Rinsey/Kenneggy - Cornwall

About trip

• There and back walk (with a loop): 6.6 miles
• what3words address for parking: ///races.kinder.tungsten

There’s a decent sized car park at Rinsey, but it does get filled up during busy periods.

From the car park we headed west along the coast path before dropping onto the beach by the WW2 pill box at Praa Sands. This is a lovely beach, especially when the tide is out as it was for us. We got back onto the coast path by following the lane that’s at the western end of the beach, but you can stay on the beach a little further until you pass the pub and then turn onto the path.

About two thirds of the way along Kenneggy Sand there is a path leading inland that’s signposted as ‘Kenneggy Circular Walk’ in a red circle. We weren’t following a strict route so decided to follow this uphill. It’s not a path that’s frequently walked, I think! It was very overgrown with brambles, gorse and bracken. The secateurs I often carry were invaluable, but a brush-cutter would have been more useful. It was slow going and slippery underfoot. When we did emerge on the other side we failed to spot any more way-markers and ended up crossing the busy A394 (it’s too dangerous to walk on) and walking parallel to it along the edge of Kenneggy Downs before turning south again towards the coast. We then almost missed the footpath sign at Lower Kenneggy – there are two signs (!) just before the last buildings on the right. From here we made our way down to the coast and joined the coast path via a gate at Pestreath Cove.

Back at Praa Sands  the tide was in and so we opted to follow the track/lane at the back of the beach rather than walk on the sand, although it would have been possible.

The views are fabulous and this is a lovely walk along the coast. With the benefit of hindsight we would probably have kept to the coast path at Kenneggy rather than try and find a route inland; it was too much effort for too little reward!