St Austell is the nearest major town to Penhaven Touring Park, and only 3 miles from the campsite. Here you will find all the usual amenities including shops, restaurants, 5-screen cinema, and an excellent sports centre - Polkyth - with indoor heated swimming pool, fitness centre, sauna, badminton, squash and tennis. Tregorrick Park - home of St Austell Rugby Club - also has a fitness centre, squash courts, sauna and many fitness or martial arts classes. Tregorrick Park is the location of the County Table Tennis Centre and St Austell Tennis Club.

The town also boasts a selection of three 18-hole golf courses ; St Austell Golf Club, Carlyon Bay Golf Club and Porthpean Golf Course & Driving range. Porthpean is a Pay-and-Play course open to all.

Historically, St Austell was the centre of the China Clay industry, and the story of this unique Cornish product is told at Wheal Martyn Discovery Centre, just north of the town. At the moment, you can surf to their site www.wheal-martyn.com. As the construction of the Cornish Way is carried out, the Pentewan Valley cycle trail will link through St Austell directly to Wheal Martyn from Penhaven Touring Park.

A China Clay pit nearing the end of its productive life has been transformed by an innovative millenium project. The Eden Project has involved building the world's largest greenhouses - or biomes - to house different ecosystems and habitats from around the world. The largest biome - a sub-tropical climate zone - is large enough to contain the entire Tower of London and yet the structure is so light - 400 tons - that it weighs the same as the air within the biome!

The village and harbour of Charlestown also has strong link with the China Clay industry and St Austell's shipping heritage from times when road travel was an impossibility. Here, you can literally walk back in time, down Georgian streets to the harbour, home to the Square Sail Tall Ships. The village is a conservation area, and so unspoilt that it has been the location for many period television dramas and films featuring the sailing ships. The BBC's 'A Respectable Trade', and 'The Scarlet Pimpernel' both contain sequences filmed in Charlestown. The village and harbour's maritime history is preserved and recounted in the Charlestown Shipwreck, Rescue, and Heritage Centre.