Decided today to combine visiting Lidl at Newquay for our weekend’s shopping with visits to some of the North coast beaches we didn’t know. First to Constantine Bay. A great choice. It was wonderful weather with blue skies and the beach was vast with lovely sand dunes backing it.

At one point on our walk to the far end we saw the high-water mark and unbelievable amounts of plastic detritus, just as had been described on a recent TV program as affecting most beaches these days. Apparently all the plastic that has ever been made still exists in some form….astonishing!! We really need to do something about this problem world-wide but I have determined if I can remember (more and more difficult these days) to take a refuse sack where we go and spend a short while at least picking up rubbish. There were few people on the huge expanse of sand, mainly dog walkers. One friendly old gent who stopped on the dunes path to let us pass said what a privilege it was that we were there on such a wonderful day – he was exactly right. From there we drove to Treyarnon Bay which was fine but overlooked by houses and nowhere near as pleasant as Constantine. Then it was to Porthcothan Bay….where we didn’t stop…a town beach, and no doubt crowded in season because of the plethora of holiday houses and caravans around. Finally we stopped at Mawgan Porth which was lovely if narrow-seeming, hemmed in by the cliffs on each side. The surf swell was impressive and the views too. We saw a group of about 6 people obviously measuring something. When F. politely enquired, we were told that they were measuring sand levels over a period of time because there was a serious sand-loss problem.