Escaping to St Ives

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A cheeky new year escape to St Ives

The nice thing about living in the West Country is you have the West Country to escape into. St Ives is around an hour and a half away from home.

We decide to escape our New Year sloth with a three-night trip to Ayr Holiday Park at the top of St Ives town. It is more expensive than we would normally pay at £31/night for a fully serviced gravel pitch, but we are tired and we are trying to escape the post-Christmas covid blues.

It proves to be a good call. The pitch has stunning views down across the roof tops of houses and the Tate Modern Gallery to Porthmeor beach and St Ives head with its little chapel and National Coast-watch Station.

We arrive on a very gusty morning with steady 35mph winds (and gusts of up to 50mph overnight from the north.) Perfect, as that is the way we are facing – northwards, fully exposed to the oncoming winter onslaught!

We set up on the ramps. We learned a lesson out on our last trip at Salisbury. We have in the past driven up onto the ramps. At Salisbury, it was wet and the ground was an all-weather pitch with plastic matting infilled with soil and gravel. As I reversed off the ramps one of them shot out and into the hedge ahead at extraordinary speed. Fortunately, Maggie had been standing to one side. It would have surely broken her leg. Now we reverse up onto the ramps, irrespective of the pitch situation we inherit.  

We stroll down the hill and the narrow alley ways between old fishermen’s cottages into the town centre with its eclectic mix of shops, cafes, galleries and artesian bakeries. The streets are a little crowded, after all it is still a bank holiday. Unaccustomed to being in the proximity of so many people in such a confined space, we head for the harbour road and follow the path around the headland and over to Porthveor beach.

The incoming swells provide messy but surfable waves which run up the picture-perfect golden sand beach. Swells hit the headland rocks, expending their energy in huge curtains of off-white spray and foam; tendrils of which are whisked away on the fierce wind.  Meanwhile the beach is virtually empty. People are huddled in shoreline cafes trying to get away from the relentless winds.

The softies! We find it quite invigorating!

I have often wondered what it is that attracts so many to St Ives; and why so many buy second homes here. Today I realised something. It’s the light! It doesn’t matter whether the sun is shining or not, the light always seems to be either soft and romantic or dark and moody. The seas always seem aquamarine green; the beaches are always golden.

Its basically like being in the Mediterranean. Who was it who said that – Barbara Hepworth, I think?

 

Or maybe its just that it is terribly outdoorsy in a very laid-back kind of way – laid back surfing, laid back canoe surfing, laid back cycling, laid back coastal walking.

All underpinned by that arty, creative vibe that permeates the narrow streets of the small town.