It’s a fair hike re-tracing our steps from last night, past the cows grazing in the fields and the adders breeding in their long grass, to Gwynver Beach.

The sea is as blue, the sand as smooth and clean but, being a Monday, is somewhat quieter than yesterday. It is going to be another sizzling hot day – we brought rain coats and fleeces and will be taking them back un-used, which is unheard for us holidaying in England.

I can’t resist taking off my sandals and feeling the sand under foot, but I resist walking down to the sea. Looking back, I wonder why? But we are set on walking earlier and quicker today in order to grab some food in St. Just. We don’t have unlimited time on our hands today, as we are going to the Minack Theatre this evening to see our first ever opera – Don Giovanni.

With walking sandals strapped on I clamber over the large round boulders to the footpath. The boulders higher up look like they are resting in a green cushion with a kind of succulent creeping round them. The path is only just above the sea level and close to the edge. A young couple are walking the same route – we keep leap-frogging each other as we stop to admire the view or apply sun cream.

Clinging to part of the cliff edge is a plant with a very pretty flower but is a non-native invasive species. Hottentot Fig or Sour Fig comes from South Africa but has naturalised in parts of Devon and Cornwall where it spreads quickly, excluding native wild flowers. Although if you see it in late summer look for the fig-like fruits which are apparently very tasty.

Once passed this outcrop the ground flora around us is notably growing to just a few inches off the ground. Bracken, wild carrot, ivy and heather have all adapted their growth habits for the conditions of this cliff. I’m guessing it must be battered by the winds as it is open to all elements through the winter months.

The first rocky outcrop takes us longer to clamber over than it should. I think this is Aire Point. We are imagining all sorts of different creatures in the cliff face – a rock that at first resembles a man with a very big nose soon turns to a sheep as we look from a different angle. Other rocks are most definitely different faces! Once round we can still see the sandy beach of Sennon, ahead the seas are darker and the beaches rockier.

The ground flora now looks like a perfect tapestry – gorse, pink flowering heather and the occasional dot of a rock. A granite sign post warns of mineshafts – this is tin mining country we are moving into, on the skyline we are starting to see iconic Cornish tin mine chimneys.

Looking just inland a group of farm buildings is surrounded by a haze of purple-blue. I’m guessing lavender, but looking it up now find out it’s in fact a rare arable weed called Vipers bugloss Echium vulgare. It looks like a painting – the vivid cloud of purple splashes set within the boundaries of grey dry-stone walls with the occasional splosh of mustard yellow. At the time I thought was rapeseed but is in fact corn marigolds. An interesting National Trust page, tells you more about this conservation project that is so successful they can only guess at the number of individual plants.

The pathway takes us on a steep-ish grassy hillside. I’m still singing to myself “going down a bumpy hillside, in a hippy hat” from yesterday, funny how these songs get in your brain and you just can’t get rid of the ear-worm. I grab my bottle of water and am very tempted to do what the athletes at Wimbledon or on a marathon do, and chuck the contents over my head. But I realise quickly that, whilst wearing a hippy hat, the water would miss me!

The National Trust signs inform us we are passing through Boscregan and later Letcha. We stop at a thoughtfully created bench set in the rocks, but so uncomfortable I sit on the grass and rest against it. Looking out we can see the tiny dot of a man on a boat, between us and The Brisons rocks. On closer inspection with the binoculars, we can see he is fishing. It seems a remote spot out in the ocean by yourself.

We are confused by walkers below us heading right to left but as we carry on we realise the path does a massive zig-zag at this point to take us round a mineshaft to a lower level. We are soon turning right up the valley to cross the stream into Porth Nanven. The road comes right down to the sea. A tiny National Trust car park has a handful of campers and cars. There’s a tiny rocky beach, and signs of previous dwellings or mine buildings but no residents live here now.

To find the coast path we take the road straight out of Porth Nanven and eventually find the footpath heading back up the cliff. A couple of ladies with a dog ask us to look out for a couple with a baby to inform them that they have Matilda the dog, but we don’t see them. It’s half an hour from here passed several more disused mine shafts that I think we have arrived at Cape Cornwall. But no, we are at the car park at Carn Gloose. I’m hot and bothered and don’t want to stop so we take the straight path down towards the Cape. I do not enjoy walking down this path – the rocks are too small to step on, but too large you almost trip on them at a very steep angle for too long!

There’s a cluster of whitewashed houses in Cape Cornwall and a massive stone dwelling high above the sea. It is probably just wishful thinking or some kind of mirage but the largest house with the terraced garden looks like a pub. Sadly not. It evidently belongs to someone with lots of money to spend – there are busy workmen up ladders painting, rubbing down railings, digging in the garden and inside the house as well. Their work vans dotted everywhere.

I lean over the garden wall to take photos of the pretty flowerbeds full of red crocosmia, blue bobbing agapanthus and silver mounds of the Mediterranean plant Santolina. I’m picking up lots of planting ideas for my new patio, back home.

Say hello to the workman as we pass by, taking the lower path round Cape Cornwall headland and up the steep steps to the manned Coastwatch station. Further steep rocky steps take us to the chimney perched on the Cape. Intriguing – an inscription on the bottom of the chimney is in a very familiar shape. It reads

CAPE CORNWALL

PURCHASED

FOR THE NATION

H.J. HEINZ CO. LTD

TO MARK THEIR

CENTENARY YEAR

PRESENTED TO THE

NATIONAL TRUST

25 MARCH 1987

We decide to walk just a little further round the next headland then up to St. Just for lunch, so don’t stop for refreshments at the National Trust café. We find ourselves following a couple of National Trust staff in red t shirts. The younger man carrying a spade and the other pulling along a trolley, which bumps very noisily over the rocky pathway. At one point they stop to let us pass, I ask his mission, to which he replies they are moving a rock! We have to wait till tomorrow to see the results of their hard afternoons work in the strong sunshine on this remote cliff.

We are very grateful for their hard work as we leave the coast path and walk up towards St. Just. The narrow path through the high bracken has been freshly strimmed making the path easy to find and walk along.

It’s time for lunch at the delightful Dog and Rabbit café then to catch the bus back to our holiday cottage to get ready for this evening’s opera.