26th March – A day trip to the South West (St Ives)

 26^th March – A day trip to the South West (St Ives)

 

The original plan for today was to head towards the Falmouth line, but I decided on the Friday to change the plan to instead head towards St Ives making the most of the weather forecast to have a nice walk.  The trip began with an early morning drive to Salisbury station (where after doing a little time-wasting walk before heading to the station, I noticed some single yellow lines with signs saying Monday – Friday, which gives me an idea to save money on parking on Saturdays.

 

Anyhow the first train for me was the 06:15 service towards Exeter (I noticed the first GWR service towards Gloucester was starting at Westbury which could have messed me up if I was going towards Cardiff, but my friend’s work pattern changed).  The SWR service towards Exeter was a pair of 159s and as it runs off-pattern it passes trains at Gillingham, Chard Loop & Honiton [I wonder how many passengers go onto auto-pilot and board the Exeter train at Honiton thinking it’s the London train, which goes from platform 2].  The train was on time arriving at Exeter St Davids giving me a nice connection onto a pair of 5 coach 802s bound for Penzance.

 

Early Morning Mist

 

I sat in the leading coach (also known in my eyes as standard premium, for it lacks an engine underneath) for the trip.  Dawlish looked beautiful as ever, certainly an area on my revisit list (now that some more of the sea wall has reopened after the improvement works).  Cornwall also looked beautiful as the train headed west, with all the short platforms along the way.  I alighted from the train at Hayle where only the front unit was platformed and started my walk.

 

A HST in Cornwall, some things never change

 

The first section on my walk was to follow the route of the former Hayle Docks branch, now a mixed use path, before I doubled back along a path next to the water (some nice views of the Hayle viaduct, but sadly due to the sun position I couldn’t really take any photos).  I popped to the Asda to get bits for lunch before carrying on to the end of one of the docks, before carrying on a footpath to the tip of a bit of land between the River Hayle and Copperhouse Pool.  The gap to the opposite bank looked quite small enough that someone could easily swim across the river (assuming it was safe).  But as I didn’t want to get wet, I returned towards the land, following a path between the river and Carnsew Pool.  I paused to take a photo of a train pausing at Lelant station on the opposite bank, a station which has gained a lot more services since my last visit to this area.

 

A 150 calls at Lelant

 

I returned towards the road to walk along the pavement with the river on my right hand side, reaching a turnoff towards the old park & ride site at Lelant Saltings, noticing a few signs along the road warning visitors that the station is only served by a couple trains a day since the Park & Ride got relocated to St Erth station.  The old P&R still exists as a long stay carpark with the station being a basic platform on the side of the river. A good place for me to have a pause to eat my lunch before carrying on with my walk.

 

This Train Don't Stop There Anymore

 The next section was along a road I’ve been to before (when visiting the two Lelant stations), passing Lelant station with extended platforms to have 5 coach trains call to cope with the demand of the summer services on the branch line.  This station is quite nice, even for somewhere to sit and look out over the water, but my time wasn’t for long before I returned to the road to head up a hill, passing a church following a footpath which cut across a golf-course, going underneath the railway line where the path splits, giving two options.  Either follow the path along the cliffs or go down onto the beach, I decided to head onto the beach (Porthkidney) which turned out to be a good decision as it was very pretty with the blue water and sand.

 

Porthkidney Beach

 

I carried on walking along the beautiful Porthkidney beach, reaching one of the access points which was a steep climb towards the cliff path (made worse due to being sand so a bit slippery underfoot).  I joined the cliff path walking along it, going up and down, some of the steps being quite large in places, but it was worth it for the views of the sea.

 

The path came out alongside a foot crossing of the railway line giving a couple options, but I decided to carry on with the cliff path heading towards Hawkes Point (where another access point for the Porthkidney beach comes up, I believe at low tide you can walk on the beach around the bottom of the cliff to reach Carbis Bay).  Once more the path was a bit up & down in places but again it was worth it for the views of the water, and of the beach at Carbis Bay.

 

The Beach at Barrepta Cove, Carbis Bay

 

I came to the end of the cliff path onto the roads near Carbis Bay station, and just missed a train pausing on the single platform, but it meant I could go down onto the station for some photos, before carrying on with my walk, following another path from the station to a road which goes underneath the Carbis Viaduct, reaching the coastal path, which went passed that posh hotel which had the G7 meeting last year.  The path here goes more inland, but I headed away from the main path to head towards Porthminster Point, a National Trust area of land and again very scenic.

 

After following the path via Portminster Point, it joined back up with the main South West Coastal path as it went via Portminster Beach, located quite close to St Ives station.  The end point of my little walk, I was originally going to carry on towards St Ives Head but decided that could wait for another visit to this beautiful area.  I noticed the shuttle train was only a single unit so didn’t want to hang around too long as I would imagine some of the trains back after 5pm would have been busy (lots of day visitors heading back to the Park & Ride).

 

150244 at St Ives

 

The train departed St Ives quite busy and called at Carbis Bay & Lelant before arriving at St Erth.  The return was delayed due to a late running IET from London, with the guard waiting for passengers to connect.  I waited a few minutes for a shorten HST to take me to Penzance hoping to score platform 4 (the platform on the outside of the building) but that HST went into platform 3 (as there was a 150-buffer blocking on the outside platform).  I had around 40 minutes before the next London train departed, so headed out of the station heading towards Tesco to try and grab dinner.

 

Alas that little Tesco was bare boned in having any sandwiches left, only thing was some spicy chicken pasta pots), so I went further along the road to the Co-Op to grab a meal deal from there.  After popping into a couple of the shops (looking for a new hat as my current hat is a bit tight), I returned to the station, taking a seat in an engineless coach of a 9 coach 800 for the run back towards Exeter.  Penzance is another area on my list to revisit for a decent look around at some point, but that list is massively long!

 

A 800 at Penzance

 

An enjoyable trip back via Cornwall, I made sure to sit on the opposite side in which I arrived on as it had been a good couple years since I was in deep Cornwall.  Darkness set in after Plymouth, but soon enough Exeter St Davids was reached a couple minutes early, allowing me to easily make a connection to the 19:25 Waterloo train for the journey back towards Salisbury, the near 2-hour journey passing in a flash.

 

At Salisbury it was a simple walk across to my car, changing out of my walking boots (and changing socks) into a pair of trainers for a nice drive back home, going via the Bourne Valley (A338) as I find that road more interesting.  A highly enjoyable day trip to the South West, a couple more stations ticked off my list to revisit.  I’m glad I decided to switch to St Ives rather than Falmouth for that beautiful walk.

 

"This Trip Terminates Here, All Change Please"