Walking The Cliffs In North Cornwall - 14 Photos

I like walking along cliff tops, not too sure why as I'm not quite so good at heights nowadays. Somehow though I feel in tune with the cliffs and the sea vistas - if that doesn't sound to fanciful.

We were on Cornwall's north coast and set out walking from Compass Point heading towards Widemouth Bay.

The tide was out so lots of views of rocks and stones far into the distance.

We met a few others walking along the cliff tops, but not too many as it was quite a breezy day. 

In the photo below you might just be able to make out two men on the rocks below - to the left of the photo. It's easy to get cut off if you don't treat the tides with respect.

The surface of some of the cliff top walk is covered in grass - so makes the walking quite comfortable other than the path goes up and down.

The cliffs seemed to get higher ...

... quite a drop. Birds nest in the cliffs safe from walkers.

A few flowers cling to the cliff tops.

Inland there were now houses to be seen and green fields with a few horses.

We reached Trig Point (below) and then continued past Efford Ditch. We carried on walking but then realised it must be nearly three miles back to the car - so we turned around and retraced our footsteps.

A trig Point, by the way,  is used in the UK to mount and centre a theodolite used to take angular measurements to neighbouring trig points.

It started to drizzle with rain so we were glad to see Compass Point again.

By the time we reached Compass Point - the round building in the photo below - the rain had fortunately ceased. 

Compass Point is a former coastguard lookout and was built in 1840 but was moved to it's current position in 1880. It is made from local sandstone and the design is said to be based on the Tower of the Winds in Athens. As you can see, in the photo below, it has the points of the compass on each of its octagonal sides.