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After Gun Point the route becomes more challenging and rugged.

Adjacent to the car park at the start of the walk is the visitor centre (wheelchair accessible) of the National Lobster Hatchery. Local fishermen bring “pregnant” female lobsters in to the hatchery, to give them a chance to release their delicate offspring in captivity, where there are no predators. The young lobsters are then raised to a size where they can be released back into the sea and look after themselves.

From here walk around to the harbour, home to fishing boats bringing in their catches to be served in the many local restaurants, including of course, Rick Stein’s. From here you can also catch the ferry across to Rock, or take pleasure boats on a trip along the coast. However, on this walk we are going to continue around the harbour, and on the north side, follow the Coast Path up the hill to St Saviour’s Point.

From St Saviour’s Point, you get great views up the estuary towards Bodmin, and out to sea, where the headland on the left of the estuary is Stepper Point, with it’s tower serving as a navigation beacon for seafarers. On the opposite shore are the dunes below Brea Hill, and in the distance Pentire Point, which is a long extinct volcano. The estuary itself with its sheltered waters is now a playground for sailing craft.

Moving onwards the Coast Path follows a track thought to have been built to serve the fortifications to be found at the end of our walk, Gun Point. At the bottom of the first hill, the path passes close to a spring known as St George's Well, reputed by some to have magical properties. However the spring itself is now hidden in vegetation, and drinking the stream water is not recommended. From here a number of paths lead onto the beach, and at low tide it is possible to walk along the sands to Harbour Cove or back to the ferry steps near St Saviour’s Point.

A few hundred metres further on and you reach Gun Point, where there are remains of the fortifications that protected Padstow from invaders. Just off the path is a cast-iron water tank dated 1888, and a granite marker dated 1868, but it was already called Gun Point on maps produced in 1801, and the fortifications may date back to the time of the Spanish Armada.

Harbour Cove used to offer safe mooring until about the 1920’s when the sand banks moved and it became too shallow. In 1962 increased silting led to the lifeboat station at Hawker’s Cove being closed, and a new station was built just along the coast at Trevose Head. Having a lifeboat close to the estuary is vital, as across the mouth of the estuary is the infamous ‘Doom Bar’ a treacherous sandbank that has been the cause of several hundred shipwecks. Legend has it that the Doom Bar is the result of a mermaid's curse. There was once a mermaid who watched over the vessels that went in and out of Padstow. One day, for reasons unknown, she was shot by a sailor on a visiting boat. Before she disappeared for good under the waves, she raised her hand and issued a curse that the harbour would become desolate from that time on. Shortly after a great storm came, wrecking many of the ships in harbour and throwing up the sandbank.

Stepper Point is a stunning headland, with much of the cliff land farmed as part of the Countryside Stewardship Scheme - an environmental scheme where no sprays or fertilizer are used and field margins are left uncultivated. This creates a better habitat for rare species of plant and encourages endangered wildlife such as the corn bunting, barn owl, grey partridge and hare. Sheep graze these fields, and ground-nesting birds nest in the areas of rough grassland, so please keep your dog on a lead, particularly in the Spring and early summer.

From Stepper Point, the high cliffs are battered by the full force of the Atlantic, and home to nesting sea birds, with peregrine falcons often being seen. As you approach Trevone, look out on the inland side of the path for ‘Round Hole’ a huge collapsed sea-cave, which is aptly named. From Trevone it is a gentle walk along low cliffs to Harlyn Bay, from where there is a regular bus service back to Padstow.