Coombe to St Ives: South West Coast Path Day 21 Guide

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It rained heavily until midnight, but I stayed cozy and dry in my tent: sheltered from the wind by tall trees, I slept surprisingly well. There was still a bit of drizzle around first thing, but by the time I’d had my morning coffee and packed everything away, the clouds were already blowing out to sea.

This was the last day I’d be walking with Dan and Claire, since they’d be heading off to explore more of Cornwall this evening. I gladly took them up on the offer of being dropped back at North Cliffs #4 carpark where we’d left the path the night before rather than add an extra mile to what was already going to be a decently long day.

Claire drove off towards St Ives to find somewhere to leave the van, while Dan and I strolled off down the path. High above the ocean, the walking was flat and straightforward for the half-hour it took to get to Hell’s Mouth, a small cove with jagged cliffs all around.

More exciting for me was the cafe alongside, which was just in the process of opening as we arrived at 9:30 a.m. A second coffee and tasty Full English breakfast later, I felt far better equipped to handle the rest of the morning.

The sun was out in force by the time we set off again, as was the wind: both of them would stick around all day. I was glad for the clear skies, since the views today were spectacular: some of the best of them lay just ahead.

Taking a hard right to keep following the coast, we passed Navax Point and headed towards Godrevy Point, its lighthouse standing proudly just offshore. Signs with a long list of do’s and don’ts suggested there might be a bit of wildlife spotting ahead, as did a group of people standing looking down into Mutton Cove.

Sure enough, a handful of seals were resting on the rocky beach and playing in the breakers, including a couple of mums and pups that were doing a great job of charming the crowds.

We joined them for a few minutes before continuing on around the head and past the carpark, our camera reels full of shots of seals and lighthouses on what felt like an especially Cornish day.

As soon as we left Godrevy Point, the landscape changed immediately from jagged cliffs and boulder-filled beaches to a long stretch of sand backed by scrubby dunes.

The path led us through those dunes for quite some time, with a quick detour inland over a river and past a cafe that we somehow mustered up the strength not to stop at. This little section used to be a quarry but is now a wetland and nature reserve: I know which one I’d rather be walking through!

After leaving the nature reserve, we decided to drop down to Gwithian Beach for a while: the tide was on its way out, and it’s always easier to walk in the hard-packed sand beside the water than the soft dunes.

This was one of my favourite parts of the day: not only was the weather perfect for a stroll along the beach, but there was hardly anybody else around almost the entire way into Hayle, a couple of miles away.

We had a choice to make at the end of the beach: either take off our shoes and socks and wade through the channel, or clamber over the rocks beside the cliffs and stay dry. As it turned out, there was a third option as well: climb over the rocks, slide down an algae-covered rock, and end up shin-deep in a puddle.

My shoes still smelled like seaweed several days later.

As usual with me, I read the guidebook well after the fact, and noticed that it recommended leaving the beach slightly earlier at the lifeguard station. If tides or clumsiness are against you, I’d suggest doing exactly that.

We squelched climbed up to Cove Cafe, a busy little spot overlooking the beach, and found a table outside where I could drink a Coke, eat a brownie, and drip onto the floor without bothering anybody.

We’d had an absolutely lovely morning of cliff and beach walking, but that was about to change. The River Hayle estuary is quite wide, with several lagoons and ponds that make it even wider, so the path takes a big detour to get around it.

All told, it’s about five miles from where you leave the coast in Hayle to when you get back to it at Hawke’s Point, and the first part is quite suburban and not particularly attractive.

After passing under a railway viaduct and leaving Hayle, it didn’t long before we ended up on the Causeway, a busy road that runs beside the estuary wetlands described in my guidebook as “a birdwatchers delight”. It certainly wasn’t a walker’s delight, with loud, busy traffic endlessly streaming by and two road crossings that didn’t feel particularly safe.

We met Claire halfway along the road, so she promptly turned 180 degrees and started walking back towards St Ives with us. As soon as we left The Causeway and the B road beside it, the traffic all but disappeared, a blessed relief for everyone.

The path took us past lovely big houses and beside a little branch railway line all the way back to the coast. Soon after passing Lelant station, we turned a corner beside a church and I stopped in my tracks: there on a sign directly ahead was a very familiar symbol.

I’ve walked some or all of six different Camino de Santiago routes over the years, so yellow scallop shells stand out to me like a neon light these days. In this case it signalled the start of the Way of St Michael, which runs from this point beside St Uny’s Church to St Michael’s Mount on Cornwall’s south coast.

I’ll admit, there was a bit of a temptation to starting following the scallop shells instead of the acorns. I could get to St Michael’s Mount via the Camino route in time for dinner, but to get there via the South West Coast Path would take me another four solid days of walking.

Still, it’s not like the rest of the day was a hardship. The path continued along between the railway line and the river until it curved left and emerged above Porthkidney Beach, a stunning stretch of sand with barely a soul on it.

There hadn’t been much in the way of up and down all day, but we finally got a little bit of it now, on either side of pretty Carbis Bay. Even so, today felt pretty flat, so much so that I was surprised to see we’d climbed and descended over 500m today. I guess that’s the benefit of spreading it out over a longer distance!

The beach at Carbis Bay was popular, and rightly so: after the rain and wind this morning, it had turned into an absolutely lovely day. We crossed over a rail bridge on the edge of the village with a particularly scenic view, staying on the inland side of the tracks for a mile until we dropped down to cross back to the coast at Porthminster.

At this point the Coast Path was just the normal footpath and lanes beside the beach, and unsurprisingly they were busy. St Ives is a major attraction in Cornwall, and has never been quiet whenever I’ve visited in summer. Today was no exception: our pace slowed as the crowds of suitcase- and icecream-toting visitors increased.

We had a choice to make as we passed the harbour: follow the official route around the headland, or cut across it to where Claire had left the van. Tiring by this point, the temptation to avoid the extra mile of walking today was pretty high.

With the following section looking long, hard, and rainy, though, I grudgingly realised there was no better time than the present.

The wind had been blowing from the west all day, which meant that we’d been sheltered from it as we made our way around the long sweep of St Ives Bay. Even walking through the town, I hadn’t noticed any real breeze to speak of…right up until we rounded St Ives Head and it hit with full force.

It was like the weather had completely changed in an instant. Waves crashed into the rocks below and flung spray high into the air, gusts pushed us around on the path, and the temperature felt like it dropped by ten degrees.

The windbreaks were out on Porthmear Beach, which couldn’t have felt more different to the flat, calm conditions back in the harbour a couple of hundred yards away. Cornish weather is many things, but boring is rarely one of them.

We ended the day at the carpark beside the Tate St Ives, a museum that on a different day I’d have been quite keen to visit. Today, however, there was no chance, and not just because I was a sweaty mess.

Keen to meet up with Lauren and see how her foot was faring, I hugged Dan and Claire farewell and watched as they drove off down the road towards Lands End. I’d really enjoyed walking with them for the last few days, and was sad to see them go.

Wandering the short distance back to where Lauren had been staying, I couldn’t help but wonder what the future held. I’d walked into town with two other people; would I be walking out with one, or were the next 450+ miles about to become a solo endeavour?

We reunited at what turned out to be a compact but cute apartment, right beside the harbour and a few different pubs and restaurants. We opted for the Union Inn, which was the right choice: not only was the food tasty and plentiful, but it felt much more like a friendly local pub than a busy tourist spot in a town that’s dominated by the latter.

There was no chance of exploring St Ives any further today, and not just because Lauren could barely walk: I was pretty knackered too after a long day in the sun. Tomorrow’s day off would be a win for both of us.

Rest Day In St Ives

As usual with a rest day, today was all about trying to strike a balance between moving as little as possible, and getting through all the chores that accumulate when you’re walking every day.

The desire to walk anywhere dropped even more when I looked out the window and saw rain falling steadily: it didn’t stop until dinner time, which confirmed that this was definitely a great day to not be on the trail.

After a decent breakfast at the Scoff Troff (great name), Lauren headed back to rest her foot some more and I went to find someone to cut my hair. Laundromats and barbers seem to be some of the very few cash-only businesses left in the UK, which I’m sure has nothing to do with dodging taxes, so I got to enjoy a bit of extra time getting rained on while hunting down an ATM.

Head freshly shaved and clothes freshly washed, and with the rain settling in, I headed back to do as little as possible all afternoon. Very successfully, as it turned out.

With the rain finally disappearing and evening sunshine shining down, dinner that night was always going to be fish and chips on the harbour wall. The long line outside Harbour Fish and Chips was almost enough to put us off, but I’m glad it didn’t: fighting off seagulls while trying to stop our chips from blowing into the harbour was the perfect way to spend what turned out to be our last dinner together on this walk.

Planning

Started at: North Cliffs Carpark #4, near Coombe (on-trail)

Finished at: Bagnall’s Studio, Carnglaze Place, St Ives (0.1 miles/0.1km off-trail)

Renovations on this little studio had only just been completed when Lauren booked it, and it showed: it felt absolutely brand-new inside. Everything was clean, modern, and freshly-painted, and the appliances felt like we were the first people to use them.

The living room had a kitchen down one end and a two-person sofa opposite a TV that we didn’t turn on, while the bedroom area had space for a double bed and little else. The bathroom had a shower with endless hot water, which I very much needed to wash the sweat off me when I first arrived.

There’s not a lot of room inside, but it was still fine for the both of us for a couple of nights: we just had to leave our bags beside the door and get stuff out of them as needed.

Even though it’s only just back from the busy harbourfront, those old stone buildings do a great job of blocking out noise: we couldn’t hear anything at all from inside the house, and I slept like a log both nights I was there.

Transport and Parking

There’s plenty of public transport into St Ives, but none of it from where we started our day near Coombe. Your best bet is a somewhat shorter day to/from Godrevy Point, where you can pick up the number 14 bus from the nearby Red River Inn into St Ives. It runs about once an hour, give or take.

St Ives train station is at the end of a short branch of the Cornish main line: occasional services go as far as Penzance, but most terminate at St Erth, just four miles away. From there, you can get direct onward services to London via Plymouth and Exeter.

There are four free carpark areas near each other at North Cliffs beside the Coast Path: we got dropped off at carpark #4 to start the day, where we’d left the trail the day before.

If you’re planning to catch the bus from Godrevy Point that I mention above, there’s a National Trust carpark on the headland, a paid long-stay carpark beside the beach at Gwithian Towans, and a smallish free carpark nearby back behind the dunes alongside the campsite.

After that, you’ve got many paid parking options along the coast all the way into St Ives, so it’s really just as matter of deciding how far you want to walk and how much you’re prepared to pay for the experience. My friends left their van at the Barnoon long stay carpark near the Tate St Ives for the day: it was reasonably priced by St Ives standards.

Waymarking and Navigation

I found this to be one of the better sections in terms of waymarking, with signposts and acorns most places that I’d have expected to find them.

Note that I said most, not all. If there was a marker telling us to climb up off the beach at the lifeguard station outside Hayle, I definitely didn’t spot it. Likewise while making our way through the town itself and out the other side: without a map, we’d have missed a turn-off two or three times.

Navigation got easier once we arrived above Porthkidney Beach and turned west once again: there was generally one obvious path to take, and where there wasn’t, a handy acorn showed us the way.

I used AllTrails as my main navigation app for the entire South West Coast Path, and it worked well throughout. The Coombe to St Ives section is covered here. The app is free to use, although I pay a couple of pounds a month for a subscription so I can download maps to my phone in advance.

Phone Service

Phone service with O2 was unusually good today, helped by being up on the cliffs and/or close to populated areas throughout. As a backup, I’d also paid a few pounds for a data eSIM from Instabridge that let me swap between all three UK networks, EE, O2, and Vodafone/Three.

It worked really well as a fallback option throughout my time on the Coast Path: whenever I needed data service but couldn’t get it on my usual SIM, I’d switch to the eSIM and choose a different network.

Facilities

This is a very popular part of the Cornish coast, which means there are plenty of places to eat, drink, and use the bathroom throughout the day. The cafe at Hell’s Mouth is the first place to do so, and it’s only an hour from there to the toilets and cafes at Godrevy Point and Gwithian Beach.

If you’re walking up on the cliffs above the beach towards Hayle, you’ve got two or three options just inland, but I’d probably just wait until I got to Cove Cafe on the outskirts of Hayle. If you’re after something more substantial, there are dozens of choices in the main part of town as well.

The Old Quay House pub looked very appealing as we passed it just after getting off The Causeway, and the Badger Inn is just a hundred yards inland of tiny Lelant station. After that, it feels like you’re rarely out of sight of somewhere to eat and drink all the way into St Ives.

Once in St Ives, the food was good and the ambiance better at the Union Inn, and once we actually got our food at the extremely busy Harbour Fish and Chips, we greatly enjoyed eating it with our legs dangling over the nearby harbour wall. If those don’t appeal, you’re spoiled for alternatives.

Accommodation

Given its popularity, it’s no surprise to find several campsites near the path on this section. At the start of Gwithian Beach you’ve got a cluster of sites just back from the dunes: Churchtown Farm, Gwithian Farm, and the small Prospect House Camping.

Mount Douglas Farm is about three-quarters of a mile off-trail behind Carbis Bay, while Ayr Holiday Park sits just on the edge of St Ives. You’ve also got Trevalgan Touring Park and Hellesveor Holidays a bit further out of town on the other side.

Of course, if you’re not looking to stay in a tent, you’ve got literally hundreds of options in St Ives, including the cute studio we stayed in beside the harbour. Some of the better places to stay close to the path along the way include this cottage in Hayle, this pub in Lelant, or this shepherd’s hut in Carbis Bay.