The Gastronomes - Part 2 - a photo on Flickriver

            Ali was starting to feel the pressure.  As far as she knew, the voucher code only had seven days left before it would expire in a puff of smoke, having been issued fifty-one weeks earlier.  Last month’s abortive attempt to use it in Mousehole hung heavily in the air.  We’d used a brief spell of drizzle as a good excuse to enjoy a far more relaxed version of lunch at the nearest Morrison’s cafe instead, before carrying on as planned, walking to Lamorna along the coast path and returning via the inland route.  If you read the last story, you’ll know how that went.  But now we were in a race against time.  A few more days of procrastinating and the organisation would be laughing into their cash registers as another voucher expired without seeing action.  We’re not into fine dining - far too fussy for us simple Redruth folk.  And then there’s that twelve and a half percent “discretionary” service charge that gets automatically added to the bill.  I’m sure there are kevlar skinned diners who are bold enough to demand its removal without batting an eyelid, but we really don’t like to make a scene.

But six weeks later, with just a couple of days to go until the schools broke, it was a case of now or never.  This time we decided to abandon Mousehole completely and head for the sister pub that sits along the narrow meandering road between St Ives and St Just. It's wild, rugged, horrible to drive, and would be undoubtedly even more testing in a few days from now once the schools were out and the annual invasion snowballed into saturation mode, polyester Manchester United shirts, tattoos, orange bottle tans and all.  And that’s just the Camborne lot.  After a period of squeezing past oncoming cars and sitting patiently behind cyclists while our stomachs began to rumble, we saw the unmistakable mustard coloured building standing alone at the roadside in the landscape before us.  Just a few more minutes.  Although Ali insisted we needed to check the voucher code was still valid before our lunchtime order was placed.  Any funny business and we’d be doubling back to St Ives for a sandwich, with the towering bonus of fish and chips at Becks in Carbis Bay much later.

The voucher was still valid.  Lunch would be here in the big yellow shack at Gurnard Manning’s Head after all.  It would be an expensive one, but we’d only be paying half the bill, thanks to last year’s birthday present from Ali’s niece and that long string of alphanumeric text that had to be typed into the till for validation.  For the record, the food was as good as the eye watering prices suggested it might be, although portion sizes tended towards the nouvelle cuisine end of the scale.  We really should have ordered a side of chips.  Ali breathed a sigh of relief.  That voucher had been hanging over her like the Sword of Damocles for almost a year.  When we win the lottery we might go again, but until then we’ll stick with Morrison’s cafe thank you.  We know where we are with them.  

And now lunch was over, we headed down to the headland that the pub takes its name from.  Just a few windswept hikers here on this peaceful Thursday afternoon.  A few miles to the east St Ives was no doubt chock-a-block with sightseers, few of whom would ever venture in this direction.  No amusement arcades or ice cream parlours here you know.  No pasty vendors and no boat trips to Godrevy or the mysterious “Seal Island” either.  Just the coast path, some noisy squeezebox choughs and a lot of bracken along these cliffs above a crystal blue sea.  Down on the lonely beach at Treen Cove we could see a couple of people heading into the water for a swim.  An angler perched on the far edge of the rocks, competing for the spoils of the sea with a small trawler that puttered idly between two sets of marker buoys.  And apart from us and the odd passing walker, nobody else was here at all.  In the middle of July.  You can still find solitude here in high summer if you know where to look.

It’s not the sort of beach you’re going to bring the kids and your Great Auntie Nellie to.  A steep path down through the bracken to the top of the rocks, from where you clamber even lower to the edge of a field of slippery green boulders.  Pick the wrong time and you’ll be waiting for the tide to ebb before you can leave.  But slowly we made our way down onto the soft white sands.  I’d love to tell you that the sea was cool and refreshing, but that would be a lie.  Ali lasted five minutes, while I managed about ninety seconds before announcing I was getting out.  Enough to get “the tingle” that my cold water loving children are both forever harping on about.

And then back up the rocks, to a grassy flat area in front of an abandoned stone ruin where I finally found the separation I needed for this shot to have a chance of working.  Higher up and the big lump at the back sat uncomfortably close to the horizon.  Further down and the two groups merged into confusion.  To our left a woman sat alone with a pad of paper and watercolours, painting Gurnard’s Head, lost in her art.  A vision of serenity, we left her alone as I pointed my camera in the opposite direction.  Not for the first time this summer it was a brand new composition that I’d never even seen before, hidden in plain sight on the tourist trail just a few miles from St Ives.  Without that voucher we probably wouldn’t have come here at all.  Although we’d need to stop at Marks and Spencer to trawl the reductions section for supper later.  Nouvelle cuisine isn’t really designed for people with rustic appetites, you see.

Taken in: UK / England / Zennor / Treen (show map)

Taken on: July 17, 2025

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Cornwall

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British Coast

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South West Coast Path

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Kernowfornia

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Treen « less

Sets appears in: • Off the Beaten Track

Groups appears in: • Amateurs • Cornwall more » • Landscape photography • Outdoor Photographer Magazine (Unofficial) • I LOVE THE OCEAN! • Atlantic Ocean • Devon & Cornwall • made in Cornwall • Magic Cornwall • South West England • Cornwall - Kernow • Beautiful British Coast • Cornwall Flickr Users • Landscape Beauty ! • "SEASCAPE" • Flickr Social Club • Coastal Imagery • Cornish Coast • Cornwalls Beauty • Photography Week • Amateur Photographer Magazine • Flickr Social • Feast for the Eyes • « less

Camera: Nikon Z 7_2, f/8.0, 13 sec, 89mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 7_2
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR
Aperture:	f/8.0
Exposure Time:	13
Focal Length:	89mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	+2/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	Uncalibrated
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.4 (Windows)
Show full info

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