39 CORNWALL ON FOOT

Deserted beaches and quiet coastal villages are just two of the perks to hiking from St Ives to Penzance outside peak season.

- Ben Lerwill

On a blustery clifftop above a turquoise bay, I meet the second-smuggest person in England. He’s beaming from ear to ear, raving about the beaches and the views. It’s the final day of his late-February hike around the tip of Cornwall, he tells me, and he’s barely passed a soul. I’m walking the same route the other way. “We’re so lucky,” he says. “So lucky.”

Far below us, waves swirl against hunks of dark rock as gulls wheel over deserted sands. We look at the trail winding off to the east and west, the narrow path climbing over knuckly headlands and bracken-clad slopes. After chatting a while longer, we go our separate ways. If you’re wondering who the smuggest person in England is, incidentally, that’s me. I’ve got two more days’ walking to go.

It’s no secret that Cornwall is one of the most dazzlingly alluring destinations in the country, but this fact is both a blessing and a curse. Travel down here as a holidaymaker and you’re assured an abundance of coastal scenery, pretty fishing villages and a sense of salty-aired, tousle-haired release from the nine-to-five. ‘Cornwall isn’t a destination’, state the gift-shop T-shirts, ‘it’s a way of life’. The drawback is that its popularity can sometimes make parts of the county feel more like Piccadilly Circus than Poldark territory.