Onwards and upwards

Phew! What a long day! What was supposed to only be a short drive turned into a seriously long haul. Not helped by our lack of motorway usage, I'm sure.

A few additions to the Cornwall set, as well as some more in the Misc Photos set:

Cornwall: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/
Misc Photos: https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157645709737341/

After saying goodbye to our friends in St. Austell, we ventured north towards Tintagel. Tintagel is the home of the castle that 'is no longer a castle' - all the ruins have degraded over the years to leave barely anything left intact. The area contains many legendary locations of Arthurian legend - Dozmary Pool, where Excalibur was dropped in the lake, Merlin's cave, where Merlin became Emrys and met King Arthur for the first time, and King Arthur's grave.

We busied ourselves instead with the Tintagel Old Post Office. It had many different uses during its day, but the locals named it so in the early 20th century, and the name stuck, despite its purpose changing several times after:

Tintagel Old Post Office

We also got the chance to relive a much older experience of hostelling around Europe when I travelled here with my dad in 2004. We stayed at a dramatically-set Youth Hostel, right on the north coast of Cornwall, with magnificent views over the windswept coastline:

North Cornish coast

From there it was mostly a stop-free trip to Trowbridge, a town outside Bath, where we would stay overnight. We detoured by the coastal road, along the north coast of Cornwall, which turned into Devon, which turned into Somerset. Along the way there were many spectacular photo points. Even though it was a little hazy, you could see all the way to the coast of South Wales:

The English coast

Tomorrow's day of travelling will be quite long, with a couple of important stops. I'm going to break my pattern and have a blog for each day! Until tomorrow.

Dinner with friends

A rather relaxing day today. We had some errands to run in St. Austell, so that was first up on the list. Our friends had asked if we would like to go to another coastal town for dinner tonight, which we readily agreed to.

Cornwall on Flickr is now complete:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/

We only had a very short amount of time in St. Austell. We literally only had a couple of things to do, but I still took the camera to see if there was anything to see. I managed to get some photos off, but not a lot. I also managed to find some clothes at a store having a 70% off sale. Slacks and two tees for 15 quid!

St. Austell town centre

After much delaying, I also went to a local barber and got a haircut. It was a chilly walk back to our friends' place from the barber! Another interesting thing is that so much is expensive here in the UK, but the equivalent of $15 is considered very expensive for a barber haircut.

After a rather relaxed and unhurried afternoon, we headed out to Charlestown for dinner. We'd decided on a pub that had gone 'upmarket', much to our older friends' distaste. They had still had good food there though. Charlestown is another really lovely picturesque town on the Cornish south coast. There were photo opportunities galore, even for only a half-hour or so:

Charlestown in the afternoon

Dinner was at a place called the Rashleigh. I decided on an exotic salad, while there was also a Ploughman's (a farmer's typical plate of mixed food), some fish, and a steak thrown in the mix:

Dinner at the Rashleigh

After dinner we cruised a bit further down the coast, to where the Charlestown well-off live. It was a true "Millionaire's Row", with so many houses with unhinged views of the coast. We also made it down to a local beach, where construction of an improvement market has been on hold for 15 years after protests from said millionaires. Still some decent views though:

The rich and well to-do

So we did end up doing a bit today! Tomorrow is the first of two days driving from here in St. Austell to a small cottage just north of Brighton. Until the next time!

Lost and found

We decided to think locally again today. The weather wasn't that much better than yesterday. We again decided to visit a couple of local attractions.

Cornwall on Flickr:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/

First up were the Lost Gardens of Heligan. The gardens have a rich backstory - they completely disappeared after the Great War, when the four gardeners were killed in action after being enlisted. It became overgrown and forgotten until it was rediscovered in the 1990s and restored to its original splendour.

There are several parts to the garden, catering to all parts of the family - there's all sorts of rare and exotic plants and plenty of more common plants like hydrangeas. There's also a small area devoted to farming, including animals, and a jungle area with a rope bridge to walk across. Here are some photos from the gardens:

The Lost Gardens of Heligan

We got back in the car after that and headed down to Mevagissey. It's a small harbour town with plenty of small shops and rustic Cornish charm. The smell of Cornish pasties wafted all through the town. It was really unfair. It's still quite photogenic however - the colour of the sea was really nice:

Harbourside in Mevagissey

After that we headed back to St. Austell, where we cooked some Cornish pasties we had bought. They were so big that we only managed a half a one each! Guess what's for lunch or dinner tomorrow night!

Tomorrow is non-negotiable - we WILL be going further down the coast! Until next time.

The poor cousin

Today was fine and sunny, thank goodness! Just in time for our visit to St. Michael's Mount, with a visit on the return trip to Trelissick Gardens.

I will reorganise my Cornwall set on Flickr so that some good ones from today are up the top. For now, you'll have to scroll down:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/81692166@N05/sets/72157646225135997/

I had a bonus start to the day today. The usual combination of muesli, yoghurt and a bit of bread was complemented by some blackberries - dad found a big plant near Mevagissey yesterday and picked a whole kilo's worth. Some extra goodness for the long day ahead of us.

The drive down to St. Michael's Mount was fairly uneventful, taking about an hour. St. Michael's Mount is almost literally the poorer cousin when compared to Le Mont Saint Michel, on the northern French coast (been there, done that!). It's not nearly as popular though, so when we parked at a charity car park and walked to the ferry pick-up point, it wasn't too long to wait. We were a bit unlucky with the tide times, as the tide was up for the whole day. When the tide is out, you can walk across a causeway to the mount. Not today though:

The mount from afar

There were far, FAR less people there than at the French version, but still quite a few. It was fairly tolerable, as there were almost no shops or other things down the bottom, and the crowd thinned out considerably near the top of the mount:

The harbour part of the mount

We got in free as National Trust members, so we were also able to visit the castle at the top. It contains quite a few rooms, including a separate church which has been visited by Charles and Camilla, and even Elizabeth II! We reckon they got them up via the secret underground tramway that was added in 1901 and has been used ever since to transport the locals' groceries up to the castle:

Castle interior

From the top of the castle, you have sweeping views of the area, from Penzance and Mousehole in the west all the way around to Lizard Point in the east. The sky and water were both a beautiful shade of blue all day:

The view from the top of the mount

After a wander around the whole place, we headed back on the ferry to the mainland, and wandered through the town right across the harbour, Marazion. It's a gimmicky tourist town, which gets most of its business from the mount:

Marazion town

We then headed back to Trelissick Gardens, just south of Truro. I had to use Google Maps as our SatNav chucked a hissy fit and firmly believed we were heading over hill and over dale. The gardens are not really spectacular (I would have preferred to visit Kynance Cove, which is a spectacular rock formation on the sea), but instead rather spread out and relaxing. It was another National Trust property though, so I supposed we are getting our money's worth out of that. There's also a conservatory, a water tower and an orchard:

Trelissick Gardens

That pretty much sums up the day. Tomorrow is our last day in Cornwall - it's going to be a rest day, though we will go into St. Austell town proper and run some errands. I need a haircut, it's been nearly 3 months!