would be luxury vehicles like BMW, Mercedes, Porche, Audi or Saab. These cars would have to give the bus right of way and reverse up. I’m sure their drivers were very worried about scratching their lovely cars on the thick hedges that lined these country roads.

We hopped off the bus and paid a quick visit in to Rick Steins Deli down on the wharf area before it closed at 5pm. It was beautiful but quite pricey. We bought some lemon cannelloni.

Before heading back to our room at the Ship Inn we ducked in to a beautiful pub called the Old Custom House on the corner overlooking the tiny harbour. It was so nice we went back for their roast dinner being a Sunday night. Simo had a pork belly roast and I decided on Fish n Chips . The decor was lovely and many couples dining in tonight. As we left , it was raining 🌧️.Les mer