Mid & South East Cornwall

Pentire Point

The perfect hike is wedge-shaped. Sounds a crazy thing to say, but some of the very best seaside walks have taken this peculiar form thanks to the outline of a peninsula.

The peninsula in this case is twin-horned Pentire Point (and its running mate known as The Rumps), the north-eastern jowl of the Camel's mouth. Quite a jowl it is too. A spitting, brutal jaw the puts the fear of God into any sailor brave or foolish enough to try for Padstow in anything like a blow.

Basic Hike: around Pentire Point and The Rumps starting and ending at the National Trust car park at Pentireglaze.

Recommended map: Ordnance Survey Explorer 106.

Distance and going: three-and-a-half miles, easy going - watch out for vertical drops along cliff edge.

Between Pentire and Stepper Point to the south-west, there is current, turbulence and waves and these three merry maidens like nothing better than to create merry hell on the Doom Bar. Of course, we footsloggers need worry ourselves with none of this nautical mayhem, but somehow it's always thrilling to walk close to scenes of danger and drama.

We'll be striding across National Trust owned land during the course of this walk and I always like to plug that wonderful organisation when I can. Here, in this beautiful corner of North Cornwall, it is easy to see why... Next door, just upstream from the river's mouth, there is ugly Polzeath and - once upon a time - it looked probable that the cheap and unattractive villas of this misplaced suburb would be allowed to stretch right around the magnificent Point.

In 1936 the headland was divided into building plots and put up for sale. Some people though, couldn't bear the idea of one of Cornwall's most handsome headlands being covered in bungalows - and protestors organised themselves at local and national level. They raised enough money to buy the estate and present it to the National Trust.

Thank goodness they did. I cannot even begin to imagine the nightmare that could have been, and now I'll never have to. Instead I am free to walk the airy heaths that dominate the cliff edge around the Camel's mouth - and so, dear readers, are you. That's why you must bung a quid or two into the Trust's collection box up at the car park at Pentireglaze and enjoy the fact that this organisation owns so much of our wonderful coast.

Pentireglaze? Sounds like an interior decorator's favourite daub. It isn't, it's a delightful hamlet that you'll find just north-east of New Polzeath - the village which huddles around the inland corner of Hayle Bay. And, thanks to the Trust's leaflet on the area, I can tell you that the curious sounding name comes from pentyr - meaning headland - and glas - green, or gray. The latter probably refers to the greeny-grey slate that you'll see once you walked down towards the beach.

To do this, turn right out of the car park and walk along the track until you reach Pentire Farm. This is a hunched, weather-beaten old place where many of the buildings have slate hung around their walls to help ward off the wet and permeating winds. Just opposite the farm a footpath descends down a shallow valley towards the little bay called Pentireglaze Haven, and this we follow past the old gardens that are still just about visible amid the flora that chokes a tinkling stream.

The Trust has built a small pond to attract insects and amphibians, and the place is offers a strange and luxuriant haven of peace within earshot of the boom of surf. Damsel flies whiz in and out of the exotic looking tamarisk trees, and for a moment it's possible to think that you are far away in some warmer clime of the southern hemisphere.

At least, you can think that until you come out of the valley and feel the wind that is beating down upon the Doom Bar, and then you know you're back in good old Blighty somewhere about the latitude of Nova Scotia.

The cliffs are low and slatey as we begin our climb north-west towards the Point. But soon we forget to take any notice of the geological make-up as great vistas unfurl. To quote the Trust leaflet: "The superb views from Pentire Point are as extensive as anywhere in North Cornwall. To the south and west is the expanse of Padstow Bay; the mouth of the River Camel and its tributaries were 'drowned' by melting ice after the last glaciation and for wide creeks.

"The most distant headland is Trevose Head where a lighthouse flashes its warning to mariners, while the daymark on the nearer Stepper Point marks the entrance of the river."

It's the sorts of place where you can sit all day if you've a mind and the weather's good enough. We lazed a while, wondering why the big rock-stack just out to sea was given the name King Phillip - but then we remembered that we were on a wedge-shaped walk and had not even reached halfway.

Wedge-shaped because this is one of those headlands with two headlands. Pentire is the south-westerly one and there is another called The Rumps a mile north-east. To the latter we must go - which is easier said than done because the rocks and land seem to have been tortured by some great upheaval in one section.

I have only seen a place like it once before and that was on Lundy which isn't far to the north. On the island's western edge there is an area called Earthquake and to my eye it looks identical to the tortured contours of the rocks above the bay of Guglane. Some people say the former was caused by the Lisbon earthquake of 1755 - and I can't help wondering if this area wasn't hit by the same...

And so we reach The Rumps. An odd name for a headland, but one pertaining to the twin knolls that overlook the many earthworks that are a feature of this grassy, cliff-bound, peninsula.

The people of the Iron Age recognised the area's wonderful defensive potential and built a great fort here with all sorts of ramparts and ditches. And what a civilised lot they were in their remote seaside resort - excavations show how they traded regularly with folk as far afield as the Mediterranean. People lived on The Rumps until the Roman invasion and then who knows what happened to Cornwall's ancient coastal folk?

Having explored ramparts and having admired the rocky, conical island called The Mouls that just heavenwards nearby, we rejoined the coast path to head west - up and down the cliff edge - past Com Head, to the junction of tracks above Pengirt Cove. A turn to the right took us across a field back to the car park.

So there you go - you get more sea for your money on such a walk, more sea, more views, more lungfuls of clean, unpolluted fresh air - and all thanks to our new motto: wedge-shaped is wonderful.

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