Wet And Wild: The Magic Of Cornwall In Winter

The crowds have left and the elements reign supreme on an off-season escape to Newquay

Surfers are bobbing in the whitewater shallows off Newquay’s Fistral Beach, poised for that ecstatic moment when a barrelling Atlantic roller will propel them to their feet. Then it arrives – the Big One. Despite the biting cold the surfers rise in unison, carving into the wave’s lip with effortless balletic grace.

There’s something quite magical about Cornwall off-season. Gone are the crowds; this is the time when the elements reign supreme. Storm Éowyn recently made that very clear, hammering the coast with brutal winds and booming surf. But even in calmer periods, the landscape feels untamed, an unpredictable theatre of darkened skies, crashing waves and howling gusts.