Walking the South West Coastal Path - Day 4 - St. Just to Sennen

Day 4,  we woke to sunshine and brilliant blue skies. a welcome sight after the previous day and given that our day's walk would end at Sennen Cove, one of Cornwall's most popular beaches.

Instead of heading straight to Sennen however, we decided to see some of what we had missed the previous day by walking to Cape Cornwall, a picturesque headland about a mile and a half along the path in the opposite direction to Sennen.

The three-mile round trip was well worth the extra effort. The scenery was fabulous.

Originally the site of the Cape Mine, the Cape was bought by Heinz in 1987 during their centenary celebrations and given to the National Trust to look after.

Cape Cornwall Chimney

The chimney stack on the headland dates back to 1894 - a relatively recent structure when compared to the remains of an early Christian chapel, St Helen's Oratory, which is believed to have been built in Roman times. 

St. Helen's Oratory

After retracing our steps to St. Just, it was time to get back on the path to Sennen. 

And soon the chimney at Cape Cornwall looked a long way away:

For a while, the dirt path gave way to rocks and we had fun scrambling over them.  

Soon we could see our destination.  - though it still looked a long way away!

Sennen sits at the far end of the beach

But once we were around the headland the path was flat and easy walking.

The path from St. Just to Sennen is only just over four miles so, even with the detour to Cape Cornwall, we had plenty of time to enjoy the beach.

Sennen is popular with surfers. The waves weren't particularly big that day but that didn't stop them taking to the water.

As we made our way to Sunnybank House Bed & Breakfast, our accommodation for the night, we got a good view of not only the beach, but could almost see back to where we had started our journey that morning. It was quite a climb up the hill from the beach to the road, or maybe it just felt that way after all the walking we had already done!

The mile walk to our B & B didn't deter us from returning to the town center for dinner at The Old Success Inn, a seventeenth-century inn with a dining terrace overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. 

It proved to be the perfect spot for watching the sun go down. 

And a perfect ending to another wonderful day. 

When Mel is not out exploring she writes contemporary fiction with a twist of mystery and suspense. Her latest novel Trust No One is now available from Amazon.