The south of England: a hop, a skip and a jump

Fowey, Falmouth, Pendennis ...

On Magda Vorster's recommendation we stopped at Fowey, a small town and cargo port in south Cornwall,  on the evening of 22 May 2014.  

What a lovely town

Look at the very old glass in these windows!

We walked through the narrow streets - meant for two-way traffic!

The four of us on the quay.

A sailboat in the port, which houses a yacht club.

The next morning we stopped at a small shop which housed a post office to mail a post card to the family in South Africa.  The service was excellent. 

Our next stop was Falmouth, a bigger port where Darwin arrived aboard the Beagle on the 2nd of October 1836.   

The post office where we stopped.

There are big ships in the dock yard in
Falmouth

We were impressed by the huge mobile cranes.

After Falmouth we stopped at Pendennis where Henry VIII built the first fortifications in the sixteenth century.  Today one can still visit the castle, called Cornwall's greatest fortress, which was built a century later.

Pendennis castle

A gateway to the castle

We walked all the way around the castle.  There was a group of school children enacting mock battles.  

From the castle we travelled to the most southerly point of the British mainland called the Lizard. The scenery is amazing.  It was spring when we visited and there were flowers and rabbits, but these were completely overshadowed by what felt like the craggy edges of the world.

Spring flowers

Rabbits in the fields

 

The scenery is unbelievably beautiful.





This was still not the end of the day's journey.  Our last stop was to be St Michael's Mount.  We should have been dog tired, but this castle on an island to which one can walk at low tide had us very excited all over again.

The walkway to St Michael's Mount at low tide

The castle

This is such a special place that we were not really surprised to find that the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh had visited it a year before in May 2013.

Our footprints would not also be set in stone, but at least we have the photo.

From here we still had to travel to Penzance to spend the night.  What an unforgettable day.

The Eden Project

Gardens in domes

When Kevin said he really wanted to visit the Eden Project we just knew that we had to do so as well. Our friend, Magda Vorster, lives in Exeter these days and she agreed to come along.  We expected to find large domes but were still surprised by the geodesic biodomes.  They were built on the site of a former china clay pit. 

The main exhibits are in two big domes, one for the Tropics and the other for the Mediterranean.  It was raining and cool when we visited, but inside it is either really hot - the Tropics - or quite pleasant - the Mediterranean.  One can really escape from the outside conditions while enjoying the huge variety of plants arranged to form forests and pleasant gardens. 

On our way in

Two views of the domes

We aimed for the Tropics on entering, at first enjoying the heat.  Inside the vegetation is impossibly lush with the forest extending over several levels.

A house like people would use in the Tropics

One can even go for a canopy walk

Sculpture is used everywhere in the Project.  

A visit to the Eden Project is expensive so we wanted to make the most of it, but after an hour or so in the heat we just had to get out.  Luckily we could then head for the Mediterranean dome.  

We just had to stop for tea.  This little shop is in the Mediterranean dome,

The outside gardens represent  biomes from moderate climates.  Here too one finds really interesting sculptures.

A beautiful horse made from driftwood

A honey bee in the outside garden

The WEEEman made from our trash

Magda and I had a lot of catching up to do, but soon we had to go our separate ways.  

Magda and I in the lovely outside garden.

Kevin, Magda, Madeleine and Pieter

Charlestown near St Austell, Cornwall

 Stop for the night in Charlestown

On our way to Penzance we stopped in Charlestown.  Our friends had rented a really beautiful apartment for us for the night. 

Waterwheel Apartments

The view from the lounge

Of course we had to walk down to the little harbour.  

A lovely statue of Neptune the Sea God in aid of the Children's Hospice which we encountered on the way down to the harbour.

A view of one side of the harbour

Looking out over the bay

Several activities were taking place at the harbour.  There were rowing teams, people bathing and walking on the beach.

We, Madeleine, Pieter and I were enjoying the evening and watching everybody else.

A day on the moor

Dartmoor, stuff of legend

On the 21st of May 2014 we were off again through the country lanes.  This time we headed for Devon, more specifically for Dartmoor National Park.  Now a national park in England has people living there on farms and even in towns.  Finding large tracts of relatively uninhabited land is not realistic, everybody has walking rights in these parks and on these farms though.

Country lanes

A forest in Dartmoor

Farmland as seen from a rocky hilltop (called a tor)

We stopped near one of the granite hilltops on the moor.  Hiking across the moor is a popular pastime; there are unmarked hiking trails from tor to tor. We didn't see any hikers, but encountered groups of aspiring, young mountaineers undergoing training.  On this day both these activities sounded like very pleasant outings. Where was the forbidding landscape mentioned in the novel by Nevil Shute or the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie? Our friends assured us that the area was prone to bad weather and did not look inviting when it was foggy or rained. It also gets very cold out on the moor.

Pieter and Kevin on the rocks.

The four of us.

We travelled on to a popular picnic spot next to the river Dart. On our way we encountered a number of sheep.

Kevin decided a bit of paddling was in order, so of course we joined him. The water was really cold but quite refreshing in the midday heat.

There used to be an old rock bridge here but it has either fallen or been dismantled.

Even the bridge in use at this stage is already quite old.

On our way to Princetown we saw some Dartmoor hill ponies.  One can see that they, like the sheep, have adapted for the cold because they all have heavy coats of wool.

Princetown is the home of Dartmoor Prison, completed in 1809.  Its high granite walls are impossible to miss, but getting a picture proved difficult.  There is just nowhere to stop near the prison.

The prison gates

Princetown

Once again we enjoyed the English sense of humour.