Turn left for the cove

The moment you step out of our front gate you're already standing on it — the coast path, running left and right like a question waiting to be answered. Most guests freeze for a second, look both ways, and ask us which direction is better. Honestly? It depends entirely on how much time you have and whether you're in the mood for a cliff scramble or a gentle amble. Here's how we'd break it down.

Turn Left: The Cove Walk (about 45 minutes one way)

Turn left out of the gate and the path dips almost immediately, curving around a low headland before opening up into one of the finest stretches of coast in the area. The first ten minutes are flat and easy — good for easing yourself in with a coffee still warm in your hand. You'll pass a bench donated by someone called Reg (we like Reg) and a cluster of wind-bent hawthorn trees that mark the point where the path starts to follow the cliff edge more closely.

At around the 25-minute mark you'll reach a wooden signpost pointing down a narrow side path. Take it. It adds maybe five minutes to your walk but drops you down to a small shingle beach that almost nobody finds. We call it the cove, although it doesn't seem to have an official name on any map we've ever looked at. At low tide there's a stretch of dark sand exposed at the far end, and the rock pools here are excellent — limpets, anemones, the occasional crab going about its business.

If you carry on past the cove turning without going down, the main path continues for another 20 minutes or so until it reaches the village of Pendeen — small, one pub, a post office that keeps its own hours. The pub does a decent crab sandwich at lunch and they won't mind muddy boots. It's a perfectly good place to turn around and retrace your steps, which means a round trip from our door of roughly an hour and forty-five minutes at an easy pace.

Turn Right: The Headland Loop (about 2 hours)

Turn right and you're immediately climbing. Not dramatically, but steadily — the path gains height over the first fifteen minutes and the view back over the bay opens up behind you as you go. This is the more exposed direction, and on a windy day it earns that reputation. Bring a layer you don't mind putting on and taking off.

The reward for the climb arrives at the top of the headland, roughly 30 minutes from our gate. There's a large flat-topped granite outcrop that makes a natural viewpoint — on a clear day you can see the lighthouse to the south and, if conditions are right, a smudge of distant cliffs beyond that. We've had guests who walked up there first thing in the morning and didn't come back for two hours because they just sat and watched the sea.

We meant to do a quick twenty-minute stretch before breakfast. We ended up eating very late.

— A guest, September last year

From the headland, the path loops inland and downhill through a section of bracken and gorse, eventually connecting to a farm track that brings you back to the lane about 400 metres from our gate. So the right-hand route is actually a loop rather than an out-and-back — which makes it feel more satisfying, especially if you have the kind of brain that resists retracing its steps. The total loop is close to 5 miles and takes most people around two hours, give or take a long stop at the top.

A Few Practical Notes

• Tide times matter for the left-hand cove walk — check before you head down to the beach. We keep a tide table on the kitchen noticeboard.
• Dogs are welcome on both routes. Keep them on leads through the farm section on the headland loop — there are sheep in the fields on the other side of the wall.
• Neither route has a café or water point once you leave the village (left-hand direction). Bring a bottle.
• The headland can be genuinely gusty in westerly weather. It's not dangerous, but it is loud and it will find every gap in a flimsy jacket.

If You Only Have 20 Minutes

Turn left. Walk to Reg's bench. Sit on it. Look at the sea. Come back. That's a complete walk in our opinion and you're allowed to feel very good about it.

We've walked both directions more times than we can count and we still can't say which one we prefer — it shifts with the season, the weather, and what kind of morning it is. The path is right there from the moment you arrive. The hardest part really is just deciding which way to turn.