Cornwall

As soon as new dates were released for self-catered staycations (back at the start of 2021), I was straight onto booking.com and found what felt like the deal of a lifetime considering how much holiday prices have risen. We had both never visited Cornwall before, just Devon, so it was time to explore a new part of the country. As much as it is killing us to not be able to travel abroad, there are definitely a lot of positives to staying put in your own country, the UK has so many beautiful places to explore, Cornwall definitely being one of them.

Driving long distance

Driving six hours down south from Liverpool, seemed quite daunting with having a 9 month old baby in tow. However, it was quite the opposite, he could happily sit and watch a film, eat snacks, play with toys and properly interact with us both – so we had plenty to keep him occupied. But, all he did was sleep, so we only made two stops on our way down.

We set off at 5am, making sure the baby had a goodnights sleep, and made our first stop at West Bromwich services – roughly an hour and a half into the journey. For anyone travelling with a baby, they have designated baby changing facilities on the ground floor – I was searching the ladies toilets, almost raging that they didn’t have any, but thankfully they did. After a coffee and a sausage butty, we jumped back on the road, two hours later arriving in Exeter.

We decided to stop and take a stroll through Exeter so the baby could stretch out and look at other things than a car window. Exeter is beautful, it would be lovely to visit the city properly one day soon. After browsing the streets of Exeter for just under an hour, back in the car we went, and two and a half hours later we arrived in St Ives, Cornwall.

Our journey back home ran pretty smoothly as well. You make say we are jammy, I say we are just organised. The baby fell asleep quite fast, so we took advantage and drove as far as we could until he woke up which got us back to Exeter services for a quite pit stop. We drove to Bristol for a good ole’ stretch and walk around the shops for a couple of hours to break the journey up. Bristol, I was so surprised at, for what we seen, it is very much like Liverpool, a lot of similarities. We then jumped back into the car and stopped by Gloucester services (very lovely) for petrol, then again at Stafford services for some food, then before we knew it, we arrived home!

Accomodation

We stayed at the St. Ives Holiday Village – perfect location for everything we had planned to do. Now, because of the current circumstances (May 2021), we could only book self-catered accommodation, which was no issue to us, as it meant we could take our own food to save a bit of money. Booking here was a no-brainer, we stayed here for 4 nights, and it cost us a whole £185 – try find accommodation in Cornwall for that price now, it’s ridiculous!

Although a bit dated, it was actually pretty perfect, it was somewhere to put our heads down, had space for the baby to crawl and had a full working kitchen. The holiday village in itself was set amongst trees, Center Parcs like – with a pool, play area, indoor hall, bar, places to chill and eat (which we couldn’t do unfortunately).

Our accommodation had a fully equipped kitchen. A fridge, toaster, kettle, microwave, hob and oven – we could make anything we wanted. The lounge area had a very long couch, an extendable dining table, TV and plenty of floor space. The bathroom had a toilet, sink and shower – quite small but we didn’t need anything flashy. Then our bedroom had one double bed, and the other room had two singe beds – so we wedged a travel cot inbetween and it was good to go.

It was lovely to wake up each morning to the sound of birds in the trees, as we were out by 7am each day, it was always lovely and calm. The Holiday Village was very quite, it felt like we had the whole place to ourselves.

St Ives

St Ives is VERY beautiful, it’s one of those places you can imagine exactly how it will be. Busy, but relaxing, quirky shops, unique places to eat, calm waters, silky beaches and lots of seagulls.

I must say, it is much easy to use a baby carrier than a pram around St Ives, due to the tightness of the streets, where in some cases there are no paths just the roads to walk on, and the shops are only small too – we done both and the baby carrier worked out best for us

The only bit that we struggled with was parking. We arrived into St Ives on day one around 1pm, we ended up parking quite a walk away from where we wanted to because everywhere was SO busy. But later on we found out that all Cornish Council car parks were free parking until the 17th of May (we were their 10th to 14th of May, how convenient) so it made much more sense why it was so busy.

Porthmeor Beach

Porthmeor Beach was the first beach we saw, as it had a great car park (if you could find a space) right at it. Dexter loved people watching here, it has benches on the street that overlooked the whole beach, perfect spot to feed the baby, and watch the locals surf! I couldn’t believe that people actually surfed in the UK. This beach is used for a surf school, as pretty much everyone who went onto the beach were either surfing or swimming, and we could see quite a few lessons going ahead each time we passed.

St Ives Harbour

St Ives Harbour has a lovely small beach on it, and is where Dexter experienced the sea and sand for the first time.

Possibly one of my favourite parts we explored, as along the front are a lot of coffee shops, ice cream parlours and amazing looking restaurants, with plenty of outdoor seating and benches. So it was amazing to come here to relax, have a pasty or two and listen to the water.

Poppy Treffry

We found the cutest shop to treat ourselves to some art from, a little shop called Poppy Treffry, her art is so unique. It is textiles, that then are turned into prints – you should definitely show her some love.

If you didn’t know, St Ives is very famous for artists, so once we found that out, I was determined to bring a little bit of Cornwall home with us.

Beach Bay Cafe

On our last morning in Cornwall, the weather was absolutely glorious. So we had our breakfast outside at the harbour at Beach Bay Cafe. We both had egg and sausage on toast, and it was so delicious, even the baby enjoyed it.

I have to add how friendly the staff were aswell, especially towards the baby. I definitely recommend a visit here.

Yallah Coffee

From searching through various Instagram accounts for my research of this trip. I found Yallah Coffee, now I’m barely a coffee drinker, but I do love a good latte, and it was sooooo good! And I absolutely love the aesthetic of the hole in a wall vibe café.

We later on found a shop that sold Yallah coffee, so we bought a cafetiere bag for both us and our Brother-In-Law (who also approves of the coffee, hurrah). If you are nearby, please pay them a visit, they also pride themselves in being plastic free and just all round great for the environment, give their website a visit to see more of what they do.

Porthcurno Beach (National Trust)

I knew coming down to Cornwall we would be stopping by a few National Trust locations, Porthcurno Beach was our first one. If you are a member, you get parking for free, however it was free for everyone while we were their. We learnt that even if it is free parking, you should still scan your membership card for a parking ticket as every scan donates £1.50 to that National Trust location – how amazing is that!

This beach is beautiful, not too big and enclosed with cliffs so you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere. It was a little to windy for us to sit down and enjoy the beach, but it was lovely to strap the baby to me and walk along the beach with Dexter keeping is both toasty warm. He is also obsessed with watching the sea, it’s so cute, it was the first time he noticed the movement of water.

Porthgwidden Beach

This beach is within St Ives, in the corner, so didn’t feel like it was too busy even though it was so close to all the hustle and bustle. We came to Porthgwidden Beach as our beach day, where we sat for a couple of hours on a beach mat and let the baby play with a bucket and spade (had to be done) taste some clotted cream ice cream and watch the beautiful waves.

Right at the beach is a great car park so you don’t have to walk too far carrying everything. There is also a cafe/restaurant that serves food and drink, and an ice cream kiosk.

The beach was so clean, even with quite a lot of families sat on it with children running around, everything felt fresh, it was a perfect couple of hours for some well deserved family time.

Corbis Bay

Corbis Bay beach is a privately owned beach with a blue flag award, meaning it was so so clean, and it was very noticeable. Not pointing any fingers to beaches I have visited in the past, but I have seen some pretty filthy and litter-heavy beaches, which is so saddening. So visiting beaches like Corbis Bay, was SO refreshing and heart warming, people actually do care.

Like in a lot of Cornwall, you can find toilets before stepping onto the sand. They also had signs up saying that dogs are banned from the beach, however, people where bringing their dogs onto it – so i’m not 100% what the situation is.

Leaving the beach, we found winding steps what took you back to the main road, it gave us immense views overlooking the entire beach, you won’t miss it as quite a lot of people use this route.

Parking here, besides St Ives, was the trickiest, with a council car park right at the top of the hill, there was nothing closer to the beach, which meant you have quite an inclined walk to and from the beach, and I was carrying our 9 month old everywhere, so did find it quite tiring in some parts.

Land’s End

Looking back at our visit to Land’s End, and from hearing other peoples experiences. It is essentially a box ticking visit, you visit to say you have been and that is pretty much it. That isn’t saying it isn’t worth the visit, there are just better places that I will talk about further down in this blog.

There is no denying that it is VERY beautiful, as is everything along the coastline in Cornwall, you have amazing views, looking out over the water for miles and seeing great rock formations (maybe secretly I miss GCSE Geography with that last sentence).

We made an early start out to Land’s End, well, we have a baby who gets up at 6am or earlier, so we just make the most of it, to get out early – you should try it, you don’t half see a lot in the morning with an early start. We arrived at Land’s End at 7.30am, It took us roughly 40 mins to get here from our holiday home in St Ives – hoping we wouldn’t hit any queues. We arrived, being the ONLY people there. It said that it opened at 8am, how can something natural open? … so we parked up and went for a stroll, taking the infamous photo at the sign, normally you have to queue for and pay for…WHAT?!

Land’s End in some way is National Trust, but not like any other location, slightly confusing.

Penzance Town

We we’re told by a few people to check out Penzance, so we did. If you hadn’t heard of Penzance before, you may know it if I say ‘The Pirates of Penzance’? Y1es, Pirates are famous here in Penzance – but unfortunately due to Covid, everything has stopped, like festivals.

We had a nice wander along the harbor, through the streets and then visited the Buccaneer shop to get some souvenirs, and met a really sweet lady who ran the shop. She was chatting to us and the baby for a while, and before we left, she bought Dexter a teddy basically because he was so cute! How kind is that.

St Michaels Mount (National Trust)

St Michael Mount was only a short drive from Penzance town. And wow, we had never seen anything like it. It is a castle on an island that gets completely surrounded by the water, and you can only walk up to it on the designated path once the tide is out.

St Michaels Mount is actually a National Trust attraction, so if you’re a member, you can book your admission tickets online for free, however if you are going to require the boat across once the tide is in, you have to pay for your ticket. If you aren’t an NT member, it is £14 for an adult and £7 for a child over 5.

We were only able to walk up the the castle to the entrance as filming was going on within the grounds, rumours to be something to do with *cough* Game of Throne *cough* – and I can totally see that being a great filming location for it.

Cape Cornwall (National Trust)

According to the National Trust guy in the car park, the people of Cornwall say that Cape Cornwall is what Land’s End hopes to be. You can see why, it is absolutely beautiful, and the views are priceless.

If you’re a National Trust member, like most, parking is free. However, in this particular time, it was free for everyone (until 17th of May, which has now past). The NT guy here was who told us about scanning your membership at each car park as it donates £1.50 to that location. So we did.

The car park had unreal views too, Cape Cornwall only has one car park so you won’t miss it, and has great toilet and baby changing facilities – now we are parents, it’s the first thing we look for – oh how times have changed.

From the car park you can see the tower on top of the cape, which looks quite daunting, like it would be a strenuous walk. But honestly, even with the baby strapped to us, it was probably one of the easiest walks we’ve done – it probably took about 10-15 minutes to do that as well, maybe shorter … we took A LOT of photos.

The views going up and down the cape are so good – the sea is so blue, and the rock formations and beaches look spectacular. The baby was mesmerised, as this will have been the first time he has been so high up.

Lizards Point (National Trust)

We started our day off early (like everyday) and head out to Lizard’s Point, to make sure we could to beat any crowds – we did, we probably saw about 5 people in total.

Again, a National Trust location, so members get free parking, and at the car park had great toilet and baby changing facilities – they are always so clean and well maintained. If you didn’t know, Lizard’s Point is the most southernly point in Britain. You can enjoy some food and drink at the most southernly café in Britain too.

There are routes you can take around Lizards Point that go along the coastline, and to the NT sign (there is a bench there too for remarkable views). Right at the NT sign, there is also a NT hut where you can watch for birds, seals and dolphins. At one point, we were just enjoying the view, then suddenly soooo many seagulls hovered by us – make sure you don’t leave any food or litter, you do not want to be in the middle of that, ha!

The main route to follow that takes you along all of the main points, is roughly 25 mins – however, we were out walking for about 1 hour 15 mins, I think we went off track…a little. But wow, glad we did. We found some amazing viewing platforms, great photo-perfect opportunities. It was slightly challenging at times with carrying the baby, climbing up steep steps, but we did it!

Falmouth Town

We didn’t do too much in Falmouth, it was slightly chilly and wet, but nevertheless, didn’t stop us from exploring. We parked up at Grove Place (free to park). At the car park was a very modern almost little cafe/restaurant village – lot’s of lovely looking restaurants that you could grab a bite to eat at, but it was slightly too cold to sit outside with the baby. So we had a little browse and then walked more into Falmouth.

We ended up walking up and over the streets to Gyllyngvase beach, where we found a great, slightly expensive cafe for some breakfast and it also kept us sheltered from that really wet rain, overlooking the beautiful beach. We both got a sausage barm/barm cake/ butty/ roll/ bap/ sandwich, whatever you call it, and it was around £6 each but when you’ve gotta eat, you’ve gotta eat!

Newquay Town

After a walk around Falmouth, we thought we would bite the bullet and drive over to Newquay to explore what it has offer. From Falmouth it took around 50 minutes to get there, which wasn’t to bad, as we needed to settle the baby for a nap – perfect timing!

We parked at yet another council car park and surprisingly pretty empty considering how busy car parks had been during our week. It was only a short walk from Frith Beach.

The streets in the main centre felt like St Ives but more spacious. We found some cool shops too, one being Vantastic, Rich got a jumper and I got a hoody, great quality and super comfy – go check them out! Then we found a shop called Cornish Cream, that sold everything you would want to buy to bring home that says Cornwall – cream teas, cider, fudge, you name it.

Newquay is a very cute town, you could definitely spend the day in and out of shops, walking along the beaches, having cream teas.

Fistral Beach

Fistral Beach was just a short walk from our car, we didn’t have any intensions of going on to the beach, we just wanted to view it from the side. Newquay is a surfing town, so we stopped by to watch the surfers, as it still baffles be that surfing can happen in the UK, what a sport, hey!

Right at the beach you can find a few shops, that sell your typical surfer wear, and obviously the obligatory cafes and ice cream parlous that come with beaches.

Cafe Cloud

We found a lovely little café, Cafe Cloud, for a delicious Cream Tea on our walk into the centre of the town, we had plenty of shelter in case it rained (but it didn’t, thank goodness) and room to feed the baby. The ladies in the café were so friendly, being the only customers we had a chat about recommendations and they kindly warmed up Dexter’s milk for us, I love that.

Newquay Zoo

The baby has recently visited Chester Zoo with his Grandparents, and LOVED the Penguins, so we thought we would take him to Newquay Zoo, to see if Penguins are still his favourite, and I think they are – along with Meerkats!

Entrance into the Zoo is, £16.35 for Adults, £12.30 for children aged 3 and over and free for under 3. This zoo has booking slots due to covid, so slots are every 30 minutes and has a one way system going around, which I think makes the zoo so much more easier to navigate around and have structure to your visit. This may have changed again.

You can find so many beautiful animals here, Penguins, Meerkats, Monkeys, Lions, Otters, Zebras and so many more. They were all out too, which was great because there is nothing worse than turning up to a zoo, and the animals aren’t in their enclosures.

Places we didn’t visit

All of the places below, we researched, but didn’t end up going so feel free to add to your list:

Mavagissy Harbour, Pendennis Castle, St Mauves Castle, Bude Sea Pool, North Cliffs, Balmaluz Beach, Paradise Park, Minack Theatre, Padstow Harbour, Crantook Beach, Carnewas, Polly Joke Beach, Mitchell Fruit Farm, Trevaskis, Polperro and Looe.

We will definitely be giving Cornwall another visit, so these places (hopefully Covid will be in the past) will be open and we will have the time to visit.

Overall

Cornwall is an area in the UK that I think everyone should visit, especially during these tough travel times. It’s an inspiring place with both the kindness of the locals, and peacefulness of the area.

Beaches in Cornwall are not to be missed, surely they are the best in the country, so clean, beautiful and calming. Everything felt so cheap and affordable too, which is something we both didn’t expect.

And to add…travelling with our 9 month old was a breeze, it may be a one off, but he was so good on both journeys too and from. He just laughed and giggled the entire time, we may just have a little adventurer on our hands, eep!

Until next time Cornwall, we will be back!

Make sure you head over to our YouTube channel and watch our Cornwall vlog here.