In October, we had a lovely half term in Cornwall. Yes, in October! We booked it over a year before and our 2 young boys and my Mum had a lovely week exploring despite the weather being a little cooler. With February half term now on the horizon I thought I should finally get around to writing up our adventures...
Day 1: Oakhampton Castle and Launceston Castle
We went down on Saturday, and stopped at Oakhampton Castle and then Launceston Castle which are about 25 minutes apart. They're both English Heritage, so they were freesies (free) for us, because we've got English Heritage membership this year (we tend to alternate between English Heritage and National Trust). They're both ruins. Oakhampton Castle is a bit more rural with not much around it, it's in a valley and it's very much like "ethereal" ruins, which was good. And then Launceston Castle is a bit more on the edge of a town, so we parked in a dodgy multi-story car park - and that was good too, apart from the slightly dodgy car park. Afterwards we got some French stick, ham and apples from the shop, had a picnic, and then we hit the road again to carry on to Hayle.
We didn't spend very long at either of the castles - even if we hadn't been en route to our holiday house, we wouldn't have done as they're typical of a lot of English Heritage places in as much as they're very short visits. There's not a lot to see, but they're good stops on a long journey for young kids so they can get wiggles out. I think there's an audio tour at at least one of these, but you can't do an audio tour with kids. I think a lot of the places seem to have got rid of written signs over the years, which is a shame because you don't have any context. But the kids can run around and play hide and seek - we genuinely lost them at one point.
There's a Marks and Spencer's just outside of Hayle, just like literally on the edge of the town, so we stopped there on the way in to get some bits, and then we went to our accommodation. We'd left at about 7:30am, and got to the house about 3:30pm, but that obviously included two stops plus Marks and Spencers. Once we'd settled in, we went to Gilbert's Beach Bar, which is really nice. We ended up going there a few times. Good soundtrack - like late 90s, early 2000s indie, which I quite liked. We didn't eat that first night, just had some crisps and drinks in plastic half pint glasses (because you're on the beach, so it's plastic). It's on an estuary, so we walked for a little way around the corner on the estuary until the boys got wet and cold - and it was getting cold then, so we headed back.
Day 2: Godrevy Point
On Sunday I had a recommendation from a friend. It was a beautiful day, so we went to Godrevy Point, and parked up in the National Trust car park. You had to get there quite early because it's chaos otherwise. Then we walked up to the Point and saw loads of seals, like literally hundreds (they're all the specks in the photo below); it was amazing. We carried on around the points and then just spent, because it was so beautiful and the sunshine was amazing, 4 or 5 hours exploring on the beach, mostly exploring rock pools. You pay to park in the National Trust car park, but it's free for members, and the walk to the seals you could do with a good offroad buggy, not a city buggy. In the Summer you can park much nearer because there's grass field parking further up but we were parked much further away, I guess because it hadn't opened properly yet and it had been raining. There are toilets up by those car parks, and a really nice National Trust cafe. We both had bacon and egg sandwiches, our youngest had a sausage sandwich and our eldest had waffles. We all had a drink and it was £36, which wasn't too bad. There were lots of little birds around as we ate outside but there weren't horrible big seagulls. We had to wait quite a long time in the queue just because it's a small cafe and there were a lot of people - but our son said it was the best waffles he'd ever had, which is high praise indeed. So after our exploring and splashing on the beach, we headed home.
Day 3: Kennel Vale and Falmouth
The next day it was raining - it was a really soggy day. And really grim. So we had a morning of watching Disney+, and then we had a recommendation from my friend again to go to Kennel Vale, which is near Falmouth. It's a nature reserve and it's about 40 minutes' drive from Hayle and you park up just on the side of the road a bit further down from it and walk up. It's almost like walking through somebody's garden, but you walk to the side of the house. And then climb up through these kind of beach and lime woods and it's really beautiful. It's in this kind of valley with a stream running down it, but it was an old gunpowder works - they built it there because the trees blocked any explosions. All the way down the stream there are water mills, with their mill races so you can walk down the mill races and walk through these ruins, with water cascading over old blocks. It's all covered in moss and it's really beautiful. Our youngest said he would have stayed longer as he really loved it. It was amazing, and a lovely thing to do on a wet day. It's a really different place to explore because it's not just a wood, there are all these derelict buildings - the same building 4 or 5 times down the valley, as they didn't want one big mill, they wanted lots of smaller ones in case they blew up. It's the kind of place you'd never go to unless you've been told to go. That was the day we had pasties from Philps for lunch which were really good - I would definately recommend Philps if you're in Cornwall.
Day 4: the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth
On Tuesday we went to the National Maritime Museum in Falmouth, which probably isn't worth paying for, but if you go, you pay once and get free return visits. They give you a ticket to bring back next time (there aren't photos involved, but there is a signature required). There's a viewing point where you can look out; you can climb up a tower look out at the dry docks which was really cool because there was a big cruise ship in being repaired, as well as a British navy auxiliary ship being docked as well. Plus you can go all the way down to the bottom and see underneath the harbour. It sounds really cool - and it was - but we felt it was too much money (unless you really love boats, in which case it's probably amazing). We paid £9 for our 7 year old and our 4 year old was free, so those prices were great, but at £18 per adult suddenly it's £45 and that felt too much to us.
There was a pirate exhibition whilst we were there which was pretty cool. There's also a little play area where the kids can sit in various boats and on a quad bike. You can dress up as like a RNLI lifeboat person, and you can operate some remote controlled sails, and there's a small softplay for very little ones.
Next we went to Trago Mills, as it's kind of like a Poundland for fabric and I do a lot of embroidery, so I was keen to go and stock up. We also walked up the hill through Falmouth, which looked lovely actually and we bought some books from an independent book shop. The kids had ice cream (well, the one who eats ice cream - the other one finally found a Gingerbread Man as he doesn't like ice cream.) My husband found a whiskey shop and bought himself some Cornish whisky from Hell's Stone distillery. I would have liked to have mooched for much longer as there were lots of lovely looking independent shops, but the kids were getting ratty.
So then we went up the hill to find a layby we'd been told about, on the way to Pendennis Castle, that overlooks the dry docks which was, really interesting. The road is called Pendennis Rise, and I've put a map below. You can look down at the yacht builders and the super yachts being built.
My friend had recommended we walk from the layby to Pendennis Point to get ice cream, which is a 20 minute walk down Castle Drive, but it was getting a bit late in the day to do that with little legs, so we went to the Castle, as it's English Heritage so was free for us. (There is also a car park at Pendennis Point if you'd rather just drive there.) Again, there's not a lot of the castle but we spent an hour there, and we found it quite interesting as it was all about World War 2. You had all the cannons, and you had the artillery there. They had a trail on for Halloween, and our kids love a trail, which is part of the reason we didn't actually see everything because you're whistling past the exhibits running around the trail, but it was very interesting and a big open space for the kids to run around in. And then we went home.
Day 5: Godrevy Point
Tuesday was a nicer day again, so we decided to go to a 3 mile beach just near Hayle that runs up all the way to Godrevy Point. There is a run of lovely sandy beaches from Hayle along to the point. There's some lovely waves coming in, big rock pools. It's a really flat beach, so the tide doesn't go out a long way and some deep kind of pools in the rocks where you can actually sort of swim - the boys could properly swim. We played beach cricket, and saw everybody else's kids wrapped up in waders and hats and ours literally in swimming shorts! It was quite doggy though - all the beaches are quite doggy. I don't mind dogs, but they're literally everywhere - all well behaved, no poo left on the beach, but just, a lot of friendly dogs sniffing around us all the time until their responsive owners would call them away.
At one point the alarm went off from the lifeboat people to say the tide was coming in, and that you needed to leave. And it came in really quickly! We started thinking about packing up and then we looked up and it was getting to the point where you'd go "Oh, this is a bit close"! It was a 6m tide that day, and the whole beach gets covered so it'd be really easy to get cut off. So we headed back home and went back to Gilbert's for another drink and some more crisps.
Day 6: Newquay Zoo and Crantock
On Thursday we went to Newquay, and the kids explored the zoo. Newquay Zoo had an offer on that with an adult ticket you got two children for free. If we'd taken them earlier in the week it would have cost us £38 (with 2 adults at £19) but my Mum had joined us during the week, so she took the boys and as she is retired her ticket was around £16. So they had a lovely morning there exploring. They spent about 2 hours there and my mum said that it was very nice. All the animals looked quite well and happy, and the people were really friendly. She also commented that the gift shop was quite reasonably priced. 2 hours maybe isn't that long at a zoo, but it's not a huge zoo and our boys tend to run around things very quickly - they don't spend much time waiting and looking. There are zebras and lots of small animals, but we all felt it was very good for £16. There was a sloth, which is pretty cool!
Whilst they were at the zoo we went to Crantock for a 6 mile walk around the cliffs which was really nice. Again parking was in a National Trust car park, so if you're a National Trust member it would be free. We saw some more seals on that walk around the bay. Then that evening the 2 of us went to eat at Gilbert's and that was great - I had a really lovely but really hot local fish curry, and my husband had surf and turf, which with a glass of wine and a beer was around £60.
Day 7: St. Michael's Mount
Hayle is only a 10 minute drive from the south coast, even though it's on the north coast, so the next day we went down to St. Michael's Mount which is National Trust (although the car park isn't National Trust). When we parked up it was low tide, very low tide, so we could walk across the causeway to the island and then for free you could mooch around the harbor and the shops that are there. You have to pay to go up into the castle, unless you're a National Trust member, and it's £15 each, which for all of us would be £60 which is just a mental amount of money. I mean it did look really cool, but it's not worth that cash. The castle itself is closed from November until the end of March, although it opens in February half term, and their website tells you about the tide times.
We bought a picnic lunch in Morrisons and then tried to eat it in Penzance, but it was gross... it was just gross. We parked up originally between the station and the docks, and it's just concrete and graffiti and rubbish and litter and it was horrible. So we drove down to Penance Promenade between Newlynn and Penzance, literally just around the corner, and sat on a sea wall and had our picnic, and that was much nicer. There were lots of people rollerblading! The boys were really tired out so next we just headed back to the house eat up our left over food.
Day 8: Tintagel Castle
On the way home, we went to Tintagel Castle. It was a bit of a tiki tour to get there - certainly not straight lines - and so a little challenging for those in the car who get travel sick, but luckily everyone was just about OK. You have to pay to park in the town, and then walk to the castle, but it's not far. The castle is English Heritage again and it'd probably be quite expensive if you weren't a member, but it's free for us. It's about 600m from where you park down to the castle itself, but then there's lots of steps so you couldn't do it with wheels. There's a really cool bridge from the mainland across onto Tintagel itself and there are lots of ruins to look at and a big sculpture of King Authur; it's beautiful. If you don't know the significance of Tintagel Castle, the legend goes that King Authur was conceived there, by Merlin disguising Pendragon as Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, so that he could impregnate Igraine (Gorlois' wife).
From the castle we walked down onto the beach, and had a little look in Merlin's cave, which you can get to at low tide - however you can get cut off by the sea really easily. There's a beautiful waterfall coming on to the beach there too. I did check with the boys if they really wanted to go down there because there's a lot of steps to get back and then there's a steep hill to get back up to the village as well, so it's hard work. There is a Land Rover for older people, and the less able, but they weren't about to stop for a 4 year old!
The village looked like it was quite well equipped, with lots of shops and supplies - although basically every other shop is selling pasties. I had to walk right to the other end of the village to the small convienence store for some bread and ham for my youngest, but we did enjoy our massive pasties, which we sat in the car to eat. There's lots to wander around in the actual village itself, there are lots of antique kind of curio shops. It's set up for a lot of tourists with lots of car parks - and bus parks as well. We even noticed a taxi cab which had come from Plymouth! So we assume someone just wanted a day out from Plymouth and got a taxi to Tintagel, which is about 45 miles!
A week in Cornwall
So that was our holiday! Saturday to Saturday in half term, out of season but full of fun and adventures! Cornwall is beautiful whatever time of year you visit, and even in October we were luckily to get some brilliant beach time.
The thoughts and views expressed in this blog post are the author’s own and not that of Activibees.com or it's operators.
