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Jane Common - Getting Around With The Hound
Click on the titles above for more dog friendly travels with Jane and AttleeJane Common edits www.phileasdogg.com – Attlee’s tales of adventure as a tourist around the UK.
North Cornish Coast – The Cream of Cornwall
Attlee at the Beach Hut in Watergate Bay Attlee on Mawgan Porth beach
London has lots of great walks for dogs – regal parks; dense forest at Epping; riverside rambles along the Thames. But the one thing it doesn’t offer our canines in terms of exercise options is beach. The sandy strip in front of the Royal Festival Hall just doesn’t cut it when what a dog really wants is to career along a strip of beach that stretches as far as the horizon, dig in the sand and leap about in the sea.
Yes, we owners of metropolitan mutts do have to leave the city boundaries if we suffer a bout of John Masefield-style Sea Fever, bidden by the call of the running tide.... "I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky..........etc."And nowhere does it run more dramatically than along the coastline of north Cornwall. The beaches there are unsurpassed in terms of their ruggedness, with huge Atlantic breakers crashing against the shore set to the backdrop of rocky cliffs. Stunning – and, luckily for us dog owners and our dogs, many of them are dog-friendly all year round.
My Battersea mongrel, Attlee, aka Phileas Dogg and I headed south-west to enjoy the cream of Cornwall at a self-catering cottage in the village of Mawgan Porth. Driving over the breast of a hill Mawgan Porth beach stretched out before us, with golden sand, a horse-shoe shaped bay and curling great waves. Breathtaking. Attlee barked his approval and, before we’d even visited our kip for the next few days, we parked the car and the boss joined the other dogs already gallivanting across the sand. Then we repaired to the dog-friendly pub just across the road from the beach, the Merrymoor Inn, for a glass of wine – me – and bowl of water – Attlee – as we watched the colours fade and the sun sink below the skyline. Bliss.
Our cottage, 4 Porth Farm Cottages, a ten-minute walk away, part of the Beach Retreats portfolio, was high-spec, with underfloor heating, which Attlee loved toasting his tummy on, and a snazzy pink SMEG fridge. With three double bedrooms, two bathrooms, a large kitchen with a huge wooden table and a comfy front room, it would be perfect for families – especially as there’s a zip wire and pirates’ boat in the garden to keep the children entertained. But Attlee and I had it all to ourselves. We also had the extremely generous welcome pack all to ourselves. Cornish sausages, Cornish bacon, Cornish butter, Cornish jam – there were even Cornish tea bags.
Mawgan Porth is a tiny little village with two restaurants, a chippie, a couple of general stores, a surf shop and, incongruously in such a tiddler of a place, a shop called Grand Disco Central, which sells glow in the dark beads. Fortunately dogs were allowed in Grand Disco Central, so Attlee and I could investigate this Aladdin’s cave further. Some glow in the dark beads for your collar, sir?
About a mile’s walk along the cliffs from Mawgan Porth lies another stunning beach – and, again, it’s dog-friendly all year round. Watergate Bay stretches for miles and boasts surfers galore – as well as lots of people flying kites, a spectacle Attlee had never witnessed before, leading to much chasing of and barking at these great multi-coloured birds swooping down from the sky.
Watergate Bay has been developed over the past couple of years but because it is sheltered by cliffs, the development is subtle. A grand hotel has been restored, a branch of Jamie Oliver’s 15 opened – its location chosen for the sweeping views, no doubt – and a friendly bistro called The Beach Hut built on stilts right next to the sea. The Beach Hut is extremely dog-friendly and, while Attlee might be terrified of anything approaching the tiniest ripple of a wave, he was served his water in a White Stuff bowl, making him appear a seasoned surf dog even though he’s anything but.
Travel slightly further afield from Mawgan Porth if it’s bright lights you’re after – Newquay, with its pubs and clubs is seven miles away. And pretty Padstow, boasting its Rick Stein restaurant, Rick Stein café, Rick Stein bed and breakfast, Rick Stein fish and chip shop; Rick Stein hotel – is six. Dogs are only allowed in the garden of Rick Stein’s café, though, so they have the opportunity to appreciate the Rick Stein way of life on rain-free days alone.
In our case, human and canine were content hitting the beach, walking the cliff top paths, checking out the disco beads in Mawgan Porth and swapping well-thumbed novels at the Merrymoor Inn book exchange. Anyway, we had a lot of Cornish produce to work our way through and Attlee just didn’t want to stray too far from the SAUSAGES in the Smeg that had his name written on them.
4 Porth Farm Cottages is part of Beach Retreats’ Cornish cottages portfolio. See below for details:
Mawgan Porth beach and Watergate Bay are dog-friendly all year round.
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