Hayle and St. Ives, 9.4 miles, Saturday, June 8, 2025
Breakfast at the White Hart was fine, especially if you’re a fan of instant coffee!
You can’t see him, but we sat under Henry VIII!
We started out in light rain; the morning varied between light rain, clouds, and occasional heavy rain. And the first stretch wasn’t particularly pleasant as we followed an A-Road out of town. But we soon turned off for a longish walk through the lovely, very rich village of Lelant.
The path, following a village street, described a large arc from left to right. Some of the houses and their gardens were extraordinary.
And we saw the largest gunnera any of our botanists had ever seen. Some of the leaves were ten feet wide.
At the top of the village sits the ancient church of St. Uny.
The church was first recorded in about 1150, but was certainly already old by that point. I popped in, but was afraid the others would miss me and so didn’t take time for photos. Sue later tried to get in, but couldn’t figure out the massive door handle! Here’s an interior cribbed from the web.
From the church the path led down through a links course to a sandy path above the beach at Porth Kidney Sands.
Here we are approaching Carbis Bay, a village that has become a suburb of St. Ives. Like Lelant, it is wealthy, with lots of modern homes overlooking the water.
The path followed the rail line that runs from St. Earth into St. Ives; as we walked through the dense, sub-tropical foliage, the heavens let loose for real this time. But this was coastal weather, and the worst of it was over in minutes. Whatever came, our team was ready for it!
Leaving the rail line, the path descends steeply along the road to the beach at Carbis Bay, then rises steeply past the very swanky Carbis Bay Hotel where, as you can see, the G7 was held in 2021.
The locals tell horrifying tales of the security measures involved in hosting so many suits: surface to air missiles in village squares, trees cut down in private gardens to ensure line of sight for snipers, interrogations of passersby on the street.
Rising past the hotel, we found ourself on a broad asphalt path that leads through a series of estates as it runs out to Porthminster Point. At the end of the path is a Huers Hut. What, you may ask, is a Huers Hut?
A huer’s hut, or platform, is a vantage point on the coast, from which a ‘huer’ could watch the sea to identify the arrival of a migrant fish species, typically pilchards in Cornwall. And what, you may ask, is a pilchard? Why, it’s the Cornish name for a sardine.
Just past the hut we were off the path and descending steeply into St. Ives. Directly below us was Porthminster Beach. This shot shows the beach with the harbor in the background.
We found a cafe at the bottom of the path and had a light lunch. Sue and I shared a delicious Cuban pork sandwich–and I indulged in a half of my favorite Cold River cider.
As it turned out, our hotel, Primrose House, was three minutes up the hill behind the cafe. The hotel parking lot is the scene for our “we made it!” picture.
It had been quite a walk, full of beauty, hilarity, and shared experience. Yes, it had been the least challenging of our segments on the path, and some parts of it were more crowded and “resorty” than we would have liked, but several of the stages were absolutely memorable. And we’ll never forget the fellowship we shared as we walked and dined together.
Back, now, to Primrose House. We entered through the back door and soon found our way to reception. Although our luggage was still en route, we all put our feet up for a good hour before venturing out again. The hotel occupies the right half of this building.
Our room was unusual. Called “The Pod,” it is a freestanding building with two levels. Charming and quirky, it did come to seem a bit confining–and dangerous as we navigated the steep, narrow stairs in the middle of the night.
Rory and Pravan set out first for a circumnavigation of the charming, but crowded town. The rest of us headed to the other end of St. Ives toward the St. Ives museum.
When we got inside we found a collection of nautical stuff: navigational aids, ship models, etc.
The engineer in Gary pushed him–and Cindy–into the museum while the rest of us headed for Tate St. Ives. There are now four national museums of British art: Tate Britain and Tate Modern in London, Tate Liverpool, and Tate St. Ives. The Tate had began curating Barbara Hepworth’s studio and garden in 1980 and decided in 1988 to build a museum which opened in 1993.
The collection is wonderful. Centering on artists who have worked in St. Ives and Cornwall more generally, it supplements these pieces with masterpieces from the world at large. We all had our favorite. Sue loved some of the things in a special exhibition on the American-British artist Lillian Lijn, Patti and David a Chagall, and I focused on a superb Kandinsky. The building itself stands on the site of an old gas plant, and the architects incorporated some elements of the plant in the new museum. It’s a splendid building, blending elements of the modern and the rustic. The highlight, though, is this cutout in the wall that frames a cinematic view of the sea.
On our way home we passed a bookstore selling a childrens’ book called A Dog named Dreckly. Patti bought a copy.
Dreckly is my favorite new word. A woman explained its meaning thus: she was an emmet (the Cornish word for someone who moved here from the north; it literally means “ant”) and found that the boiler in her home was broken. She called the plumber, who told her he would be there directly. Expecting him that day, she waited another two as she grew increasingly frustrated. Calling again, she heard that the plumber had said he would be there “dreckly.” Dreckly means sometime between soon and eventually. Dreckly implies a lack of urgency or a relaxed approach to time.
We had a wonderful final meal in Cornwall at the Porthminster Kitchen above the harbor. Lots of seafood: hake, seafood linguini, monkfish curry.
And we ran into the Princeton / Seattle crew once again. The storm that had soaked us was a thunderstorm in Portreath, and they had skipped the long stage to Hayle, opting instead to walk the magnificent (but challenging) stage from St. Ives to Zennor tomorrow.
And, by the way, the answer to the riddle is “One.”