Cornwall's quietest coves for caravanners

Remote coves, clearest rockpools, a place where seahorses breed… The Cornish coastline hides many creeks and coves that are off the beaten track - perfect for exploring from a caravan or motorhome.

We set out to find you some of the most picturesque coves and bays the peninsula has to offer.

The beaches are:

Hawker's Cove
Trevone Beach
Harlyn Bay
Porthcothan Beach
St Anthony-in-Menage
Flushing
Porthallow
Coverack
Kennack Sands

Hawker's Cove

We follow a sign to Hawker’s Cove off the B3276. It’s three or four miles of narrow road with passing places but of quite adequate width for motorhomes.

We follow a sign to a car park. The entrance is a rutted track, to be taken slowly. It leads us to a grassed car park.

We leave the car and head over a low stile and down a shaley path to the beach. The path borders farmland and levels out to become sandy, before you reach a magnificent beach, the hues of turquoise sea and pale sand stretching out before you as you round the headland.

The sea’s a long way out at the low-tide time of our visit and that makes this huge beach all the more enchanting for its spacious remoteness.

Tussocky grass fringes the beach. There are no footprints in this sand – no-one’s been here since the morning’s tide ebbed.

If you want isolation and freedom, come here.

Trevone Beach

From Hawker’s Cove we headed back along the B3276 and turned right at a sign for Trevone. A short distance brings you to the hamlet of Trevone – and the magnificent cove.

Parking is directly adjacent to the beach and there is room for motorhomes – but dogs are not allowed on this beach.

A spectacular island-like headland dominates the view and the deep sheltered cove draws families who seek shelter to frolic in the surf or just sit and relax.

Amenities exist here – a café selling tempting cakes, breakfasts, lunches, and a surf shop offering fashionable and practical gear.

You can hire a wet suit and board – or decide to take your exercise on foot or by cycle, by following the Camel Trail, which starts at Trevone. But for the less energetic there’s plenty of reason to be here.

Families sit under sunshades looking out over a deep aquamarine sea. A stream finds its way down to the sea on the south side of the beach, its rippling babble just audible in the silence of this beach.

Harlyn Bay

There’s plenty of room for even large motorhomes here and the parking area leads directly down to the beach, which is shallow-shelved with rippling waves making for a great family fun location.

Dogs are allowed here and there are two further beaches visible, down tracks leading from the farmhouse.

The water is crystal clear and the cliffs are sloping friable slate topped by wind-eroded sandy soil sprouting the hardy sea-pink flowers that only grow in these conditions.

There’s an enticing island not far offshore – and even at high tide there’s a substantial amount of sand left.

The top of the lane which leads to it is just under two miles from Padstow but a world away from anything that represents tourism.

Porthcothan Beach

The car park is idea for motorhomes but the road to it is single track with passing places.

This lane is fine for motorhomes if you’re a little patient and proficient at reversing when you meet someone driving a small car who quickly evidences fear or ineptitude (or both) at reversing.

The car park costs 80p for up to an hour and over four hours cost £4.20. A notice reminds owners of large motorhomes that they have to pay for each bay they occupy – and it’s clear you’d need two for anything of coachbuilt proportions.

It’s a deep beach, half of which is exposed at high tide. Dogs are here and the sea has cut fascinating caves into the cliffs that border both sides of the beach.

During summer, wild roses line the path to the beach. It’s sheer delight here.

It’s easy to find and, as with all the beaches we found and, like all of our beach discoveries, it’s marked on Ordnance Survey maps.

Helford’s hidden beaches:

Several secret beaches lie along the estuary of the beautiful Helford River that flows out to the sea near Falmouth. Here are three of them…

St Anthony-in-Menage

We’re along the shores of the Helford River now – and we discover a beach that’s hard to find but well worth the patience.

This must be the quietest creek on Cornwall – probably because you get the impression only the local residents know it’s here.

At high tide there’s no beach at all but, at low tide, with the tang of fresh seaweed and only the occasional birdsong to interrupt the silence, this is a superbly magical place for a beach walk.

If you choose to follow us to this beach, you may need the following direction notes as navigating the maze of lanes hereabouts is not straightforward.

Follow signs from the A39, along the A3083, then B3293, to a string of little villages. Go through Mawgan. St Martin, Newton, Manaccan, Gillan and finally to St Anthony.

The last bit of lane is narrow, with hardly a passing place. If you do meet another vehicle, be prepared to reverse a long way – and be warned, nothing wider than a car will fit down this lane, so it’s out of bounds for motorhomes larger than a Romahome.

If you are seeking solitude, come here. This creek and its environs is cared for by the Helford Voluntary Marine Conservation group and is known as one of the finest marine wildlife sites in Europe.

Its sheltered creeks and mudflats support vast numbers of tubeworms and shrimp – which provide feed for wading birds and herons.

The eelgrass water plant grows in profusion in the shallow waters here, providing habitat for quantities of crab, sea anemonies and cuttlefish – and even seahorses feed and breed here.

Over 80 species of fish have been recorded around the Helford estuary, an information board by the creek tells the visitor.

But visitor numbers are low here – St Anthony is a tiny community of a few houses, a chandlery business and a church.

Flushing

We’d followed a map to Flushing Cove, but there’s no car park and so, beautiful as this place is, it doesn’t measure up to an easy-parking-nearby guide.

But it’s worth a mention because, if you’re prepared to follow one of the many well-signed footpaths to it, you’re amply rewarded by the discovery of a charming place.

Flushing is a walking destination to recommend. One of the signed paths to Flushing leaves from a beach three and a quarter miles away, at Porthallow – and you can get there by car.

Porthallow

Whereas Flushing and St Anthony are remote, totally secluded and without any form of sustenance opportunity, by comparison, our third Helford surprise beach caters amply for its visitors.

Despite two eateries, Porthallow is known among local residents as “The Secret Cove”, the proprietor of the Beach Bistro told us. That’s probably because, pub and café notwithstanding, there is really not a lot else here. Which is its delight.

There is, though, a miniscule art gallery – Porthallow Arts – where you can peruse pottery, water colours and terracotta creations.

The beach is in fact a shaley foreshore – so don’t come here expecting employment for a bucket and spade. It’s more a beach for walking – or just sitting on a rock for sheer relaxation.

Small fishing boats are hauled up here, rugged rocks sprawl away into the estuary and. On a clear day, views of the opposite side of the river would be a delight.

Even in imperfect weather we could just make out the white buildings of fishing-port-mini-resort St Mawes across the bay.

Find Porthallow by road from Porthoustock, two miles away; it’s signposted.

Coverack

This is a fishing-port delight and then a wonderful sandy beach.

Parking for motorhomes and cars invites money in an “honesty” box which collects for local charities. There is also a pay and display car park a little further away.

Walk a few metres to the beach and you discover the beautiful view of a wide curving bay, the little fishing harbour at one end, a wide sweep of sand-and-rock beach stretching off in the other direction.

Dogs are here and easy steps lead down to the beach from the roadway.

This is a place to bring the family, for there are rockpools to explore as well as sand to play on.

Coverack has an unspoiled charm and a long fishing pedigree. Walk along the curving roadway until you reach the harbour and you’re amid a scene that’s not changed for 100 years.

Records of more than 60 sea rescues are listed on the walls of the lifeboat house, from 1092 until it closed in 1978.

There’s a strong community feel at Coverack. Working boats share the harbour and bay with the occasional pleasure craft and, as we watch, one of Coverack’s fishing vessels arrives to land its catch, pursued by an escort of screaming gulls.

Coverack is a microcosm of all that is traditional and unspoiled about enchanting Cornwall.

It’s easy to find, on the B3294, signed off the B3293.

Kennack Sands

Kennack proved to be rather special – a fitting finale to a fascinating journey around some of the best of Cornwall’s coastline.

It served to whet appetites for more explorations in future editions to share with you our discoveries in charming Cornwall.

In the meantime: car parking is beside the (small) beach, there’s a café – and dog walking is signed along a pathway away from the beach; you can bring Fido to the car park but he must not set paw on sand.

Venture a few paces from the car park and you are on the beach. A great baulk of a rock stands sentry to the bay, a rippling stream finds its way across pebbles and meets the sea beside the great rock.

The scene is set for beach perusal – but this place merits further exploration for, to the left of the beach is part of the English Nature Lizard National Nature Reserve.

It’s rated as an important geological site whose rocks show how, in just a small area, the whole of the Lizard Peninsula was formed.

The remains of a raised beach is evidence of a drop in sea levels and “towans”, the Cornish word for sand dunes, are here; they’re rare in this part of the world and are revered as important habitats for plants and animals.

You’ll finds squills, kidney vetch, butterflies and lizards here in the dunes. The beach is strewn with the serpentine-coloured rocks that typify the Lizard.

Walk down the beach towards the dunes that crown a headland and you see the rich red of the rocks of these cliffs and, above, friable mixture of stones and red soil, where erosion is hard at work and plants cling on in a meagre attempt to glue the thin soil to the rock.

It’s a harsh environment for the little sea pinks and other coastal plants. But it’s a relaxing place for holidaymakers – and Kennack is an excellent body-boarding beach as it’s so shallow.

But geological fascination drew my attention from the sea to the land. I was off in search of some of those serpentine rocks, often veined with green, black, yellow and white intrusions.

Bassalt, gabbro, Kennack gneiss in pink and greys…talc, amethyst and calcite are also to be found here. Kennack isn’t only famous for its variety of rocks. Basking sharks are a common sight here, as are dolphins and turtles.

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