Cornwall (2025)

I spent the late May Bank Holiday weekend with my best friend, my brother, and his girlfriend in Newquay, Cornwall. I enjoy escaping the city on the weekends and since we had a bit more time, we decided to go a bit further out.

Saturday

My brother drove him and his girlfriend, whilst my best friend drove us. We decided to leave Clapham by 7:30am and were expecting the drive to take roughly five and a half hours. As we approached the car, we spotted a pile of bird poo on the passenger side window, which was unfortunate given that my friend had washed her car the previous day, and it was a revolting sight. That said, after quickly filling up the tank, she managed to remove the majority of it, which made the remainder of the drive more pleasant. It took six and a half hours in the end, including a pit stop for breakfast, and flew by much quicker than anticipated. 

As we approached our lunch stop, a restaurant named “Plonk’d” in Wadebridge, we noticed a strong odour of manure which no one else seemed to be affected by. Nonetheless, we parked up and walked towards the restaurant, where we’d be meeting the other two. Plonk’d is a tapas place and we ordered most of what was on the menu. Given there were four of us, it worked out quite nicely as we could each try a bit of everything and it wasn’t nearly as expensive as I had anticipated. 

We checked into our holiday home at 4pm, and the host had kindly left us some goodies, including scones with clotted cream and jam. My brother and his girlfriend headed to the supermarket to do a food shop whilst my friend and I went for a short walk to Porth beach. The beach was only 15 minutes away and we had a lot of energy to expend so it worked perfectly. At this point, it was fairly cloudy but not too cold so ended up being a lovely walk (albeit a sandy one). 

Once everyone had returned to the house, we unpacked the shopping, showered, and then played a round of Catan. I very much enjoy playing board games (in fact, the premise of this trip was to play games and drink), however I lose focus after an hour or so of each game. Therefore, I enjoyed the first half of Catan, however once it became clear who the winner would be, I was ready for the next game. 

Despite it being 9pm, we hadn’t yet eaten as we’d been drinking and snacking throughout the evening, however I’d been craving one of my brother’s carbonaras (his specialty) for weeks and this was the evening’s meal. The house had enough cooking utensils to make this dream possible and with a bit of help from each of us, the carbonara was complete. It was as good as I remembered and I was one happy girl. 

We then played a couple rounds of Code Names, a favourite of mine, and despite losing both rounds, I enjoyed it a lot. In my defense, in one round the black card was “point” and my brother gave the clue of “ballerinas”, so I don’t accept full responsibility for that loss. We had a quick dessert break, which consisted of sticky toffee pudding with ice cream for the girls and a tiramisu for my brother, and then we moved on to Articulate, another favourite of mine, which was a lot of fun. Before we knew it, it was morning so we headed up to bed, and even though my best mate and I are also flatmates in London, it really did feel like a sleepover as we were giddy and couldn’t stop chatting and laughing. 

Sunday

I didn’t sleep well as the bed was very soft, but we had a slow start, which consisted of my friend and I chatting in bed, then getting ready for the day and us all having coffee and scones for breakfast together. To my dismay, the scones had raisins in them, but I pushed through as we debated the Cornish versus Devon method to eat a scone. 

We headed to West Pentire for a walkies, where we were aiming to see The Holy Well & St. Cuthbert’s Cave on Polly Joke beach. That said, the car park only took cash so we could only afford to pay for one hour of parking and the round trip was supposed to be more than that. Despite rushing, we realised that we wouldn’t make it to the viewpoint in time, and the clouds were coming in, but the views on this walk were still gorgeous. 

We then drove for an hour to a picturesque town called “Fowey”. My brother had found a Michelin-recommended restaurant here named “North Street Kitchen”, which was only open between 12pm and 2:30pm (which I thought was very continental) and specialised in fish. We managed to grab a table and I enjoyed the rustic vibe, despite the portions being fairly small. Fowey is the epitome of a Cornish town; it was very quaint and cute, with small ice cream vendors and fudge shops. I bought some souvenirs for my parents and boyfriend, and after taking in the gorgeous sea views and ambling through the town, we headed back towards Newquay. 

My best friend and I did a small shop to tide us over for dinner, and then we headed back to the house, where the other two were waiting. On arrival, we played one of my favourite games, Irish Snap, followed by Risk. Similarly to Catan, I actually really enjoyed the first half of Risk, but then lost interest and instead aided the others in achieving their secret missions so that we could end the game. 

One of my favourite things in this world are rainbows, and lo and behold, one appeared outside which made the dreary weather feel much more pleasant. Again, we’d snacked on olives, crisps and chocolate throughout the evening, so we had a late dinner comprising Cornish pasties and charcuterie bits. I hadn’t had a Cornish pasty since visiting Cornwall in the summer of 2020 but they were as good as I’d remembered. We then played Sushi Go, followed by Kems, both of which I enjoyed greatly, and once my brother and his girlfriend headed to bed, my friend and I continued to chat and drink wine in the living room until the early hours. 

Monday

We awoke shortly before check out so after getting ready and packing up, we had a quick breakfast of muffins, bananas and coffee. Check out was at 10am and we were nervous for the bank holiday weekend traffic back into London. That said, we didn’t want to waste the day just on the road, so we planned to drive through the New Forest. Our lunch plans kept changing so I ended up in Weymouth for the second time in two weeks, where we stopped at the same beach café I’d visited the previous week and it was exactly what the doctor ordered. We then headed straight to London, and despite our apprehension, the traffic really wasn’t half bad! Before we knew it, we were back home safe and sound.