Porth Beach and Trevelgue Island

Tuesday 18 August 1992. We stayed away from the cars for the day and although the weather was not overly warm, we spent time on the beach at Porth and exploring the island. There was a little bit of sunshine!

Porth is a small village just to the north of Newquay and has a large camping site behind the bay. It was a regular stopping place for us around this time. There was a cafe just out of the campsite entrance and on occasion we would buy food locally and cook it ourselves over a camping stove.

To the southern side of the bay the ground rose quickly to cliffs with a paved walk leading to Newquay itself. There was another small cafe here and Miss Franny is more or less outside it - we must have been for a morning brew!

The eastern side of the bay was a long headland, the end of which was an iron-age promontory fort. When the tide came in it rushed through a gap between the end of the fort and the cliffs and thus the fort became an island. It is known either as Trevelgue or Porth Island, both names being happily recognised and accepted by the locals. There are some pretty large ramparts protecting either side of the gap, which is bridges with a wooden bridge allowing access to the fort. There isn't much to see apart from the ramparts these days but there were roundhouses and a couple of barrows there.

We spent the morning playing on the beach, cricket, catch, wondering where Mum had got to...

My photos make a rapid jump to the evening. I suspect that not a lot happened in the afternoon to take photos of. We may have stayed on the beach. We may have gone back to the tents to sit and read. We may have gone for a walk somewhere... The last sentence brought to you from my soon to be published book: How to make a boring afternoon sound full of excitement. I'm not expecting great sales to be honest...

Finally for this article and for your great relief, I stand between the ramparts on the far side of the wooden bridge to the island. It goes dark a bit.

Index to come

Newquay's Wonderful Beaches

I'm digging into the past - 34 years into the past to be precise - to bring to you, my dear readers, yet another example of the daft exploits of the Burke family on holiday. This time we are camping in what was to be a fairly dull if not altogether wet week in August 1992. Blimey! That was last century! Oh well, lucky that I'm not aging in any way then [cough, splutter...]

Saturday 15 August 1992. Yes, once again the Burke family head Cornwall way. Only this time there's an injured soldier along for the ride - yes I'm on crutches (well... "crutch" in the singular to be precise) having fallen down the stairs a few weeks before and torn the muscle on the back of my leg. It hurt at the time, it's not too bad now unless I have to bend far enough to pick something up...

It's a greedy little place is Newquay - not content with having just one beach, it has a whole string of them, divided into small bays by rocks or, in Towan Beach's case by the harbour and headand to the south.

Just up the road, we stop off for a drink. Not sure really why Gill looks so moody, but bear in mind she was 15 at the time! At the back is my mum and dad and opposite Gill is my nephew, another John, so generally known as "Little John". Thirty years on it doesn't quite sound right somehow... Missing from the photo (but not the holiday) are: me, wife Miss Franny, and my brother Frank. Camera shy - that's us...

The view from a bench on top of the cliffs near the harbour. From here you can see what I meant about many beaches enclosed by rocks into small bays.

Due to the hop-a-long foot we had a few more sit-downs than usual! Look, I'm suffering for my art here, juggling a crutch and wielding a camera all at the same time... Behind the harbour is a large headland with Fistral Beach behind it, famous for being one of England's best surfing beaches. I have been known to get on a board myself but found that standing up was nigh impossible and lying stomach down was murder on the old six-pack due to the sandpaper effect of board and sand!

Ignoring the piteous bleats of pain and hardship the family drag me down once again to beach level to have photos taken and to laugh at my efforts to climb up again to pavement level...

Walking back along the cliff tops of Newquay towards our campsite at Porth, only a few scant miles and no more than 287 steps to go up and down (what do you mean I'm exaggerating?) Well we had to stop on a few more benches to test the comfort and sprininess of wooden slats before we got there.

In this case the stopping was blamed on my foot, but the real reason was that Mum was ogling male bum cleavage down on the beach through binoculars as some chap on the beach below showed off the crack of doom by bending over to tie his shoelace or something...

Holiday Index to come...

Cornwall Holiday 1996 Index

A series of articles about our holiday in Cornwall 3-10 August 1996. Centred in a small B+B between Newquay and Porth, we visit all the places listed below. One of the last holidays we took with the extended family.

Clicking or tapping the photos below will take you to the articles for each day. A link on each page will bring you back here.

Return to Holidays and Day Trips in the UK Index Page

Newquay Harbour Wildlife

Sunday 4 August 1996. It's lunchtime and it's taken all morning to get from Porth to the centre of Newquay.

We've managed to leave the shops and we've reached the beach at Towan Beach, noteable for the island which has an art galllery on it. I've only just climbed down the cliff, I'm not climbing back up it!

But the family are quite happy to sit on the beach or go splash in the sea. I go for a look at the harbour which is just the other side of the road down which we've just walked.

There are no large ships here, just fishing boats and small rowing boats used to get to the larger boats that are moored too far from a wall to jump or climb onto. There's not much in the way of pleasure trips in evidence here, you can hire a boat to go fishing, but the harbour does have some boats that go out with tourists. They must have all been out, or perhaps the owners had realised it was lunchtime and had stopped operations. There are even trips to go looking for marine life. Newquay is visited by the odd dolphin or even huge basking sharks or sunfish at times.

You may even find the odd bit of wildlife following the fishing boats back into the harbour, hoping for a few escapees! A seal was swimming about in the hope of one of the returning fishing boats dropping something overboard! One or two people were paddling or swimming (in the oily waters of the harbour when there are beautiful beaches literally 50 yards away!) and there were several screams as the seal surfaced near to them.

A sign was warning that seals are wild animals and shouldn't be approached, though why anyone would want to paddle or swim in the oily waters of a fishing harbour is beyond me anyway. The harbour has much significance for Newquay - in fact the town was called Towan Blystra until the new quay was built in the 15th century. It's a little uncertain that the name changed as early as that. Newquay doesn't appear in written records as a place name until the 17th century.

A fishing boat returns and the chap aboard proceeds to chop up mackarel onboard with a machete. He tossed the fish tails into the water, but the seal was obviously of the more discerning type!

The afternoon wore on, tea time approached but inexplicably the rest of the family decided to head back to the B+B, away from all the cafes and restaurants, meaning we had to take to the cars and drive round looking for somewhere to eat. No pubs seemed to open for food until later and it was with relief that we found a pub around 7:00pm and some 30 miles away that wasn't fully booked already.

Return to Cornwall 1996 Holiday Index

Cornwall Holiday 12-19 September 2015

An account of a week's stay in Cornwall with Newquay as our base, but taking in the full length of Cornwall and a bit of south coast Devon just for fun! Click each picture for the associated article.

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Falmouth At Last

Friday 18 September 2015. After yesterday's wrong turning I made sure I knew which direction to take and we set off for Falmouth for the second time, arriving there for the first time! This is the first reason for my title "Falmouth At Last". The second reason is that our visit to Falmouth comes on our last full day in Cornwall.

We parked up a horrendously steep hill and walked down to the shopping streets, knees complaining loudly at the stress. "This will be fun to walk back up later!" went through my mind...

We had a coffee in a cafe near the main pier but they had no toilets and I was advised to go round to the ones on the pier just round the corner. Doing this and in some haste, I burst in upon the scene of a drugs transaction... Being in no position to retire gracefully and come back later, I ignored them in all but every single sense apart from sight... The seller nipped off smartly but the buyer went straight into one of the stalls to get his fix. I made sure I was well out of the way before he came out!

This is Fish Strand Quay where, on 4 November 1805, Lt. John Richards Lapenotiere, Captain of HM Schooner Pickle arrived with the news of the victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, tempered by the news of the death of Lord Nelson. He reached London in 38 hours to report to the Admiralty, the journey by coach usually taking a week.

We found Falmouth a little strange. I don't know what I had been expecting or whether we just stayed in the wrong bit, but the riverside was quite built up and there were numerous little harbours and jetties to be found by walking between buildings from the street to the river. You couldn't walk all the way along a river path but kept having to come back to the street, along for a few buildings and then down again.

A ship's figurehead in the alley at the side of The Wheelhouse pub. It is well known for its seafood apparently. We both hate the stuff so we avoided it! Fish I don't mind and prawns providing they are already in their pink state and don't need any bits removing before eating, but things that live in shells I definitely do not want to pass my lips! So oysters, mussels, cockles, winkles, and things like crabs and lobster - you can keep them!

One of the alleys we went down led to a car park and another to this view of a couple of pilot boats. One was moored up but the other had been out on a job, helping a boat or ship in or out of the estuary and was coming slowly back into harbour.

The Harbour Master's Office is the stone building in the centre of the photo. As with Plymouth we found plenty of public houses dotted liberally around the waterfront. From the left there is The Stable (in the singular - I would have expected "The Stables"), The Quayside Inn" and on the right we'll have a closer look in the next photo.

There is actually two pubs here next door to each other. In the two-storey building is The Shipwrights and next door with three storeys, The Chainlocker which opened its doors to Falmouth's thirsty folk and visitors in 1660. It is Falmouth's second oldest pub (after The Seven Stars) missing out on first place by mere weeks.

Falmouth gave us some great views but in bits, rather than being able to walk alongside the river uninterrupted. We also found and looked round a few fascinating antiques shops, stopping short in one as a large dog bounded in through the open door and squeezed past me to get behind the counter. Its owner came in a second later and said, "Don't mind him - he comes here for biscuits!" Sure enough the owner of the shop brought out a packet and gave the dog a couple upon which it allowed him to pat it for a second or two then it was off and out the door, followed rapidly by its owner.

"He comes in for two biscuits and knows that once he's had those there won't be any more until tomorrow!" said the shop owner cheerfully. We had dinner near the main pier in a tea room. I had a milk shake, but sadly most of these have some sort of thickening these days and you need suction like a Dyson vacuum cleaner to get the stuff up the straw. Besides if you eat thickening, what do you suppose that does to you in the end... Milk, Crusha strawberry syrup and a small blob of ice cream and I'm happy. Straining at a drinking straw full of pig fat like swamp muck and I'm not...

The hill to the car park was every bit as exciting to climb as I had thought it might be. Thigh muscles screaming we got to the car and left for the return journey to Newquay.

Having parked the car back at the B&B, we walked down into the town and around the beaches. I decided to have a go at sketching Towan Beach which has an island with an art gallery, joined to the mainland with a short suspension bridge. Fran left me for a look round the shops whilst I sat, huddled in the wind on a balcony overlooking the beach, totally on my own. No one else was braving the wind except the seagulls, one of which landed near me and eyed me hopefully.

About 45 minutes later my phone went. I had moved from where Fran left me and the balcony I was sitting on (and that far-too-optimistic seagull was still standing on) was halfway down the cliff, reached via some narrow steps and then a ramp. I had more or less finished apart from working over some bits to darken them and we made our way back to The Griffin pub for a drink before repeating the success of the first night's helping of steak in ale pie.

The barman was passing our table and did a double take at the sketch that I was finishing off. "Have you drawn that?" he asked... Then he had to nip back off behind the bar as a stag party came in. Miss Franny was not amused at the groom-to-be's trousers being yanked to his ankles and for a moment I had a flashback to my father's frantic efforts to hush my mother in the 1960s as she would get incensed because one of a gang of teddy boys had said "bloody" and she would screech in a loud voice, "I'll tell him about his language in a minute!", no doubt raising visions in Dad's head of him having to step into insurmountable odds to protect her.

They were loud but they weren't all that bad and the only other incident was an almost full pint knocked over which they all roared their amusement at. We went into the dining room for our meal, leaving them behind. The steak in ale pie was just as large as it had been at the start of the week...

And that brings us to the end of this holiday. Unless we decide to nip off for another short break, the next trip will have to wait until 2016. And then we will be in the company of the EGGs. Son-in-law Edward, daughter Gillian and our darling granddaughter Grace. And may well meet up with someone with the initials MM...

Post Script

Phew! This post marks one thousand, five hundred posts on the blog! PARTY!!!

Cornwall Holiday Index