I wonder if this critter looks up from time to time and thinks to himself ‘oh my, if you’re going to get fattened up for humans to eat, this sure is the best place to do it’! This little bullock was grazing the cliff top of the coast path between Lansallos and Polruan.

Our day was strange to say the least, with the start of the trip in typical Cornish foggy drizzle, which brightened up to ‘perfect walking weather’ according to my Mum – by that she meant a thick cloud cover but with good visibility. Except that it didn’t stay that way – the sun burned off the cloud cover and left us with a day where the sun shone down, the sky was the most perfect ‘baby’ blue and the sea – well, I always find it hard to describe our Cornish seas – turquoise, emerald, blue – all of these and more.

We looked out for the Great White Shark that’s supposed to be around our shores if you listen to the Sun but we didn’t see a single fin poking up from the blue of the ocean except for the ‘fins’ of the sailing boats. This chap and his friends were the only jaws we saw in action.

BUT the change in the weather left us unprepared and without suncream in an exposed location. We walked ¾ mile from where we’d parked the car to the coast path then 3 ½ miles from there to Polruan, where we caught a ferry across to Fowey for a late lunch.

My Dad, who has the fair skin of the Irish and burns in an instant, decided he’s had enough at this point and couldn’t face the walk back so we (DM, Dogs, Me) set off back to collect the car, then rendezvous with them in Bodinnick a couple of hours later. They spent the afternoon messing about in a boat, taking a trip up and down the Fowey, while we retraced our steps to the car.

You may think a trip of about 9 miles or so isn’t that great a challenge, but believe me, the ups and downs of the walk, in the blazing sunshine made it all quite hard going and we felt quite the intrepid explorers as we trudged up and down the hills around the coves back to Lansallos. Our ‘operation rescue the folks’ took us nearly another three hours by the time we’d walked back, picked up the car, driven to the meeting point and picked them up.

What a day – we thoroughly enjoyed our challenge.

Last year too, I was in a special place, albeit MUCH less photogenic.