About half of Section 36 in the SWCPA handbook
9.67 km along the coast and 6.62 km inland
Looking at the OS map, although there were various parking places at Helford and Porthallow, all needed a fairly long journey on vary narrow roads, not ideal for Frodo, so we decided to get the ferry from Helford Passage. So we started quite early, hoping to get at least a coffee at the ferryman Inn, but also nothing doing so we got the first ferry at 9:30 to Helford.
At the village we found the village store open and were glad to get a coffee and a pain au chocolate, and even a bench outside the café to enjoy the coffee and the view. The Path goes through the pretty village and then for quite a distance through mixed woodland along the North side of the Helford River.
There is a short loop to get to Dennis Haed, where I’m sure there are good views back to Falmouth, but it was rather misty, so we continued down to St Anthony’s in manage where supposedly there are steppingstones across Gillan Creek to Gillan. We did manage to find the rather slippery steppingstones, to cross the first part of the creek, but found a second channel that we had to wade across, only to find a couple of “Strictly Private” signs on steps that looked to be on the route. After a while, by walking along the beach, we found an old sign sign directing us to some more steps and the path. It would be much more helpful if people putting up “Private – no right of way” signs were polite enough to add “the right of way is 100m to your left” or something similar.
After walking through Gillan there was a diversion which meant that we had to miss out Nare Head and go to Peaare House to re-join the coastal path. This shortened the distance to Porthallow where a friendly welcome at the “Five Pilchards” inn tempted us to try their excellent Fish and Chips.
We returned to Helford via an inland route and just alittle footbridge across the stream above Gillan creek and then up to Manacan and down to Helford for a cup of tea before heading for the ferry. We met a French Girl how was walking the whole path continuously and were pleased that by changing the sign from red to yellow the ferry arrived and took us all back to Helford Passage.
