Fourteen hours of persistent, heavy rain and strong winds on Saturday meant my plan of more coastal walking was put on hold. Instead, I drove the short distance to Penzance and enjoyed a visit to Penlee Museum and Art Gallery, which houses a great collection of archeological finds from the area from Neolithic times through to Roman times. It also had an exhibition of Fred Yates’ work. He was an English painter inspired by the work of Lowry and on a grey, wet day his oil canvases certainly brightened up this patch of Cornwall.
Thankfully, on Sunday morning we awoke to a calm, blue sky with just a gentle breeze. Phew. So, our first port of call was to walk down the hill to Mousehole. We are camped at the home of Mousehole Football Club. I met one of the many volunteers who help support the girls, boys, men and women who all play or train here at ‘The Seagulls.’ Creating some hard standing pitches for campers and setting aside part of the grass field next to the pitch was an idea that grew in lockdown and now helps to finance the youth programmes he told me. What a brilliant idea & a good use of facilities that are already there.
After our morning in Mousehole, we headed to Sennen and walked to Land’s End along the coast path and back along the ‘first and last’ cycle path. From Sennen it was a short drive to the Minack Theatre, an open-air theatre built into the cliff, first begun by Rowena Cade. A friend had told me about this place and said I HAD to visit and I’m glad I did. As you can see from the photos, I virtually had the place to myself and the sun even tried to make an appearance. What a vision Cade had and how she spent many a winter building more of her dream is astounding when you see the location she was working in. Definitely worthy of a stop.
