This is the second part of my recollections of my first encounter with Cornwall. You can read the first part here.

I turn to walk towards the lighthouse, calling to me from its rock amidst the bluest sea I have ever seen. Its distance strikes me as a treat rather than an inconvenience: more time to enjoy the beautiful journey along a path of pale, shifting sand snaking between the towans’ undulating coastal grasses.

Two scruffy traffic cones warn walkers away from subsiding ground, telling the tale of our ever-changing coastline, but they are quickly passed and the modern world slips away again. I push past thickets of wild carrot flowers amongst the grasses; gatherings of red clover; a very handsome six-spot burnet moth perched atop canary yellow Spathulate Fleawort; a fluffy bee clinging onto a burst of wind-blown, pink-tinged wild carrot as if for dear life. Because Cornwall doesn’t just give you sea, sand and sky; it also gives you an abundance of nature that lifts the spirits and calms the soul.

I’ve been taking my time, as this place demands, but the sun waits for no man, and it becomes clear that I’m too far from my ultimate goal to reach it on foot before the light fails me. So back to my car I must go. I hurry across the towans by the most direct route I can find, jump in, return to the main road and continue my adventure along the winding road to Godrevy.

Through Gwithian village, across a landscape of dunes under a vast sky, over a humpback bridge, and I turn down another oh-so-narrow road towards the sea. I follow cars with a confidence about them that indicates they know what they are about and soon see with excitement that I’m close now. Just a little further and I join a gathering of like-minded souls parked in what must be one of the most fortunately located car parks on earth: a large field overlooking a splendid beach of rock, sand and shallow pools edging the vast bay, and just a turn of the head towards wildflowers, cliffs and the lighthouse!

A quick exit from the car and an energetic walk up to the headland. I’m hurrying now as the sun is threatening to set all too soon. Cloud has thickened and lowered, but a brilliant golden strip of light shimmers at the horizon. My very first visit and Godrevy will not let me down. Drama and beauty combine for the greatest show on earth: a Cornish sunset. I stand above crashing waves and wish I never had to go. That I could have a house just here and never have to leave it. Love at first sight has moved swiftly to a longing for marriage.