Fistral Beach to Perranporth Day 3

Tuesday 15th October

We wondered along the grassy well carved out paths up and around and down a few more headlands. The cliffs weren’t quite as steep as the ones yesterday but nevertheless we were still afforded wonderful views across the ocean. We remarked how the overcast sky created a nice ambience for our walking experience and that it really felt like we were walking along an English coastline rather than an Australian one.

After a couple of hours into our walk, we came across a small sign alerting us to the possibility of spotting seals. Polly Joke Beach was quite a remote area, with its rugged coast line and secret coves. It was in one of these isolated coves where we looked down about 60 or so metres below to discover of a colony of grey seals. It was simply incredible to observe them naturally playing, fighting and lazing about on their private sandy beach. They had no idea we were watching them which made it all the more impressive.

There are two main species of seal living in the seas around the British Isles: the grey seal and the common seal. Surprisingly, the common seal is actually less common than the grey seal but both can found around the coastline and are protected species. Although common seal sightings in Cornwall are rare, grey seals are not. Just under half of the world’s grey seal population lives in the waters around Britain.

Our lunch spot was at Holywell Bay in a 13th Century pub with a thatched roof. When we left the pub we noticed a lot of construction and tractors doing work down at the beach. Later we were told by some walkers that there was a film being made on the beach.

We walked our final part of the coastline along precarious cliffs with sheer drops below. The drops to the ocean would have been about 80 or 90 metres. It was very windy too which made it a little scary as we were so close to the cliff edge. The cliffs gave way to a very very broad and long beach which we walked for a few kms before ascending up these huge grassy dunes. It was high tide so the dunes were the only option to get us to Perranporth, a fabulous little surfing holiday village.

Our hotel room had big window views overlooking the sea which was at high tide. Felt like we were in a cruise ship with the water views.
We decided to dine downstairs at The Steiners Inn as it was raining heavily outside. The pub had a lot of dark wood features and lots of character.
After dinner we were treated by some unique singing from the Sea Shanty Group who were meeting to rehearse at the pub in a room next to the restaurant. They found out we were from Australia so they sang ‘ From South Australia I was born’. They also sang Scarborough Fair. They were very impressive.Weiterlesen