Wednesday, 23 September 2015

UK & Ireland - day 14 (2015-09-23) - Mousehole & Lamorna Cove

Looking for a quieter day, we decided to walk the 6 Km to Mousehole (pronounced Mowzell), a village acclaimed by Dylan Thomas as "the loveliest village in England", and he was not far off the mark.

Our walk took us through the fishing port of Newlyn, which was alive with fish shops, and apart from checking what was on offer at a couple of them, we kept right on walking towards Mousehole.  On the outskirts of Newlyn we passed a series of garden plots, one of which caught my eye, as it had a great selection of scarecrows.

                                                Newlyn, Cornwall - scarecrows

It was a fairly easy walk to Mousehole, all on pavement, so it did not take us too long to get there, and it was indeed a very nice little village....the narrow streets are a disaster for cars and vans, but wonderful for pedestrians, and the village is built around the small harbour & up the hillside.  I particularly liked the Harbourmaster's office with the mailbox in the end wall and the traditional phone box outside.

                     Mousehole, Cornwall - looking South from the North end of town

                        Mousehole, Cornwall - looking North from the South end of town

      Mousehole, Cornwall - Harbourmaster's office

After fortifying ourselves with coffee, scones & ice cream, we decided to walk on to the next bus-accessible bay - Lamorna Cove.  The trail was definitely more challenging than the earlier section, with boulders to clamber over, and mud to slosh through, and by the time we reached Lamorna Cove we had all decided that we definitely did not want to walk back the same way.

                             Coast Trail between Mousehole & Lamorna Cove

Unfortunately, buses don't actually go to Lamorna Cove, they occasionally go to Lamorna (village), but generally they only go the Lamorna turnoff on the main road (once an hour).  So we walked the mile or so up to the main road and then, as we had 45 minutes to wait for the next bus, decided to walk the 2 3/4 miles back to Mousehole, which has buses to Penzance every 20 minutes.

Our short walk from Penzance to Mousehole had somehow morphed into a 16.5 Km trek, and by the time we reached Mousehole we were ready to sit for a while and to eat some real food, probably missing 2 or 3 buses in the process.

No walks tomorrow, that's a promise (I hope).

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