Dougal's Dog Blog. Entry 12. St Agnes Beacon, Cornwall

'Now this kind of site is right up my Boulevard' trumpeted the Human as he read the description of St Agnes Beacon Club Site from the Directory. 'No loo block, relaxed, and within walking distance of a beach and village.'

Beach? Did someone say 'beach'? My ears pricked up.

'Oh...' he continued. 'No dogs allowed on the local beach.'

Excuse me, but am I supposed to be getting excited about going to this place?

As it turned out, we had a brilliant time at St Agnes Beacon. The dog walk on site is... how can I put this politely... a petite 'comfort break' area. It takes about 60 seconds to walk around it. But it's there all the same, and it's a handy place for those early morning and late evening essential visits. It's also a nicely wooded area so there are plenty of interesting smells and flowers. The attached photo of me (looking dashingly handsome, if I say so myself) is taken in the Dog Walk area.

Where St Agnes really got my tail wagging was the amount of brilliant walks that you could access directly from the site. One day we walked into the village centre via the South West Coast Path, which took us about 90 minutes. I could wander around to my heart's content and let the Human off the lead, but he wouldn't let me play ball because at times we were teetering a little bit close to the edge, and it was a long way down those very steep slopes to the sea.

My reward for walking to St Agnes was a game of ball on the beach. Dogs are allowed at this beach. It's just a shame it's about an hour's walk from the site!

St Agnes itself was a nice enough place. I wasn't allowed in the bakery when His Majesty went in to get lunch, but they did at least have benches out the back where we could sit together while he ate and I drooled.

In fact, he got all the eating out pretty wrong on this visit. At the beach at St Agnes village there looked to be a really nice pub that said 'Dogs Welcome' outside, but he insisted on striding up the hill to a place called 'The Taphouse' which was also dog friendly. And closed just as we got there.

That evening we went back to the Taphouse and the Human wasn't overly impressed. 'Perfunctory' was the word he used. I don't think he was impressed about sitting there with an empty glass and being ignored by the staff for over 20 minutes after finishing his meal. No offer of a dessert menu, coffee, more vino, and no offer of a doggy bowl or a Scooby Snack for me.  'We should have gone to the Railway Inn, that looks quite nice' he said. Hey-ho. Next time.

The walk back to the site from St Agnes via the Beacon took us about an hour, although I'm sure if you set your mind to it and don't stop to sniff every lampost and every item of P-mail as I do, you'd get there a jolly sight quicker.

The next day we took the South West Coast Path in the opposite direction and had a brilliant walk for miles and miles. We passed the beach where I wasn't allowed (it takes about 10 minutes to get there on paw from the site, and about 20 minutes to climb back) and at High Tide there wasn't really a beach there anyway. At low tide however, we spied acres and acres of golden sand which would be ideal for families. But not for dogs. Because we're not allowed on that beach. Have I mentioned that? I'm not amused.

I hope he'll take me back to St Agnes Beacon. We need to try out the nicer-looking pubs rather than the 'oh-so-trendy' surf bars next time. And despite the fact I can't go on the beach, there are miles and miles of footpaths to explore and rabbit burrows to investigate.

Total score for St Agnes Beacon: Four bones out of five.