Cornwall: Walking the Lizard peninsula Then there are the wild relatives of crop plants: sea beet; the scarce wild chives, a whirl of flat, wiry spikes; and the wild asparagus, so rare nationally that it has its own species action plan. Botanists would probably prefer its hideaway here to be a secret, but as it is marked on every map as Asparagus Island, I don't think I am giving anything away. So, with a clearer idea of what to look out for - and what their names were - I set off from the Mullion Cove Hotel next morning (and no surprise to learn that Enid Blyton once stayed there - the cove harbour could have sprung from a Famous Five adventure, right down to the Kirrin-like island offshore). Even without ginger beer, it was a glorious spring day; the sun high and warm, the sea flat. It is one of the most popular stretches of the South West coastal path, yet I had it virtually to myself all the way back to Kynance. It was empty, but not quiet. The eerie, whistling drone of a glider turning overhead competed with the squabbling squawks of black-backed gulls nesting on the ledges of Predannack Cliffs, as I strolled across grass springy as carpet and almost as short, punctured by outcropping rocks. Violets peered from the grass and primroses still flowered in sheltered gullies. Tussocks of thrift showed pink, clumps of sea campion white, while a blue blush of spring squill spread across the headlands. They grow low because of the wild maritime climate, and they bloom early to beat the thin soil drying out in high summer, but the reason they cling on and thrive here is geological. This area of the Lizard is an outcrop of serpentine, an infertile volcanic rock pushed up from the Earth's mantle, which prevents bolder plants crowding them out. It is beautiful rock, too - dark green and purple-brown, polished to a shiny patina by passing feet on the stone stiles. The boggier bits of the path are pocked with the hoof prints of the Red Devon cattle that are used to mow encroaching undergrowth. And this also suits another, even more elusive rarity. The chough, a red-billed crow and aerial acrobat, perches on the county coat of arms but vanished from Cornwall itself in 1973. A few returned here 10 years ago - possibly blow-ins from Brittany - but I'd never seen one. Nearing Lizard Point, a pair wheeled up the cliff-face and danced over my head, before dropping back to their nest in a crevice opposite the café, where the Cornwall Chough Project has set up an observation lookout. After admiring the hottentot fig draped in showy carpets down the slopes (another of those creeping invaders) and a solitary grey seal staring back, I detoured through Lizard village for the near-obligatory Ann Muller pasty stop. Out again, past Marconi's wireless station - a clapboard shed where he first demonstrated that radio waves could travel farther than you could see - and the whitewashed Lloyd's Signal Station - where they depended on flags and lamps. East of Lizard Point is lusher, more sheltered, thick with cow parsley and periwinkle, bright with bluebells. An incongruously large, crane appeared to have grown in a field, part of the rebuilding of the Lizard Lifeboat station in Kilcobben Cove. And a mile or two beyond, the pretty whitewash-and-thatch fishing village of Cadg with - and a pint in the Cove Inn - is my own favourite, not exactly secret but usually deserted destination. Just off the coastal path at Poltesco are the isolated ruins of the Lizard Serpentine Company factory, the centre of a brief 19th-century industrial flurry. The craze for the polished stone took off in the 1840s when Queen Victoria and Prince Albert commissioned serpentine fixtures and fittings for Osborne House, their seaside palace in the Isle of Wight - putting it on trend for the next few decades. The factory shut down in the 1890s, but serpentine turning still survives locally as a cottage industry, producing souvenir paperweights and the ubiquitous lighthouses. The factory's former warehouse and the round capstan house next door are still standing, but the rest is reduced to low walls and rubble . The small shingle beach is the perfect place for an afternoon doze before heading back. The Lizard is a network of hamlets and scattered farms, where everyone once walked; the web of ancient footpaths means you can drop off the coastal route almost anywhere, and I turned inland between hedgerows foaming with May blossom and edged with acid-green alexanders. That evening, back at the hotel, the setting sun over West Penwith laid another, golden, path across a pewter sea to my window. Why be anywhere but here in early summer?  Martin Jackson stayed at the Mullion Cove Hotel, Mullion (01326 240328, mullion-cove.co.uk), with a clifftop setting, right on the coast path; bed and breakfast from £60 to £160 per person a night, depending on room and season. The hotel is offering new five-night guided coastal walking breaks this year, hosted by Tony Downing, a Cornishman and local Blue Badge guide. The next break will run from next Sunday (May 5, 2013), and will involve walks of between six and 10 miles a day, taking in the best of the Cornish coast path; from £520 per person, half board.