While nothing may seem to be more typically English than a spot of Cornish clotted cream, Newquay, on Cornwall’s Atlantic coast, with its endless sandy beaches and focus on surfing, has a distinctly Australian flavour.
Within hours of landing at Newquay airport — only 45 minutes from Gatwick — I became blas? about the barefoot wetsuited figures padding along the road, giving the town a slightly surreal Home and Away feel.
Newquay attracts its fair share of second-home buyers, though they tend to be City boys with a weekend surf habit rather than the Range Rover-and-retriever set that congregates on the nearby Rock to Padstow ferry. A glut of new apartment blocks catering to the urban surfer market was stopped in its tracks last year