The Supporting Cast - a photo on Flickriver

            Not for the first time I was making mental notes as we walked along the coast path at the Edge of Eternity.  You see here in the place where there are some very well known honeypots on offer, it’s all too easy to overlook the supporting cast.  Especially when you keep ignoring them as you determinedly march from one hot spot to the next.  So from time to time I reverse the roles and try to ignore the well known subjects in a search for the less obvious, something that in itself is a challenge.  I’m lucky to live within just under an hour of this place and be able to come here half a dozen times a year or more.  But that still makes the lure of being faced with the A list the moment I get out of the van a spectacle that’s difficult to ignore.

In April on the last visit I tried to walk past Botallack and its celebrated Crown Houses without looking at them.  Which of course I failed to do.  But I did at least spend a few minutes inspecting them from a not so well known point of view I’d examined a couple of years earlier.  One of those puzzles I haven’t solved yet.  There’s a tiny detail jutting into a composition I otherwise think has promise that troubles me.  I’ll have to return to that one although I’m not sure I get exactly what I want without risking life, limb and dignity.  In retrospect, the June 2023 shot looks better than I remember, so either my standards are dropping or I was being too pernickety in the first place.  We’ll move on shall we?

We’ve done this walk a few times before, tracing the edges of the land along the bare tracks that deviate away from the main path, pausing at granite outcrops to take in near vertical views, always keeping our eyes peeled for the splash of dolphins down there in the sea.  Only ever seen them once around here though, so don’t get your hopes up.  But what I was hoping for were one or two potential new subjects to put in the homework folder and point the camera at another time.  Along most of this section of the coast path only the gulls and seals can get  close to the water, along with a handful of suitably experienced rock climbers in possession of the appropriate equipment, and while one of the two new potential subjects I found bucked that trend, this one certainly didn’t.  But I duly noted it and made a mental note to head back here next time.

Today I was here alone, with two locations in mind, neither of which were Botallack itself.  So after a cup of tea I wandered down to the famous Crown Houses, spent about three minutes looking at them and ran back uphill to the van to fetch the camera.  I took a collection of unsatisfactory shots, got the honeypot out of my system for the day and returned to the van to throw the rice, mushrooms, ham and olives I’d brought with me into a pan.  Dinner in the van - you can’t beat it.  And a can of Spanish lager.  I really should have picked up some strawberries for dessert too.  They’re very much in season right now.  Still, two out of three ain't bad.  

In the intervening eight weeks or so since my last visit, I’d completely forgotten that there was a sea arch.  What I did clearly remember was the sketchy looking track down to the lowest viewpoint that I thought I could get to.  But once I’d wobbled my way down there I realised there was another finger of land to my left that tapered down to an even better angle.  Ironically a slightly more certain route as long as one stayed in the middle and kept away from two vertiginous edges that were rapidly converging in front of me.  One that made the arch - the feature I’d forgotten about - more prominent, as well as bringing some new foreground options into play.  So I played until the rain that had been threatening ever since I arrived began a game of its own.  Game over.  I wasn’t going to improve on what was already on the card.  Time to head back to the van and drive home.

I hadn’t even covered a mile before the windscreen wiper (driver side of course) detached itself from its bearings and started wiping the fresh air three inches in front of the glass.  This, on a van that passed its MOT just four weeks earlier.  The only thing that needed doing was installing a new set of windscreen wipers.  I cursed the mechanic, found a space to pull in and jumped out into the driving rain to attend to it.  A few minutes later, just after the turn off at the Trewellard Inn, it made a second bid for freedom.  Generally speaking, it’s easier to go in the right direction when you can see what’s on the other side of the windscreen, and driving into an easterly bringer of hard rain, the journey home wasn’t going to be fun at all.  I cursed again, stopped at the pull in by the next junction and had another go.  This time the wiper behaved and stayed on its mooring, although I used it sparingly all the way home.

There are so many other members of the supporting cast in these wild western reaches.  One or two of them I’ve marked for a future visit, while others lie waiting to be discovered.  And on top of all that, there are a few alternative views of the honeypots that lie tantalisingly close to hand.  Plenty to keep me going down here.  Maybe I need to up the number of visits to a dozen times a year.  I’d better put a cable tie on that wiper then.

Taken in: UK / England / St. Just / Botallack (show map)

Taken on: June 11, 2025

Tags:

Cornwall

Coast

ukcoast

cornish coast

arch

Sea

seascape

sea stack

rocks

Rock

long exposure

Water

Atlantic

Ocean

South West Coast Path

Kernow

Great Britain

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Botallack

water_shots

Edge of Eternity

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Kernowfornia

Nikon « less

Groups appears in: • Cornwall • UK Coast and Harbour more » • Beautiful British Coast • Cornwall Flickr Users • Photography Week • Flickr Social « less

Camera: Nikon Z 7_2, f/10.0, 13 sec, 50mm, ISO 64 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Nikon Z 7_2
Lens:	NIKKOR Z 28-400mm f/4-8 VR
Aperture:	f/10.0
Exposure Time:	13
Focal Length:	50mm
ISO:	64
Exposure Bias:	-2/3 EV
Flash:	No Flash
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Sharpness:	Hard
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 14.3.1 (Windows)
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