Treyarnon Bay to Newquay: South West Coast Path Day 17 Guide

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The wind had picked up just as we were about to turn in, and blew strongly until just before dawn. We were in one of the more sheltered parts of the campsite, but it definitely wasn’t enough to stop the tent from flapping all night.

The end result was a complaint from my Garmin that, not for the first or last time on this walk, my sleep score was “poor”. Still, one look at the swimming trunks, underwear, and t-shirts strewn around the rest of the camping field suggested we’d gotten off lightly.

With limited options for breakfast, we decided to roll the dice and traipse back to the YHA next door. Our meals had taken 45 minutes to arrive the night before and hadn’t been worth the wait, but with far fewer people around, surely things would be better this morning?

It’s the hope that kills you. Our breakfast baps took over half an hour to show up, and again aspired to mediocrity and struggled to achieve it.

Finally getting moving at the crack of 10 a.m., we remarked that it was good thing today was going to be a shorter day. Central Newquay was only about 14 miles away, and our campsite was a mile or so closer on the northern outskirts, so we could afford the late start.

The wind had mostly died away, leaving a warm, sunny day in its wake, and there were already plenty of people on the beach making the most of it as we passed.

In many ways today was a repeat of yesterday: blue sky, comparatively flat trails, and full of beautiful little bays and coves. Not exactly a hardship. This part of Cornwall was already turning out to be stunning, with the kind of long, sandy beaches and calm, azure ocean that felt like they’d been transplanted from somewhere far more tropical.

The first hour was full of epic views over narrow little coves below jagged cliffs that, for once, we didn’t have to descend into and climb out of every five minutes. Arriving at the little settlement of Porthcothan, it looked an absolute picture as we gazed down at its wide expanse of beach.

The beach is longer than it looks, and the path ducks inland to the road rather than crossing the sand: there’s a car park, toilet, and small store there that we were adamant that we didn’t need anything from as we passed.

The commitment to not taking a break lasted at least another three minutes, as we made our way up out of the bay and noticed a little sign promising refreshments in a nearby field . Sure enough there was a converted horse float parked up there: not only did it have sweeping views out over the ocean, but both the coffee and the brownie I had were excellent. If you’re passing “Far Out Cornwall”, as it’s known, you owe it to yourself to stop in.

The next three miles were just as enjoyable as the previous three, full of easy, grassy trails and postcard-worthy views as we ambled onward. The views here were some of the best we’d seen anywhere on the walk so far, and honestly, some of the best of the entire South West Coast Path.

Pentire Steps beach is a great example of this: beautiful, unspoiled, and almost completely empty. That’s mostly due to the extremely sketchy paths to get down to it: we weren’t even slightly tempted to try them with our backpacks on. A few hardy souls had made it down there, though, including someone who’d carved out a large “❤️Cornwall” in the sand. Especially today, I loved Cornwall as well.

At low tide, this beach connects to the Bedruthan Steps alongside. These famous rock stacks are justifiably a major tourist attraction along this part of the coast: having seen hardly anyone else on the path all day, the crowds suddenly appeared in force.

We’d visited the steps once before, several years ago, and spent quite a bit of time on the beach. Even if we’d had the energy for the steep climb down, there was no chance of doing the same today: a big rockfall a few years ago had wiped out some of the staircase, and big fences and signs warned against trying to climb down.

That didn’t seem to be stopping a couple of people who were climbing over the fence as we passed, seemingly bent on giving the emergency services a bit of extra work. I don’t understand this kind of self-entitled behaviour, so we carried on up to the National Trust cafe before I got myself into an argument.

Sitting outside at this cafe, waiting for our tuna roll and cream tea (what a combo) to arrive at the table, Lauren casually dropped into conversation that her foot had suddenly just started hurting.

We weren’t particularly worried at this point: foot pain on long walks like this comes with the territory, especially for Lauren. She hadn’t tripped or fallen, or really done anything in particular that suggested an injury, so after taking a bit of extra rest, we carried on towards the large expanse of beach at Mawgan Porth.

It was only a mile and a half of easy walking to get there, flat along the cliffs and then a short, sharp drop down into the town. It was a busy, bustling spot, seemingly very popular with surfers and holidaymakers alike, and drenched in sunshine.

We added it to our mental list of places we’d like to come back to on holiday in the future, a list that felt like it was getting added to multiple times a day at the moment.

Lauren’s foot wasn’t getting any better, however, and we considered cutting the day short at a campsite a little out of town. She was adamant she could keep going a bit further, though, so we dropped the pace a bit and pressed on.

There was more climbing and descending on this section than we’d had all day, but even so, it was pretty tame compared to what we’d encountered earlier in the walk. The beaches here were some of the prettiest, and definitely some of the emptiest, we’d seen all day, at least until we descended into Watergate Bay.

Hitting the hottest part of the day, we were both looking forward to something cold and refreshing. Unfortunately, most of north-western Cornwall seemed to have had the same idea: the lines were long when we arrived, and that was before the payment system went down at the ice cream kiosk.

I found somewhere else to wait in line for an icy pole, then proceeded to do so for a very. long time. On the upside, it gave Lauren a chance to rest her foot, and me a chance to sweat some more.

Mustering what was left of our energy and motivation, we climbed briskly up out of town and back onto the cliffs for the final push on to the holiday park at Porth Beach. This was the closest place to camp on this side of Newquay, but there was one more sneaky detour to deal with first.

Just before the holiday park, the path takes a half-mile side trip out towards Porth Island, a pretty little nature reserve with good views over Newquay and the ocean. It was a popular spot for families out for a stroll, even with the increasingly-brisk breeze that had appeared in the last half hour.

First impressions of the holiday park weren’t great, and turned out to be accurate (more on that below), but we weren’t walking any further today. By dinner time, Lauren’s foot pain had got noticeably worse: she could barely make it the few hundred yards down the road to the Mermaid Inn.

The food was unexciting and the vibe was non-existent, but there were power sockets we could use to charge everything up and honestly, just sitting on a chair at the pub instead of the ground beside our tent was enough of a reason to stick around for a couple of hours.

Despite it having been such a beautiful day, we both went to bed more than a little deflated. Hopefully Lauren’s foot would be a lot better in the morning: if not, tomorrow’s walk might only take us as far as the Newquay train station.

Planning

Started at: Treyarnon Bay Caravan Park (0.1 miles/0.2km off-trail)

Finished at: Porth Beach Holiday Park (0.1 miles/0.2km off-trail)

By far the most appealing thing about this holiday park was its location: being able to walk straight off the path, through a carpark, and up to reception was much appreciated.

Sadly that’s about where the good bits started and ended, at least on this Bank Holiday Monday. The site was almost completely full, so after bargaining the price down from an outrageous £40 to a somewhat more sensible £25, we found ourselves on a little corner pitch beside the bins and the surprisingly-busy road through the campsite.

With so many people squeezed in, I wasn’t shocked that peace and quiet was in short supply: kids, teenagers, and adults alike didn’t have much in the way of volume control even well after dark.

I’d enquired when checking in whether there was somewhere we could charge our devices, and been told there were outlets in the laundry room. There weren’t, or at least none that didn’t have a plug hard-wired into them: when I pointed this out, we were just told to try the pub down the road instead.

The showers and toilets worked well but weren’t particularly clean, again probably at least partly due to how busy the site was today.

Overall, I got the impression that this place doesn’t get a lot of walkers and isn’t particularly interested in catering for them. As I’ve mentioned before, we’re not that keen on staying in large corporate holiday parks if there’s any choice about it: smaller family-run campsites just tend to be better for us in almost every way. This experience didn’t do anything to change that view!

Transport and Parking

The number 56 bus runs in both directions between the town of Constantine Bay, a bit under a mile from the path at Treyarnon Bay, and downtown Newquay. The route operates every day, about once an hour on weekdays and once every couple of hours at weekends.

It stops in Mawgan Porth along the way, making it easy to have a shorter day if you’d prefer that, and also passes by the campsite in Porth that we stayed at.

If you’re starting or finishing your walk in Newquay, the path runs straight past the train station. From there, you can catch regular direct services to London during the summer months, as well as local trains to towns like Par and Plymouth year-round.

There’s not really anywhere to park for free at Treyarnon Bay, but there’s a good-sized paid carpark with reasonable long-stay pricing right beside the trail. If you’re taking the bus one way, you may also be able to find free on-street parking near the bus stop in Constantine Bay.

Waymarking and Navigation

The waymarking was pretty good on this section, with no major wrong turns or unplanned detours. There were a few spots where we had to keep a sharp eye out for signs, but they were generally there when we needed them. They were a bit lacking on that last half-mile loop towards Porth Island, but it’s hard to go too far wrong even if you’re not on exactly the right path.

I used AllTrails as my main navigation app for the entire South West Coast Path, and it worked well throughout. You can find the Treyarnon Bay to Porthcothan route here, and Porthcothan to Porth 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

I had reasonable service with O2 today, helped by there being more villages and towns than usual and the path staying up on the cliffs for most of the day, only rarely dropping down into the valleys and bays. There were still a few dead spots, but in general there was more signal than most other days on this walk.

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

For a comparatively short section of the Coast Path, there are a lot of places to eat and drink along the way, at least in summer. Treyarnon Bay has the YHA serving breakfast, a couple of food trucks if you’re starting out later in the morning, and a cafe called Melt on your left as you’re leaving the bay. The latter two options are seasonal, the YHA is year-round.

Porthcothan has a little store that also sells coffee and food, a tearoom in the holiday park, and there’s also Far Out Cornwall, that great little popup caravan in a field on the other side of the beach. All are seasonal.

There’s a food and drink kiosk beside the carpark at the Bedruthan Steps, and the relatively large National Trust Carnewas Cafe just up the steps just beyond it: we enjoyed our lunch at the latter.

Magwan Porth has several cafes and restaurants in a strip along the main road (the path runs past several of them), along with a pub, while Watergate Bay is surprisingly well catered for given its size, with a pub, a bar, cafes, and a bunch of stalls selling pizza, ice cream, coffee, and the like in summer.

If you’re finishing in Newquay, you obviously have an endless array of food and drink places there. If you’re stopping to camp on the outskirts at Porth Beach like we did, your options are more limited: there’s the unexciting Mermaid Inn that was good mostly for charging our power banks, a pizza restaurant, two or three cafes, and a more upmarket restaurant at the Porth Beach Hotel.

Accommodation

Just like food and drink, you’re spoiled for choice when it comes to camping on this section of the path. There’s a fairly basic campsite with showers and toilets at Porthcothan Clifftop Camping, and a more fully-featured one at Atlantic View Camping, a little outside Porthcothan. Both are about half a mile off the path.

Bedruthan Steps Camping is essentially right on the coast path, with showers, toilets, and a camp shop, while the small but lovely Higher Pendeen Camping is a bit under a mile off-trail, out the back of Mawgan Porth.

There are also three options near each other outside Watergate Bay: of the three, I’d probably go for The View, as it’s closer to the path, smaller, and more of a traditional campsite than a holiday park with swimming pools and bars. If you want those sort of facilities, though, you can still access them at Watergate Bay Touring Park down the road: the two sites are owned by the same outfit.

We stayed at Porth Beach Holiday Park, as above, but probably wouldn’t choose to do so again.

If you’re not carrying your own camping gear, some of the places mentioned above have pre-erected bell tents or tipis you can stay in, and of course there are many other accommodation options as well.

Some of the better options include this cute shepherds hut in Porthcothan, the Bedruthan Hotel in Mawgan Porth, and Trevarrian Lodge in Trevarrian, which is about 500 yards off-trail just before Watergate Bay.

If you’re finishing in Newquay today, Treheveras Guesthouse, St Bernards, and Tregarthen are all excellent options very close to the trail, but there are many, many others. As is often the case in larger towns and cities, you’ll find more good, inexpensive places here than anywhere else nearby.