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To save you all checking your Google Map Apps, Mousehole (pronounced Mowzul) is on the south coast of west Cornwall. Very west Cornwall. You head down the M5, turn right at Exeter, and you still have 113 miles to go. Luckily roads are generally good – what would have taken almost 10 hours in my youth now takes 4½ hours in good traffic (with Satnav warning of speed cameras…..). My Aunt and Uncle have owned a cottage in Mousehole for very many years, available to family, but we first used it a couple of years ago.
This was our third visit, and it is wonderful having such a regular destination. When I go on “holiday” I have a bad habit of wanting to explore and make the most of every hour. Our first Mousehole holiday was spent filling every moment exploring the area, from prehistoric remains and ancient castles to browsing shops and cliff top walks. A busy week. Our second visit was a bit more relaxed – after all the area had already been explored, and we could re-visit at any time, subject to availability.
And this time? No planning. Just wake up, peruse a map over breakfast to decide where we might end up today, and head off for a stroll around the harbour with the dogs, a steep walk up to the fields on the hill behind the village for pooch exercising purposes, followed by an ice cream overlooking the harbour (Cornish clotted cream flavour, naturally).
Our journey down was a bit more rushed. We decided to leave late, after lunch, to avoid holiday traffic, to arrive after the rain over Cornwall had headed east, and to ensure that we would get a car parking space on arrival. Mousehole is a small fishing village, with cottages clustered around the harbour, and rising up the hillside inland.
Very few cottages have a parking space, and there are just two small car parks serving tourists and locals alike. Finding a space is a lottery – the secret is to arrive in the village after the day visitors have left. Our plan was to leave at 3pm, but we spent just a little bit too long pottering in the garden, left well after 4.00pm, travelled through torrential rain (which was, as planned, heading east as we headed west), stopped for a burger, eventually arriving at 9.30pm. We found a parking spot without a problem, and unpacked the car, trundling everything along the harbour front, and up the very narrow (too narrow for a car) Duck Street to our cottage.
We woke on the first morning to a bright and sunny, if breezy, day. On our previous visits I had walked the dogs while Chantal cooked a full breakfast, but this time I was pleased when Chantal agreed to come dog walking with me at the start of the day. A steep slippery path from the top of Duck Street leads up to the hill behind Mousehole, and Chantal struggled up behind me and the dogs, muttering that she hoped we wouldn’t have to slide back down again. I reassured her that my plan was to descend back into the village by another, less steep route. The local livestock had a different idea – when we got to the stile at the top, we were ambushed…
I can cope with cows. I can cope with a dog and cows. I can cope with two dogs and cows. I cannot cope with two dogs, cows, and a panicky wife, and so we slid back down the path, and eventually I found the alternative route up the hill. It took a couple of attempts to find the right narrow lane which twisted its way up to join the footpath at the top, since I had only ever descended by this route on my way back down to the village..
We returned by this same route, and had a stroll around the village, where Chantal asked me to take her to “the cottages”. We were in a Cornish fishing village, and I was supposed to know what she meant by “THE cottages”. I took her to some particularly photogenic, as I thought, cottages on the harbour front, but it turned out that she meant some cottages higher up, outside the harbour area, each separated from its tiny cliff top front garden by a narrow accessible lane. We were able to enjoy great views, and at the same time compare the different gardens.
We discussed the rest of the day over the first ice cream of the holiday, and headed off for a local pottery to buy mugs to add to those at home that Chantal purchased during our last Cornish trip. Unfortunately this design was no longer sold, and so we carried on to the next village and found a pub for lunch, before driving down a narrow lane to the coast and enjoyed a really nice cliff top walk.
After all this exercise it was time for pudding, and there just happened to be a small garden café close to the car, selling excellent cream teas…..
We finished the day with an exploration of some disused tin mines, including, in my case, a walk along a tiny path hugging the cliff high above a rocky beach. The dogs didn’t join me.
I lead the way back up the cliffs as we returned to the car, but I was so busy happily chatting to Chantal that I missed the track leading to the car park, adding about half a mile to the walk. I got a bit of earache, and it was nothing to do with the breeze…
This first day established the holiday routine – a walk up behind Mousehole, and then planning the day over an ice cream, with most days involving a pub lunch (all Cornish pubs seem to be dog friendly) and a cream tea. I got seriously grumpy on one day, when we had to abandon a trip to St Ives having discovered that the car park that we had previously used was now occupied by houses, and that all other car parks were full. Instead we travelled back to the south coast to see a fishing village that we had both liked when we visited before, but which, as I recalled, had eating establishments that were restricted to sophisticated sea food restaurants, and which were only open in the evening. I really can get unreasonably grumpy if I am hungry and there is no prospect of food. Fortunately my memory is unreliable, and we found a perfectly acceptable pub, and I was able to continue my market research into local pasties and Cornish ale.
That evening, thanks to the abandoned St Ives trip we returned to Mousehole by early evening, and spent the rest of the evening sitting by the harbour in warm sunshine, watching the world go by and (naturally) taking photographs in the evening light.
The nature of Mousehole changes in the evening, with less bustle as the day visitor leave, but still busy as people living or staying locally head for the pub or restaurants, and local children emerge to play, with many wearing wet suits to enjoy the popular pastime of leaping into the harbour – youngsters from the steps leading down to the water, while the “youths” dive off the top of the high harbour walls.
Every evening, I enjoyed taking the dogs out again later for a quiet stroll around the village, when fewer people were about, although still enough groups and couples to say “hello” to, and have an occasional chat.
We spent a day at the Lost Garden of Heligan, 60 miles from Mousehole, but recommended by all who have visited. They are “Lost” because the gardens form the estate of a stately home that had become totally overgrown, but were “discovered” in the 1990’s, and are being restored. We walked along woodland tracks to the “jungle garden”, and Chantal grumbled that we had paid to walk along a woodland path that we could have done for free closer to home, AND we were walking under trees on a sunny day! But she became a bit more enthusiastic once we were walking along the boardwalks among the banana trees, ferns, palms and bamboo of the “jungle”, with a backdrop of huge flowering rhododendrons.
We walked along the “lost valley”, which even I had to agree was just dense woodland, before returning back up the hill to spend a contented couple of hours exploring the formal and vegetable gardens, and restored garden buildings. We chatted to quite a few people who wanted say hello to the dogs – we found this happened quite a lot during the holiday.
On our last day Chantal surprised me saying that she wanted to walk to Mount St Bernard’s Abbey, provided that the tide was right. This was a bit confusing. Mount St Bernard’s Abbey is near Coalville, and is several hundred feet above sea level. If the tide comes in at this Abbey we are all in deep trouble. Of course she meant St Michael’s Mount, an island with a castle, approached via a causeway at low tide, which is located off of the village of Marazion, very close to Mousehole.
We were almost delayed leaving Mousehole to drive to Marazion when we discovered a car parked in a “no parking” area, so close to my car that getting in was almost impossible. Chantal was expressing a full and frank description of the person who had been so stupid to abandon their car in this way when a voice over her shoulder interrupted to apologise. It was a local lady loading the car before going to work, and this was her only option! We also apologised, and we had a nice, if brief, chat.
We arrived at Marazion soon after noon, had three hours to wait, and so we had no option but to find a table on a pub terrace overlooking the causeway, and just wait….
I was a bit merry by the time that we eventually walked across the causeway, managing to trip over a dog lead, with Lesia at the other end, as we explored the island’s harbour. With the help of another cream tea I was a bit steadier by the time we walked back to the mainland…
It was lovely relaxed day to finish off the holiday.
Technically we live in Oaktree House, but sadly the tree had to go.
We now have a thriving Oakstump at the front of the house.
