THIS TIME LAST WEEK...

I don`t know if you`re like me but, each time I get home from a good holiday, I keep thinking to myself, "This time last week we were......"   And this time last week, Mrs. Snopper, Barney and I were on our way to finally making it to the elusive Stepper Point, the western headland of the Camel estuary in Cornwall.

I called it elusive because we had seen the view towards Stepper Point countless times from the opposite side of the estuary as we have been frequent visitors to the Greenaway, the section of the south west coast path between Polzeath and Trebetherick.   We had often wondered what it would be like to get to Stepper Point and look back scross the estuary and see those places we knew so well from a different perspective.   Until last week, however, it had remained elusive.

I looked it up on the map and noticed that, rather than having to contend with Padstow, there were lanes leading out towards the Point where we might be able to park and walk from there.   We`re not keen on Padstow - too crowded, too much overpriced industrialised catering - but we do like the surrounding area and after a couple of false starts, we made our way through Crugmeer to Lellizzick, where we discovered a car park (£2 per car....but no-one there to take our money and mercifully no ticket machine.)  

Off we strode, along the river bank, past the former pilot houses and  coastguard houses at Hawkers Cove and as we did so I gave a silent tribute to the memory of Edward Woodward who spent his last years in this remote, glorious tranquility with spectacular views which only got better as we climbed to reach the tower at the top pf Stepper Point.

On the way back down, I took some photos.  The one at the top shows the coast path descending from the Point with all the while those breathtaking views of the Camel estuary, across to Daymer Bay, Polzeath, beyond Padstow and across to the Greenaway.

Ah, the Greenaway!   The late Sir John Betjeman, although born in London, was brought up in Trebetherick and so knew and loved the Greenaway:-

I know so well this turfy mile

   These clumps of sea pink weathered brown

The breezy cliff, the awkward stile

   The sandy path that takes me down

To crackling layers of broken slate

   Where black and flat sea-woodlice crawl

And isolated rock pools wait

   Wash from the highest tides of all.

I know the roughly blasted track

   That skirts a small and smelly bay

And over squelching bladderwrack

   Leads to the beach at Greenaway

.......and so on.    Small wonder then that, having finally made it to Stepper Point and looked back across to the Greenaway, the following day we returned there once again only to gaze across to Stepper Point, where we were this time last week.