Exploring Cornwall

So many exciting places, so little time

We spent two nights in the Youth Hostel in Penzance, a former Georgian mansion.  Penzance is at the south-westerly tip of England and has long been associated with pirates and plunder, but also stone circles of which I used to believe there to be only the one at Stonehenge.  It turns out there are many.

The youth hostel is housed in a really grand old building, but we spent the two nights in the smallest room we have ever had to share.  We still had a really good time.

Can you imagine this building once having belonged to just one family?

 One can't help but feel grand on such a staircase.

The really tiny bedroom

We did not really spend much time exploring Penzance itself, but did manage to get some photos of a ship portraying pirates from a time long gone.

The pirates of Penzance are now the stuff of fantasy and stories.

We were going to drive all the way to Land's End. Our first stop was to admire a stone circle. 

Then we stopped in a quaint town called Mousehole (just do not pronounce it the way it looks).  We took some pictures of the picturesque tenement houses.

Off we went through country lanes to places deep in the countryside where very few people go.  The roads were always of a fairly good quality though.

The country lanes were for the sake of reaching Porthcurno, the site of a secret World War II underground telegraph station.  There is apparently an excellent museum there, the Porthcurno Telegraph Musem, but sadly on this day it was closed. Even so we could still walk through the sculpture garden and look at some old telegraph lines on the outside.  

Kevin looks at the old lines

A piece of sculpture representing waves

An old cable connection?

These wires connected England to India (a British colony of bygone days) and ran all the way beneath the ocean's surface.  Porthcurno was chosen because it was quiet and the cables would not be in the way so much.

An old cable still visible in the sand.

The concrete cable hut and in front of it a hut for life guards.

More recent is the Minack theatre right next to the beach used for the communications cables.  The theatre is built right into the cliffside.  Here an actor told us the story of Rowena Cade, who created the theatre. One can imagine no better place for a play such as "The Tempest".  

From here one can see the beach on the previous photo.

Pieter, Kevin and Madeleine watching the actor on stage.

We were told the story of Rowena Cade by the actor who told it as if he were Rowena's helper of many years.

Rowena Cade was responsible for the creation of the theatre.

A picture of Rowena (1893 -1983)

Kevin perched on one of the first seats made in the cliffside.

Day visitors are still walking about as the stage is being set up for a performance.

Minack is still not situated at the most westerly end of Cornwall, that honour is reserved for Land's End.  You need not worry that you will not recognise it.  Bikers, hikers and other visitors show up there in droves, some of them having completed journeys all the way from John o'Groats (at the other end of the UK in Scotland).  It was windy and a bit cold when we visited so we did not stay long.

After this we just had to stop for Cornish cream tea somewhere along the road.  This is one of the great joys of visiting England, there are always coffee shops where one can stop and relax.

Madeleine at the table with our teas.

So that you think should have concluded our day, but it did not, we still visited St Ives, a truly charming place.

The beach at St Ives

A really small shop

A pastime on the beach is to build stone towers with getting them as high as possible as the main aim.  Crowds gather to watch people good at this build towers.

Kevin negotiated skilfully through these streets - but golly they were really narrow, as Pieter shows here.

Looking back I realize that we benefitted immensely from the long spring days and of course from the hospitality of Kevin and Madeleine.

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.