After enjoying a Cornish Breakfast at the Greenbank Hotel, overlooking the Falmouth Estuary as the sun pops its head up, we meet friends at the Helford Passage. Leaving a car then and motoring back to Swanpool Beach we are soon ready for today’s coastal stroll.

It’s lovely to have company for our walk today – our friends and Mr Sunshine 😊. We find the coast path up behind the Hooked on the Rocks seafood restaurant – one to come back to someday. The path climbs away from Swanpool Beach, where we take the little detour down to Pennance Point and enjoy the view from the rocks below, but have to retrace our steps to the clifftop walk. The cliffs round here are delicate low cliffs, unlike others we’ve experienced on the South West Coast Path. We are mostly through trees to start off with, the sycamores dropping their coloured leaves to the floor.

It takes little over half an hour to wander the short stretch to Maenporth beach – narrow gravel and mud paths, bordered with gorse, grass, brambles and stunted blackthorn bushes, growing in strange stunted shapes away from the sea. Maenporth beach, with the sea out, is a glistening flat bed of sand, rivulets of water running down and a few silhouetted dog walkers enjoying the warm November day.

We’ve haven’t gone far, and it’s not long since breakfast, but we are on holiday so we stop at the beach café and sample their home-made carrot and walnut cake – it would be rude not to! An elderly gentleman, dressed up for walking, enquires if we were the Brian he was meant to meet, it seems a shame to disappoint him and I’m tempted to offer him to join us!

The easy-going path continues behind some coastal houses, some with their own private access to the cliff and maybe a little beach, it’s hard to tell. Having thought long and hard what to wear and bring with me, I’m way too hot and taking off layers, I have my sunglasses on and am wishing I had my sunhat rather than the woolly bobble hat in my bag. The sun is very low in the sky this time of year.

We pass a posh looking green and gold sign for the Hotel Meudon, with its motto ‘Stay Eat Celebrate’ and its own slipway to the beach, some large spruce trees and lovely oak gates with granite posts. A few minutes later we come across another slipway to a rocky beach, with water gurgling through the rocks springlike and down the beach.

As we round Rosemullion head I think we are too busy talking and miss the pathway round the headland, instead follow the pathway over the field as we are slowly turning the corner into the Helford Estuary. The grass is very green, the sky is blue, layers are still coming off and the going is very easy going. Looking back at the map now I didn’t notice the church at Mawnan, but I think that was when we were walking through a small dark woodland of mostly Holm Oak trees. Once again, the trees growth has obviously been stunted due to their location, with multi branched dark stems and their evergreen canopy blocking out the sunshine, it feels quite menacing. But not for long we are soon out in the sunlight again, weaving through narrow kissing gates and out onto a grassy field, now heading up the Helford estuary. We can see a large slipway ahead and a few boats moored on the very still waters.

A little cluster of awesome Monterey Pines drop right down to the cliff edge, one with a tempting swing hanging from one of its chunky limbs. Arriving at Porth Saxon beach a lady is walking on the ‘Private Beach’ with an array of maybe six or seven dogs.

Much of the land round here is owned by the National Trust, with their little oak emblemed signs dotted around, this one, next to a granite stepping over stile says ‘Bosloe’. The footpath seamlessly joins a little road which leads into the most delightful little settlement of Durgan. We’ve been here before – when visiting the National Trust’s Glendurgan Garden maybe 10 years ago? The gardens are closed for the winter now, but the cottages look to be mostly National Trust holiday cottages – one lady is reading a book outside the converted school house in the little stone walled garden by the estuary. As we head up the hill out of the dwelling one house has a stunning flowering shrub to which she has attached a plant label in a glass bottle – she must have got a lot of enquiries. The path is edged with what, at first, look like just ferns, similar to what I grow in my garden back home, but turn out to be tree ferns swallowed into the hedgerow.

Around the corner we come to the riverside edge of the neighbouring garden – Trebah. We peer across to the ornate pond edged with gunnera and hydrangea and what look like some unusual exotic specimens I would love to get up close to. This garden is also closed today, but will open tomorrow, maybe a visit? Would be a shame to miss the pretty garden with its own private beach complete with picnic benches and an ice cream kiosk!

A short walk round the last headland and we are in Helford Passage. The ferry has stopped running for the winter, just a few days prior, but the pub is still bustling. As we enjoy a pint, some skinny fries and a chocolate brownie, the sun shining on us, we ponder on the thought that this could be our last meal outside a pub this year?

Tomorrow we will be driving round the Helford Estuary to continue our walk on the other side of the little river.