Down the Mousehole to the End of the Land

Today was a day to explore Cornwall.  The first stop was the tiny and beautiful village of Mousehole (“Mauzle”), which is the setting for the truly excellent urban fantasy book “The Little Country” by Charles de Lint.  For Siobhan, this was a must visit spot.  All the literature we had found about visiting Mousehole recommended parking outside the village and walking in, so we did.  They tourism people seem prepared for this and have kindly provided several parking bays along the cliff road on the way to the village.  We parked in one of the earlier ones which gave us a good ten minute walk into the village, past some very creative Cliffside gardens and of course the village name sign.

Mousehole is very picturesque, with lovely stone cottages and ridiculously tiny streets.  We were very glad we were on foot as we wandered about.  The village has a little crescent shaped harbour where the fishing boats are moored, protected by two long stone jetties.  The entrance between these is quite small so only little fishing boats live here.

We had seen a concrete walkway below the cliff on the way in, and had read about a coastal walk from Penzance to Mousehole.  As there were steps down to the beach beside where we parked our car, we thought we would walk back along the beach.  Sadly, after about 400 metres we found the path ended and gave way to a very rocky area.  We had a bit of a scramble to see if the path began again but it looked pretty daunting for at least another 200 metres.  We couldn’t see any further than that.  We played it safe and retraced our steps to return to the car.

From here we drove to another tiny village called Sennen Cove, close to Land’s End, in order to do our first long hike in the UK.  We had found details in the Daily Telegraph of a coastal walk that takes in Land’s End itself; this seemed a lot more interesting than just driving there, looking around and leaving.

Sennen Cove

We were proved right; the day was gorgeous, the scenery was even better and we just loved getting out in the fresh air and peace of the countryside.  Our walk took us about 4 hours, including a half hour break for cream tea (scones with jam and clotted cream) in a tiny café and a brief detour to view one of the prettiest beaches we have ever seen.  It is called Nanjizal (which seems very Arabic for a Cornish beach, but what do we know?) and can only be reached by foot over several hundred metres of farmland (public access, for the record).  The Cornish coast is truly spectacular, so rugged and at the same time so pretty with all the spring flowers blooming. 














Land’s End was near the end of our circuit, and we were very glad we had taken the scenic route.  We think the getting there was much more interesting than the being there.  As we returned along the last stretch of coast back to Sennen Cove, we passed the remains of Maen Cliff Fort, which was an Iron Age fort.  Unsurprisingly there is not much left, but we had to explore it – it is a National Trust site!

It was about 5.45pm when we finally reached our car once more, and we had over an hour’s drive ahead of us – we were going to St. Ives to visit one of the oldest pubs in England, The Sloop Inn.  It seemed like the right thing to do while down that end of the world.  Well, St. Ives is just gorgeous – or it would have been if we weren’t in a car.  Honestly, it should not be legal for such roads to allow two way traffic!!  Siobhan was very glad that Grant was driving, and Grant was subsequently worried that he wouldn’t be allowed any beer at the pub.

The Sloop Inn was certainly both very old and very picturesque.  It seemed reasonably popular too, although not so busy that we couldn’t squeeze in for some fresh fish and chips.  Contrary to people’s warning about English fish and chips, this was actually very nice.  Grant’s fears about the beer restriction proved to be unfounded, as the selection wasn’t inspiring anyway.  Siobhan was very relieved that she wouldn’t need to do the driving home.

Tasting notes: 

Just another Doom Bar.  If the pubs around here are going to have a real ale, it seems that Doom Bar is it.