2 days ago
I trekked to Cornwall's viral beach to see if influencers have ruined it
Outside the First and Last Inn, a jolly July day turns an angry grey.
'You know we've got some weather coming in don't you?' a concerned-looking Claire Dallaway, landlady of mainland Britain's most westerly pub, tells me.
She shows me the violent bands of purple sweeping across Land's End on her phone's weather app. It's due to make landfall in three hours. Good old British summertime.
I knew about the weather, of course. I also have a phone. In fact, in a round about sort of way, it's because of my little distraction machine that I'm here. I've come to Cornwall to trek to Nanjizal Bay, a secluded beach that's gone viral. 'TikTok beach,' Dallaway calls it.
I've come to find out if it's worth the schlep – and see whether social media has ruined it, like it ruins everything.
Racing the rain
Mindful of the incoming deluge, I skip a hot meal at the pub and instead buy a 'shrinkflation' Snickers and a pack of peanuts to take with me. I tell the girl serving me where I'm heading. 'I haven't been there since I was 10,' she says, looking double that.
Dallaway sends me off with directions: follow the main road out of Sennen, hang a left at the bottom of the hill, cross what looks like someone's front garden, hop over a stile, cut through a farm, over the heath and towards the sea. 'You can't miss it,' she says.
I heed her directions and soon find myself following a dry-stone wall, beyond which glum-looking campers erect tents in the hastening breeze. They make me feel better about walking into a storm without waterproofs. Tonight I'll be sleeping under Egyptian cotton and a slate roof, while they're flapping around in a gale. I walk on with a spring in my step, cracking into the peanuts which are gone by the time I reach the stile.
A well-worn path takes me across cow-pat strewn pastures and into a ploughed field. It's barren, pillaged land and I hear no birdsong until I reach the heath, where bullfinches twitter and a lone swallow flirts with a kestrel as it rides the breeze before nosediving to kill lunch.
Nanjizal Bay and a looming wall of dark cloud come into view. The beach looks nothing like the Seychelles-esque pictures I saw online. There's barely any sand to be seen, just choppy waters breaking on the shore and breaking on large, algae-covered rocks.
'This is the most boring beach ever,' shouts 11-year-old Owen Passmore, stomping past me and away from Nanjizal.
'He's just hungry – I only brought two snacks,' says his mother Kirsty, who lives locally and shrugs off Nanjizal's 'best beach in England' label. It's not even the best beach locally, she reckons. That'll be Porthgwarra. 'It's a proper swimming beach,' she adds, before rushing off after her boy.
Going viral
Far from being overrun with TikTokers, the bay is deserted, save for a man and his dog, and two 30-something hikers scrambling over some rocks.
The money-shot selfie that everyone wants at Nanjizal is of them swimming through the Song of the Sea, a narrow, rock-strewn cave pool that cuts through the cliffs to the left of the beach and out to sea. That or them walking across the white sand when the tide is out.
'I don't like the look of it,' says one of the hikers out on the rocks. His partner nods in agreement as she surveys the foamy water below. I look at their sensible hiking boots, the waterproof jackets zipped up to their chins, the earnest looks on their faces, and decide that I'm going in. Where exactly, to be confirmed.
@ventureuk By far the best beach we've come across in Cornwall 😳🏝 #traveluk #explore #fypシ #summer #ukhiddengems #placestovisit #roadtrip #cornwall #ukbeach ♬ Ophelia - The Lumineers
The hikers scramble back to the path, leaving me alone on the rocks. Seeking reassurance, I pull out my phone to check the tide times but there's no reception. I berate myself for trusting the internet over instinct and start reading the sea. I realise that the waters are retreating. I will not be smashed onto rocks by the surf.
I start fretting about visual content. If you don't have a picture, did it happen? I need a selfie befitting the setting. And then I remember the viral Instagram post of Mia Zelu in the stands at Wimbledon. It got 40,000 likes but turned out to be an AI deepfake, the kind of bot-generated sludge that's flooding the internet. She never went there, the influencer herself doesn't even exist.
I make a note to ask my mate Dan to instruct AI to fake a picture of me at Nanjizal later, for a laugh. What a time to be alive.
Feeling the breeze pick up, I plunge naked into the water, letting nature's icy grip shake some sense into me, and remind me of what's real. Surging with serotonin, I swim through the cave, looking up at its vertiginous walls which plummet into the pellucid waters around me. Nature humbles. And I'm alone with it.
Looking out of the cave at the other end is like peering through a giant crack in a wooden door. Through the gap I see waves crashing on the rocks, storm clouds barreling towards me. I swim back to my stuff and haul myself out of the water.
Sodden but high on nature, I skip back to the pub, cockily taking the scenic route along the South West Coast Path, which takes me via Land's End and its jarring exit-through-the-gift-shop naffness.
The heavens open as the First and Last Inn comes into view. I sprint up the road and burst into the pub. Dallaway is where I left her and welcomes me back with a smile. 'You made it,' she says.
