The Deep Time Walk: A 4.6 Billion-Year Journey

Step into the Story of Earth on the Cliffs of North Cornwall

Most walks cover miles; this one covers eons. In just over two hours, we will walk the entire 4,600,000,000-year history of our planet. Starting from the formation of the solar system to the present day, every step you take represents a million years of drama, catastrophe, and evolution.

This is a private, guided experience for the curious mind.

⏳ The "Deep Time" Experience

This isn't just a geology lesson—it is a physical experience of our place in the universe, set against the backdrop of North Cornwall’s ancient slate and volcanic rock.

• The Scale: We walk 4.6km (approx. 3 miles). The first 4 kilometers represent the slow, roiling dawn of Earth. The history of complex life, the dinosaurs, and the arrival of humans all happen in the final few hundred meters.

• The Landscape: There is no better place to see "Deep Time" than at The Rumps. As we walk, I will point out the physical evidence in the cliffs—the folding of continents and the cooling of ancient lavas that you can touch.

• The Perspective: By the time we reach the end of our path, you won't just see a "pretty view"—you’ll see a living, breathing planet that has survived five mass extinctions.

🌍 Why This Walk Is Different

• The "Human Moment": In the final 20 centimeters of our walk, we cover all of recorded human history. It is a profound, humbling moment that changes the way you look at the horizon.

• Storytelling, Not Lecturing: I don't just give you dates; I tell the stories of the "Great Oxygenation," the "Snowball Earth," and the tectonic collisions that created Cornwall.

• The Modern Connection: We’ll discuss the "Anthropocene"—our current era—and what the future of this coastline looks like in the grand scale of Deep Time.

💰 Why It’s Worth Your Booking

• Expert Guidance: You are paying for a curated narrative that connects global history to local Cornish landmarks.

• The Ultimate "Digital Detox": This walk is designed to pull you out of your daily stresses and put your life into a cosmic perspective.

• Bespoke & Private: No crowded groups. This can be a one-on-one or small-group conversation tailored to your level of interest.

Booking Details Call 01748 646 1998 

Private Tour Pricing

All walks are exclusive to your party. You won’t be joined by strangers, allowing us to focus entirely on your interests, your pace, and your photography.

• Solo Explorer: £60

• Two People: £80 (Save £40)

• Three People: £90 (Only £30 per person)

• Four People: £100 (Only £25 per person)

• Groups of 5 to 8: £120 (Best Value – fixed group rate)

The "Big Group" Advantage: For groups of five or more, the price is capped at a flat £120. Whether you are a family of five or a photography club of eight, this offers the best value for a premium, private Cornish coastal experience.

• Distance: 4.6 km (The "Time-Scaled" Route)

• Duration: 2.5 – 3 Hours

• Includes: A "Time-Scale" guide sheet to take home and a deep-dive into the geology of Pentire Head.

The moon's already broken away but now, 4100 million years ago, there’s just ocean. You’ve walked a long way already (well half a km) but Baby Bay's not far. 

If you are walking in winter then you may have just walked a rather muddy path down from the orchard and NT carpark so I am hoping that you have worn appropriate footwear! 

BBC's  "Richard Hammond's Journey To the centre of the Planet" is a useful TV documentary that explains graphically the importance of the early formation of the earth.

Some locals call Pentire Haven, Stinky Bay, so perhaps it's easy to remember that Bacteria come in around here 3400 MYA (million years ago) and we have an awful lot to be grateful for that they did. Afterall you are more bacteria than you are you! Easy to forget this and other amazing things about bacteria.

1) Older Than Dirt (Really!)

Bacteria has been on the planet for more than 3.5 billion years old, making them the oldest known life-form on earth.

2) They’re Fast

A bacterium can typically move about 100 times its body length in a second. To put that into perspective, a large fish can move only about 10 times its body length in the same time.

3) You Eat It

That yogurt you ate this morning? That’s made with bacteria. Many snacks like yogurt, cheese, Kimchi, and miso are all made with bacteria.

4) Most Are Good

Your body has far more bacterial cells than human cells. They help with processes such as digestion and they defend your body from bad bacteria. Of all the bacteria in the world, less than 1 percent will make you sick.

5) They Go For Light Years

Lined up from end to end, bacteria would stretch out around 10 billion light years. That’s the distance from here to the edge of the universe.

6) Discovered in 1674

They weren’t discovered until 1674, when Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek spotted them as he was looking at scrapings from the human mouth under a newly invented microscope.

7) They Adapt Fast

Bacteria adapts quickly, making it hard to find an antibiotic that will work consistently. If you take antibiotics too often, bacteria can become resistant. This is why people with a long history of antibiotic use should undergo household testing to ensure there are no harmful bacteria present.

 They’re Single-Celled

Bacterium (single bacteria) are made up of only one simple cell.

9) Unique Shape

Bacteria is most frequently shaped like a sphere, rod, or spiral. Some bacteria varies, and can be shaped like a comma or corkscrew.

10) They’re Tough

Different bacteria can survive in a variety of extreme conditions. From ice to hot springs, and even radioactive waste.

Ref https://www.novatx.com/household.../10-fast-facts-bacteria/ 

Coming up the slightly tricky bit of path out of Stinky Bay (Pentire Haven), you’ll see that this old wall boundary is where our testament (fossil record) starts... 3200 MYA 

First Continents 3100 MYA. Stone on the post by the re- fenced-off collapsed cavern at Gravel Caverns. I remember when the cave below fell in some 8 years ago and how fast the sea was at taking away the entire contents of the roof from a huge pile on the gravel beach. Cornwall, you might be surprised to know was up on the equator at the time of the first continents!

Between one billion and 620 million years ago, the continental crust that would one day be known as Britain formed tiny parts of a giant supercontinent called Rodinia (approximately 500 million years before the formation of Pangaea, a later supercontinent). All of Britain was south of the equator, with some parts as far as 60 degrees, further than Australia and the southernmost tip of South America today. The rifting or splitting apart of this supercontinent began around 760 million years ago to form a second supercontinent continent known as the ‘Vendian’ supercontinent.

Ref https://www.open.edu/.../britains-billion-year-journey 

What a truly amazing thing this was!

The process of photosynthesis is commonly written as: 6CO2 + 6H2O → C6H12O6 + 6O2.

This means that the reactants, six carbon dioxide molecules and six water molecules, are converted by light energy captured by the chlorophyll in green leaves into a sugar molecule and six oxygen molecules.

Those products of photosynthesis changed meant the world to us and the world as we know it. A little further along the path we get to a point where it says Gaia and we had a living earth that was self regulating!

Much, much later on we'll have a world where the O2 levels reach the sort of levels needed for animals, us included. We need the atmosphere to contain about 19 percent O2 to survive.

Every cell in an animal requires oxygen to perform cellular respiration. Cellular respiration is the process by which animals take in O2 and exchange it for CO2.

Even a fish will drown if it can't breathe O2 under water. Dissolved oxygen (DO) refers to the oxygen gas that is dissolved in water. Fish absorb the DO directly from the water into their bloodstream through their gills as anyone with a fishtank will tell you.

O2 burns the food within any animal's body and releases energy for various activities. Half of the world's oxygen is produced via phytoplankton photosynthesis. The other half is produced via photosynthesis on land by trees, shrubs, grasses, and other plants.  

It is estimated that 6% of Earth's land surface is covered by lichen and they can survive in the most extreme places...here on Pentire Head it gets quite a hammering in the winter and in the summer very dry at times.

Lichens are a symbiotic collection of fungi and cyanobacteria or algae. The fungi provide a moist, sheltered habitat for the cyanobacteria or algae, and, in turn, they provide food for the fungi.  Cyanobacteria, also called blue-green algae, are microscopic organisms found naturally in all types of water. These single-celled organisms live in fresh, brackish and sea water. Because, unlike other bacteria, they contain chlorophyll they can use sunlight to make their own food and share it with fungi if they want to combine to make Lichen!

Algae are defined as a group of predominantly aquatic, photosynthetic, and nucleus-bearing organisms that lack the true roots, stems, leaves, and specialized multicellular reproductive structures of plants.

If you have been on The Deep Time Walk with me you'll know that photosynthesis came in all the way back near Cowrie Bay and that Lichens, amazingly, are on the home straight to Pentire Farm well before the world as we know it that comes in (near the carpark at the Old Lead Mines) with the Cambrian Explosion.

Did you spot in the pictures above:

A sunburst lichen on the hawthorn growing on the coast path 

Ramalina siliquosa, also known as sea ivory, is a tufted and branched lichen with a colour that my wife wants to use to paint some walls. 

A Cornish hedge is a style of hedge built of stone and earth found in Cornwall, south-west England. Sometimes hedging plants or trees are planted on the hedge to increase its windbreaking height. A rich flora develops over the lifespan of a Cornish hedge. The Cornish hedge contributes to the distinctive field-pattern of the Cornish landscape, and form the county's largest semi-natural wildlife habitat.  This one being totally exposed to the wild west winds on the exposed north coast is treeless but contains plants like thrift or sea pink, grasses and of course some wonderful lichen. 

Alan Titchmarch came to North Cornwall to study the lichen on St Genny's church at Crackington Haven? IWalk Cornwall probably know but I could find no reference on their walk information except that :"Lichens are a partnership of two different organisms: a fungus providing the "accommodation" and an alga or cyanobacterium providing the "food" through photosynthesis. The fungal partner provides a cosy, sheltered environment for the alga and tends it with mineral nutrients. However, the alga partner is more than simply an imprisoned food-slave: it is such a closely-evolved alliance that the fungus is dependent on the alga for its shape and structure. If the fungal partner is isolated and grown on an agar plate, it forms a shapeless, infertile blob." 

Truly Fantistic Fungi. Early mult-cellular fungi 1500 MYA were around so much longer than you can imagine unless you do this walk!

Evidence from DNA analysis suggests that all fungi are descended from a most recent common ancestor that lived at least 1.2 to 1.5 billion years ago. It is probable that these earliest fungi lived in water, and had flagella.

The earliest terrestrial fungus fossils, or at least fungus-like fossils, have been found in South China from around 635 million years ago. The researchers who reported on these fossils suggested that these fungus-like organisms may have played a role in oxygenating Earth's atmosphere in the aftermath of the Cryogenian glaciations.

About 250 million years ago fungi became abundant in many areas, based on the fossil record, and could even have been the dominant form of life on the earth at that time.  They possibly still are!   According to the first big assessment of the state of the world's fungi, the fungal kingdom is vital to life on Earth. Yet, more than 90% of the estimated 3.8 million fungi in the world are currently unknown to science. Fungi represent about 25% of the biomass on Earth. Most fungi are too small to see. A single fungal filament is 10 times thinner than a human hair. Today our world is visually dominated by animals and plants, but would not have been possible without fungi. 

We’re just about back but so much of what we think is Earth’s History is packed into the last few steps of your walk! This stone says "First Primates 50 MYA and now you just have to grab a coffee and trace the last steps of the walk back into the orchard. Everything we think we know seems to happen now!

Perhaps this is a good time to reflect on on our rather skewed view of our self-importance! Hopefully your deep time walk will at least have made you think. Maybe we are more important now than we have ever been? Maybe you are and have an role to play in the unfolding story of life on earth. Who knows!

I hope too that you have enjoyed your deep time walk.  You have certainly been walking around one of the most beautiful parts of the North Cornwall coast.  It's a good place to renew and perhaps also a good place to appreciate something profound about your beautiful planet.

Feel free to call me if you’ve got questions