Walkies!

With more than 300 miles of coast path to explore, there’s plenty of fun and exercise to be had with dogs – here’s a dog-friendly coastal walk to enjoy

This gentle walk beside golden beaches lining the eastern bank of the River Camel is the perfect gentle exercise for both you and your four-pawed friend – and for children too. There’s plenty of interest, with the tiny St Enodoc Church resting place of Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman, a Roman lookout station, Bronze Age burial mounds and the dog-friendly Daymar Bay.

Lead on? Let’s go!

1 From the Rock Quarry car park take the path at the far end, on the estuary side, and go through into the dunes to pick up the South West Coast Path heading to your right, above the beach and towards the sea.

Poet Laureate Sir John Betjeman is buried at St Enodoc Church a little way ahead, having fallen in love with the area and moved here. He called the shoreline to Daymer ‘a mile of shallow pools and lugworm casts’. Between the long stretches of golden sand is the Doom Bar, a sandbank which has been responsible for shipwrecks over the centuries. According to local local legend the Mermaid of Padstow cast the sand across the mouth of the River Camel in a fit of pique, after she fell in love with a local lad, who mistook her for a seal and shot her.