North Walk: A Walking Week - Port Isaac to Hayle - Day 5 - Portreath to Hayle

Friday March 20th: In an ideal world, I had wanted to reach St Ives at the end of this weeks walking, but I also needed to get back to my car by Public Transport , so the day revolved around making sure I got back to Truro in time to catch the last connection back to Port Isaac and trying to reach St Ives would mean missing that bus!

It was a 12 mile walk to Hayle, another gorgeous day and I headed off back up to the cliffs and across an area known as Reskajeage Downs. This was a rocky stretch with many small rock islands just offshore and I had Navax Point in my sights for several miles. The main road between Hayle and Portreath ran quite close to the path with several cliff car parks, so it was a popular walking spot.

Navax point was at the tip of a headland known as the Knavocks, a wildland area maintained by the National Trust. From here you got a good view of Godrevy Island and it's lighthouse, built in 1859 and now solar powered. The path headed out from Navax Point to Godrevy Point which was an area well now for Seals. In fact I had been here before and seen seals, and wasn't disappointed this time either. There is an excellent Cafe at the Car park at Godrevy and I had a brief stop before crossing across the Red River near to the village of Gwithian. The massive St Ives bay was laid out before me - which stretched around for miles all the way beyond Hayle, merging into Carbis Bay and to Portminster Point, just before St Ives. There were two options - either across the beach or along the path through the dunes behind. I opted to do a bit of both starting off in the dunes - and then dropped down onto the beach at the first opportunity. Nearing an area known as Black Cliff near the mouth of the estuary inlet to Hayle I went back into the Dunes as per my guide book but the path became a bit confused through an area of holiday chalets and I ended up heading inland towards Hayle having missed the correct path around the headland. Because I was short of time, I couldn't retrace my steps - so will have to do that last bit into Hayle on my next visit.

Hayle itself was nothing to write home about - and suffers even more in comparison to St Ives just up the road (or coast!) I had planned to get a train to Truro from Hayle but in the end jumped on a bus - not realising that it went all over Cornwall - so I very nearly missed my Truro bus connection - then thought I would have to change buses 3 times to get to Wadebridge, but in fact the bus just changed it's number at different points! Had a bit of a wait at Wadebridge before getting the last bus back to Port Isaac - and the car was still there - all 4 wheels intact! I had walked about 75 miles in 4 and a half days - so made pretty good progress - and chose the best week of the year weather wise!