After reading The Salt Path, my trip to Cornwall always had to include walking a stretch of it (with a view that my new project would be, over time, to complete it after buying a map that I can colour sections I have walked in).
The weather this day was looking like it wasn't going to rain (actually in fact it did a little bit as soon as we got to Land's End, but it was not terrible). We started out by parking at the top of Sennen Clifftop (as we had our beach stuff for the afternoon after the walk). We made our way down to the cove and the harbour and started our ascent up Mayon Cliff onto the South West Coast Path.
Mayon Cliff is interesting as it holds and old coastguard lookout. The views from the headland here stretch north to Cape Cornwall and south to Land's End, and take in the rocky reef known as the Longships. This is the perfect viewpoint to have served as a lookout and signalling site. During the First World War, local men were recruited as additional watchers to spot German U-boats. During the Second World War, the cliffs here weer used for training by the Marines, and they are still scaled by soldiers and rock climbers today. That day a plane that looked like some kind of war plane flew low by, and I was lucky enough to catch it. This little stretch to Land's End is interesting as it also is home to Maen Castle. Excavations in the 1930s and 1940s show that the castle was built during the Late Bronze Age and continued to be in use in the Iron Age.
Lastly, just before you get to the tourist spot and the famous land's End signpost, you can see the Longships Lighthouse and the shipwreck of RMS Mulheim which was a German Cargo Ship that hit the rocks in 2003.
There is something hugely pleasing about walking back the same route and getting a different vantage point, and it's probably the way I will conduct walking future South West Coastal Paths, so I can really soak each part of it in. Here's to the next section!
