Pensagillas Park

Pensagillas Park has tourist information on site if you’re stuck for info on what to do, but any problem you're likely to have will be trying to narrow your list down... Pensagillas is at the busy St Austell and one of the closest parks to one of Cornwall’s biggest attractions, the mighty Lost Gardens of Heligan (1.6 miles).

Leave the car behind and reach Heligan by the Pentewan Valley Trail which links St Austell to the gardens and to Pentewan via a scenic valley; you can hire bikes on the trail or take to the water at Pentewan which has a fine beach and two sailing clubs with boats for hire (there’s also a St Austell Ales pub here for real ale adorers).

Use several more bike routes around Pensagillas and Pentewan to reach more top Cornish attractions: the fishing port of Mevagissey with fish and chip shops for the casual and top fish restaurants for the connoisseur; the clay trails around St Austell; the old port of Charlestown with its Shipwreck and Heritage Centre; and the huge Eden Project less than seven miles away from Pensagillas, where discounted tickets are available to those who arrive by pedal power.

Mountain bikers and the energetic should beetle towards the bike routes of Bodmin Moor, taking a pitstop at Jamaica Inn, an almost essential stop in these parts. The inn, the setting of Daphne du Maurier’s smuggling novel of the same name, has a museum telling the tales of Cornish smugglers throughout the centuries, and apparently several ghosts too.

Natch there are sandy beaches, beauteous bays and tiny villages handy all around too, or take the kids to fly at the Cornish theme parks and play centres peppered around the county: Flambards at Helston, Kidz World at St Austell and Springfields Fun Park and Pony Centre at St Columb should keep small ones out of mischief for three trips at least, with the Crealy Great Adventure Park probably OK for another two.