Torpoint’s chain link car ferry across the Tamar marks my leaving of Plymouth and heralds my arrival in Cornwall.

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Come with me as I travel along Cornwall’s south coast to Landsend and back up its northern face to Padstow. The first day provides the full Cornish fayre of beach settlements.

The first two are raw Cornwall where high tide swallows any beach and low tide reveals angles of cheese-grater rocks mixed with sea-smoothed slabs of rocks, stones and pebbles.The only road into Portwrinkle runs below whitewashed bungalows and comfortable homes. At the end of the road a gnarled, circular stone wall, created from rocks & stones from the beach, provides a refuge to a couple of lonely, open boats that are just waiting for the tide to lift them up to higher spirits. In both directions sharp files of rocks await any careless sailor or fisherman.

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There is little to welcome tthe seaside-seeking family here. Only those whose idea of fun is a battering from the elements. The same us true of Downderry.

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At low tide the fullness of emerald slime-covered rocks, squelches of brown seaweed and snags of multi-sized pebbles & stones is fully revealed. The saving grace is a thriving & friendly local community which offers everyone, visitors & locals alike, sausage, bacon & egg rolls and a cuppa for £3 from the village hall.

Then there is Looe. A magical name but I missed out on any magic in its narrow streets. I’m not sure what it was: maybe the crowds of visitors with their packs of unnecessary designer-dogs, maybe the car parks that seem to dominate the drag alongside the slimey estuary, maybe the lack of a quaint harbour or a old centre, maybe the newish developments along the river banks. Maybe it was just the weather.

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And then Polperro saved the day. A walk from the out-of-village car park, down narrow, squeezing lanes leads down to the harbour where history oozes out of every crack. I’ll leave you with fudge-box perfect images of a real Cornish coastal experience.

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