S is for South West Coast Path: walking on the wild side in Cornwall

Over styles, across moors and spectacular views!

On the Coast Path.

An afternoon on the South West Coast Path was our first introduction the to beauty of the Cornish coastline, the moors and its fascinating mining history. We peeped at land's End, but quickly moved on, it has a tourist luckiness. 

Walking from Cape Cornwall we were treated to the remnants of the tin mining industry, chimneystacks, engine houses, old walled paths, mounds of waste rock from the mines, kerstels hovering, bees in the heather, thorny brambles along the stone walls....

I can see why this part of England has inspired writers and artists. The photos speak for themselves.

Z is for Zawn a Bal: a dramatic Cornish mining site

"Zawn - a fissure in a cliff (used as a word and also as a place-name element, in use after the year 1800, from Cornish language sawen, or saven, meaning a cleft or gully. Bal, Cornish for a mine."

Dramatic Zawn a Bal

The most westerly Cornish Mining World Heritage Site is around St. Just. 

We had a perfect Sunday afternoon to appreciate the big skies of western Cornwall, the jagged rocks and cliffs, the stark moorland purple with heather and delicate summer flowers adding pops of colour as we walked along the Coast Path.

The engine house called Zawn a Bal is a wonder with its dramatic location; it floats above the crashing waves of the Atlantic Ocean on a cliff edge!