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On Wednesday the 5th July 2023 I drove from my Holiday site in St Ives up to Bude and parked up for free in Silverton Road EX238EY.
I walk from the car down into town and alongside the River Neet.
I cross a bridge that takes me onto a road that leads me to the Bude Canal.
The Bude Canal was a canal built to serve the hilly hinterland in the Cornwall and Devon border territory in the United Kingdom, chiefly to bring lime-bearing sand for agricultural fertiliser. The Bude Canal system was one of the most unusual in Britain.
It was remarkable in using inclined planes to haul tub boats on wheels to the upper levels. There were only two conventional locks, in the short broad canal section near the sea at Bude itself. It had a total extent of 35 miles (56 km), and it rose from sea level to an altitude of 433 feet (132 m).
I walk with views to Summerleaze Beach, tide is High this time compared to when I finished last time back in April.
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| Efford Cottage |
Efford Cottage is situated near the mouth of the Bude Canal overlooking Summerleaze beach. The name cottage is a bit of an understatement as this quite a substantial house.
The cottage was built in 1823 for Sir Thomas Acland as a summer residence, also responsible for the Storm Tower on the overlooking cliffs.
Its just after 7am and there is quite a wind, hence the choppy sea.
I start the climb up to Efford Beacon up the path.
I am up on the Efford Downs now and I can see the Compass Point Storm Tower, sadly covered in Scaffolding and I am unable to walk inside.
The Storm Tower at Compass Point, Bude–Stratton, Cornwall, England, is an octagonal lookout tower, modelled on the Tower of the Winds in Athens, Greece. It is known locally as the Pepperpot.
The tower was built in 1835 on the instructions of Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 10th Baronet, to a design by George Wightwick, as a place from which coastguards could observe ships on the adjacent Atlantic Ocean.
As built, the tower was aligned to magnetic north, but polar drift means this is now seven degrees out.
The tower sits on a sandstone and shale cliff that is described as friable and which is subject to erosion, averaging 1 metre (1.1 yd) a year, but with the potential for a 25-metre (27 yd) loss at any time. As a result, the tower had to be moved a short distance from the cliff edge in 1881. Because of the ongoing threat of erosion, there are plans to dismantle the tower and reconstruct it 100 metres (110 yd) further inland, at a cost of around £450,000, over a six-month period starting in late April 2023. Funding has been provided by the National Lottery Heritage Fund (£249,362), public crowdfunding (£58,000), Cornwall Council (£50,000) and Bude-Stratton town council (£40,000). The work is to be undertaken by specialist contractors Sally Strachey Historic Conservation.
I walk on across the cliff, quite windy up here, but at least its cool.
Looking back towards Bude.
I walk pass some houses in Upton as I make my way to Widemouth Bay.
As I walk down I see a couple of Peregrine Falcons and one swoops quite near for me to get a very good look at it.
The guidebook say going is easy to Widemouth Bay and then gets a lot more severe again.
I start the descent down into Widemouth Bay over Higher Longbeak and Lower Longbeak.
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| Love this fence covered in shells in Widemouth Bay. |
Its now a walk along the lovely beach of Widemouth Bay, but the soft sand makes it a little hard going.
The beach is popular for surfing and swimming and is patrolled in the summer by RNLI lifeguards. Several surfing schools operate on the beach because it has relatively gentle, easy to ride waves but on the other hand there can be big waves.
Widemouth Bay is visually very similar to Southerndown and Ogmore-by-Sea across the Bristol Channel in Wales; it has the same (gently sloping) hill-top location; wide, sandy beach; pounding Atlantic surf; and significantly the same carboniferous sandstone cliffs. Another significant connection is that sloops from Wales would use Widemouth as a port (in the most basic sense), unloading coal and limestone; sloops would take back to Wales Cornish wares such as granite, slate, tin, copper and even Cornish pasties.
The gentle beaches in the bay are also the landing points for many submarine cables that link the UK with other parts of the world. The proximity to the GCHQ Bude installation allows data sent on these cables to be intercepted by GCHQ.
These cables include:
TAT-3 (USA and UK)
CANTAT-1 (Canada and UK)
Apollo (USA)
TAT-8 (USA and France - last used in 2002)
TAT-14 (USA and Europe)
AC-2 (USA)
EIG (Europe India Gateway)
GLO-1 (UK and west Africa)
Grace Hopper (USA, UK and Spain)
The repeater station is a cable landing station. Construction was begun in 1962 and finished during 1963. The building was specifically constructed to withstand nuclear attack, having numerous specialised features including an air filtration system, five-ton blast doors, and backup power supply systems allowing it to operate as an autonomous building. The majority of the building is constructed below ground, as is common with many blast-resistant bunkers.
Was hoping a café would be open here, but I suspected not as it is still early, not even 9am yet!
I walk on through some sand dunes and reach the car park at Black Rock.
The path now starts to climb out of Widemouth Bay.
I take 56 steps down and take a short diversion inland and across a wooded stream.
The path joins a road at Wanson and I turn right and follow this road steeply uphill.
It continues very steeply up and up, passing an outdoor adventure centre.
Its a hard slog up Penhalt Cliff, I'm certainly warming up now!
I pass a car park and a viewpoint and I continue on along the road. The path leaves the road and then starts a steep slope down towards Millook.
It is a very steep slope down and I can see my climb out again afterwards.
Down a few steps, I am now in Millook.
In 2014 the cliffs at Millook Haven were voted by the Geological Society of London as one of Britain's top 10 geological sites, leading the "folding and faulting" category. The cliffs display an impressive series of recumbent chevron folds, in Carboniferous age killas of inter-bedded sandstones and shales, originally deposited in deep water. The stony beach is popular with surfers despite there being few parking spaces and the South West Coast Path passes through the seaward end of the valley. The ancient semi-natural woodland has been described as the best ravine wood in Cornwall and along with the coast is within the Cornwall Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
I stop on the beach to eat my lunch and listen to the waves crashing in, as I nestle amongst the lobster pots.
I leave the beach reluctantly behind and follow the road upwards again.
After much more climbing and road walking I take a path on my right.
The path is a little overgrown with bracken and other wild plants.
I continue along Millook Common and Bynorth Cliff.
There's a slight descent and the path shifts onto a wooded slope by the National Trust Dizzard Sign.
I climb out of the Oak Wood and ghrough fields passing the highest point of Bynorth cliff at 164m.
I walk on along a bush covered slope crossing stiles.
I descend down 180 steps into a steep sided Scarde Valley, right at the bottom is a waterfall and a stony beach. The path descends nearly all the way down to sea level, and straight back up the other side. This is one of the deepest and steepest valleys of the Cornish path!
I climb the 130 steps back out of Scrade Valley.
Some easy walking along the top of gently sloping cliffs, through fields, in an area called Lower Tresmorn.
The path descends again towards the sea at Cleave.
Looking back to the descent, in the time it took me to get down a trail runner ran up and down 4 or 5 times. She then passed several times on my ascent on the other side before running off. Mad these trail runners but super fit. I puff my way up slowly.
Some steep steps out of Cleave Strand! Guidebook say 50 of them but I'm sure there's more!
I walk on passing Gull Rock.
I walk towards Pencannow Point.
It is very pretty walking out on Pencannow Point.
Further on I descend down 60 steps and another 40 to climb out, I keep thinking Crackington Haven can't be far now. I was going to continue to Boscastle but I'm tired and I need to be fit for the rest of my family holiday.
I cross a river and pass some cows that weren't the slightest bit interested in me.
I now make my descent into Crackington Haven, the end is near!
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| Crackington Haven |
Crackington Haven is popular with tourists, walkers, and geology students. The surrounding cliffs are well known for their visible folded sedimentary rock formations. The village gives its name to the Crackington Formation, a sequence of Carboniferous sandstones and grey shales.
The village has two café-style tea rooms, and a pub called the Coombe Barton Inn in a building that was originally the house of a local slate quarry manager.
Crackington Haven has a stony foreshore but a sandy beach is revealed at low water. The local parish council has put up signs asking that people do not remove stones, and saying that people who do will be prosecuted under the 1949 Coastal Protection Act. There are toilet facilities near the beach and lifeguard cover in the summer.
Until the nineteenth century, Crackington Haven was a small port similar to many others on the north coast of Cornwall. Limestone and coal were imported and slate and other local produce were exported. After the railways reached the district in 1893 the village could be reached more easily (from the North Cornwall Railway station at Otterham) so holidaymaking became more common.
Crackington Haven was badly affected by the 2004 flood that damaged several other villages, notably Boscastle. The road bridge across the stream, several homes and the pub were damaged by floodwater.
I visit the café across the road for a Cornish Pasty and a drink and settle down to wait for the 95 bus back to Bude.
As I wait for the bus, a elderly in a Granny bonnet and black PVC trousers walks over. She had that look of a crazy old lady and I feared I may be right! She says that a man up the road is saying there is no buses today due to roadworks and a diversion. She say" Do you wanna share a cab to Wayne's House?" I said " I dunno where's Wayne's House, I've gotta get to Bude". Not knowing if Wayne's House is a place or it was actually Wayne's House. "Oh its up by the main road, we can get a bus from there". she says. "Can you book it, your phone is better than mine". I sit there thinking and I say hang on I'm going to check with the café.
I go into the cafe and ask if they know if buses are running today, I'm told some came through earlier. Another member of staff said "Hang on, Ill check on the app". She then shouts " Get back now, its just around the corner!" I leg it back across the road, and a minute later it arrives. Myself, crazy old lady and another local elderly gent board the bus.
We drive a few hundred yards up the road and the bus reaches a diversion sign, Bus driver says" Ths wasn't here earlier" and squeezes his bus pass. We drive a way up the hill before the driver jumps out and says I'll be back in a bit and he walks off. A man in the back of the bus is having a right old go shouting "I've gotta a connecting bus to catch in Bude!" and is huffing and puffing.
The driver returns and says emergency water works , we gotta reverse back and go the way I came in". Cue the man at the man jumping up and down, so he reverses the bus up the road and finds a spot to turn aound. We drive back through Crackington Haven where the local elderly gent gets off again saying " No point in going Bude now!" I sit there chuckling. So the bus makes its way through the small lanes and eventually to Bude. No idea if the man got his connecting bus, but he said it was still at its stop according to an app long after it should have gone. Cornish country life and buses, strange place!
Back at the car, I drive back to St Ives and the caravan park, sadly having to go through the queues at Chiverton bypass on the A30.
