From my base near Croyde in north Devon, the next stop on my road trip was Newquay in Cornwall.   I was staying in the great western hotel in Newquay, from here, I could explore a lot of Cornwall.

When In Newquay

My first full day in Newquay and the weather unabated, was awful.  Driving rain and wind all day.  Again not wanted to stay couped up in my hotel room I explored the town and the nearby beaches.  I bought some water proof trousers and a few hot Cornish pasties.

To check out my mobile phone snaps taken throughout the day follow this link around newquay cornwall.

Newquay Beaches

Newquay Bay is a series of small beaches and coves with the main stretch being from Towan beach to Lusty Glaze.  My hotel was directly over probably the best beach Great western.

Ordnance Survey online maps is always a great resource for finding your way around wind or shine when you are exploring a new place like Newquay or Cornwall.

I not take out my DLSR camera or tripod, too wet.  Just my compact and mobile.   Throughout the day it was very stormy.  Wearing a waterproof jacket, trousers and good boots made a lot of difference and kept the water out.

I was going to walk to Towan Head, but the day light hours are short late December and I was getting tired.  By the time I got to the harbour, the light was changing and the weather calming down.   From the harbour you can clearly see all the little coves and beaches that make up the seafront.  I decided to head back to Great Western to see if I could catch a sunset.

Great Western Beach Sunset

From the back of the great western hotel there are some good viewpoints over Newquay bay for capturing a sunset.  The sun and moon were setting behind me though rather in front.

The sky was rapidly changing colours from yellows and oranges to hues of red and purples.

I was taking a lot of snaps with just my canon compact, it was also very cold but quite beautiful to watch.

Exposing for the highlights, as it got darker, golden hour turned into blue hour, to get a good exposure I kept raising the ISO and lowering my aperture, focusing on infinity.

The above is a great video demonstrating how to expose for the highlights when the dynamic range of the scene is too great for your camera.

As the blue hour came to an end I was at least happy with some of the sunset photos I got on what was otherwise a very wet stormy day.  The Great Western hotel had a nice warm bar and restaurant where I could plan tomorrows landscape photography trip somewhere else in Cornwall.