Newquay; Saturday, 03 October, 2020

The hotel could only offer me a slot for breakfast at either 07:00 or 10:15, so I naturally took the later slot as I didn’t want to have to get up that early for no reason on a Saturday. After breakfast I headed out of the hotel and started wandering into town. Just as I reached the bus stop near the hotel the Newquay Land Train came into view slightly further up the road so I decided that would be the best thing to do first to get an idea of the town.

I caught the train round most of its route from the hotel out to the zoo and then back through the town centre and up over the hill by the Atlantic Hotel for the beach views.

Back in the centre of town I quickly popped into a café for lunch and then went for a wander through town. I had intended on visiting the town museum, but that was closed due to Covid, so instead I just carried on having a bit more of a wander and took in some of the views from the cliffs above the Towan Beach and Harbour.

I then wandered back to the pedestrianised centre of town to pick up the land train again, and caught that round to the Atlantic hotel where I was able to hop off and start exploring the cliffs round here. The cliffs lead out to Towan Head which sits on the edge of town and has stunning views across all the beaches of the town and the wide sweep of the curve of North Cornwall.

From Towan Head I wandered back down into town, passing the Huer’s Hut – a small stone structure placed high on the cliffs from where fishermen would watch the sea to see if they could spot the shoals of fish before setting off to catch them.

I continued on down the hill and into the harbour area where I had a look around before wandering back along a path that once had the original horse drawn tram tracks that linked the mines further inland to the harbour at Newquay. The path popped out by the side of the Aldi and from there I wandered the short distance back to the hotel.

I freshened up in the hotel before heading back out again a little later to take in the sunset from the cliff top near the hotel, as well as exploring the small tumulus that’s located there. Once there were up to 15 on this piece of land, but a local farmer dismantled most of them for their stone in the 19th century and today just the one is left still standing. After taking in the tumulus and the sunset I headed back over to the hotel and had a pleasant dinner there before turning in for another early night, mostly spent listening to the wind howl round the building and the rain pelt the windows.