Having visited Bude earlier in the year, it was wonderful to be back in Cornwall visiting some of the wonderful beaches on the north-west and south coasts. Here are some highlights!
Saturday saw a trip to Polridmouth, which involved the car ferry at Fowey – a surprisingly easy trip. This rocky beach is full of rockpools and obviously a fantastic habitat judging by the huge number of juvenile limpets, flat and common periwinkles, and top shells, in the pools. I was also pleased to see a tiny snakelocks anemone, so bright I mistook it for a tangle of luminous fishing line at first! And the limpets, ranging from tiny flat patterned youngsters to huge crusty volcano-shaped veterans, were fascinating.
The other interest (to me as a confirmed rustaholic) was the wreck of the Romanie, a twisted hulk of steel plate and rivets, now corroded into blistering masses strewn over the rocks. I read that she was a steel three masted sailing vessel with an auxiliary engine, which ran onto the rocks in 1930.
Sunday saw another sunny, breezy afternoon and a trip to Constantine and Treyarnon Bays – both blessed by glorious blue sea shading to turquoise in the breakers rushing over the rocks and up the sand. Cormorants and gulls were fishing out to sea, undisturbed by the surfers.
Here, the rocks are grey mid-late Devonian siltstones and mudstones with fine laminations and quartz veins of an unusual appearance – in places like white paint spilt on the rocks, and in others having a curious marbled effect.
The beach is made of coarse golden sand which is chock-full of shell fragments in a variety of colours – previously carted away and used as fertiliser on the fields. I’ve never seen so many beautifully blue mussel shells on the strand, either.
All in all, a pretty perfect place to spend a surprisingly warm afternoon.
Polridmouth Cove, Fowey, Cornwall, England, PL24 2TN, United Kingdom
Treyarnon, Cornwall, England, PL28 8JW, United Kingdom
Constantine Bay, Cornwall, England, PL28 8JQ, United Kingdom