A circular walk and an unusual view of our tent!

 

We’ve camped at Magor Farm a few times now - it’s a lovely location for exploring Cornwall, just outside Camborne and backing on to the Tehidy Country Park, less than a mile from the coast. We’ve often talked about doing the circular walk from the site out to the coast, along the coast path and then back through the park, but until this visit time has always been too short to fit it in - this time though we were determined that we ought to make the time to do it as we were down for longer. 

MrEH had sketched our chosen route out on Google Maps so we knew roughly what distance to expect, and as usual we used the OS Maps app to navigate- we actually pay the annual subscription for that as although we love proper paper maps, we certainly wouldn’t want to be paying out for an OS map for everywhere we visit, and the app makes it easy to always have decent mapping on hand. This one was fairly straightforward anyway - with the only really tricky bits being working out where we needed to cut back inland from the coast path, and then the route through the Country Park.

Out of the site then and a short distance along the road to the village of Coombe - little more than a cluster of houses really - ignoring the first footpath we saw which would take us into the park itself, in fact we would see that one later in the walk. Instead we opted for an uphill path slightly further on which took us through farmland and out to the coast. Sure enough with just 0.8 of a mile ticked off on my watch we found ourselves crossing the road and turning right onto the coast path with the most stunning views towards Godrevy to the left and Portreath to the right. 

The coast path is beautiful - just a riot of wildflowers at this time of year, plus of course the amazing views. We had glorious weather too - in fairness it probably wouldn’t be quite so much fun in driving rain!  It was sunshine we had though, and we ambled along stopping to identify this plant or that, or to see what birds were about (the trip added plenty to our year list and one “lifetime first” as well in the shape of a Lesser Kestrel which was hanging about at Goonhilly Downs on the Lizard Peninsula) before finding the right turn onto the track which would take us across to the road, back on ourselves for a few yards then across into Tehidy Country Park. 

This really was a walk encompassing most of the various different terrains you might expect from the South West - starting (and ending) with country lanes, farmland, the coast, then the woodland and even some ponds and lakes later on. All the way though and everywhere we looked absolutely swathes of spring flowers in bloom. 

We’d timed our walk so that an early lunch could be had at the cafe in the park - and that absolutely didn’t disappoint. A small menu, but a thoughtful one including several choices for vegetarians. We opted for pulled pork ciabatta toasties which were an excellent size and arrived served with a deliciously crisp mixed salad. I followed that up with the cream tea, just look…

…that cream generously covered both halves of the enormous scone, gave MrEH a blob to have with his chocolate brownie and there was still some left! The teapot too was a generous size, I had a cup and a half from it, and MrEH finished the remaining cupful after finishing his coffee. At £6.80 that was certainly one of the bargains of the trip! 

From there it was back to the woodland path which eventually lead us along the back of the campsite - although there was plenty to be seen ahead of that - including some friendly squirrels happy to pose for photos. Also the lovely carved from a fallen tree otters denoting the “Otter Bridge”  which crosses the stream which eventually runs alongside the other side of the campsite - and indeed eventually we glanced to our left and there through the trees we could see our tent! 

Then the final stretch out of the country park, via the footpath we’d spotted earlier, and retracing our steps back along the road to discover that we were the only campers on the site which felt like quite the treat - it never did get busy although as expected the bank holiday weekend saw quite a lot more people. The facilities are plentiful though, and there is plenty of space for people to spread out - our carefully chosen little spot in the middle of the site served us well. Magor might well be my favourite site anywhere now I think - the family who own it have farmed here for generations and are lovely,  it and they have precisely the laid back approach we enjoy from a site, and it’s safe to ensure that we will be back! 

Robyn