We left Fareham about 9:30 a.m. and headed due west along the M27 and then the A31. We are staying at the Seaview Chalet and Caravan Park near Helston. Actually we have neither a Chalet nor Caravan (trailer) but are staying in one of the several cottages they have for rent. We will be here until Saturday, June 26th. The cottage is self catering, two bedrooms, a kitchen/living room and bath. We have a tv but no phone. In fact, there is no telephone on the premises. After we hauled in all out luggage and groceries we decided to go for a drive and look the place over. We followed along the back roads looking for the end of the Lizard Peninsula and very soon we had no idea what-so-ever where we were, and could have cared less.
Cornwall is very beautiful. The back roads are about three quarters of a lane wide with the occasional lay-by (a wider spot in the road.). If you meet a car, I'm not quite sure what the rules are, but it's kind of like whoever loses the game of chicken gets to back up to the closest lay-by and let the other car pass. The roads are bordered by high hedges on both sides and full of blooming wildflowers. In places there are trees growing in the hedge rows and the branches meet over the road and form a lovely green tunnel. We drove down to several fishing harbors that were very picturesque. We wandered around until after dark, (the sunsets here about 10 p.m.) and after a few edgy moments in where we all had entirely different ideas where the Seaview Chalet and Caravan Park was, with more luck than a sense of direction we finally found it.
Wednesday, June 23, 1999 - during the morning Jenny worked on a project for her College course, I slept in and read, and Bob, the energetic one of the bunch went down the road and visited the Earth Station at Goonhilly. Goonhilly is the largest operational satellite station on earth and is one of four satellite earth stations in the UK. In the afternoon we traveled up to Wendrom and visited the Poldark Mine. I wanted to see this because I read most of the Poldark books. (Winston Graham) We ended up not touring the mine because it was long and steep and we were generally disappointed in the entire place. In our opinion, it just wasn't very well put together and definitely not worth the six pounds admission.
After we left there, we headed off to Penzance and Newlynn, a very small place but the busiest fishing port in the UK. We then visited a delightful little town called Mousehole, pronounced Mau-zell. We had a wonderful Cornish Creme Tea which consists of two scones, a big scoop of clotted creme and another large scoop of jam, served with tea, coffee, or in my case I had a cappuccino. Clotted cream is a disgusting name for one of the most delicious, decadent treats on the planet. It's pure creme, usually Jersey cream - it's so thick it's almost like butter. You lather it onto your scone really thick, top it off with strawberry jam and hey presto, that's a cream tea.
At this point it was about 6 p.m. and we had made plans to attend the Minack theater at Porthcurno. The performance didn't start until eight so we decided to drive down to Lands End which wasn't far away. Land's End is the most westerly point of England and the British mainland. The longest distance between two points in Britain is between Land�s End and John O'Groats in Scotland. The three of us had been to John O'Groats in June of 1995 and now we were at Land's End. We congratulated ourselves on having traveled the entire length of Britain together on holiday.
There is not much to see at Land�s End except beautiful scenery. The visitor's area is perched atop spectacular cliffs that line the Cornish coast line. There was a poignant little garden area with a plaque in memory of four ten and eleven year old schoolboys from Stoke Poges who, while on a school trip to Cornwall fell from the cliffs in 1985. The visitor's center was closed so we walked the paths along the cliffs. The view really is spectacular, there is just no other word that fits. We found a small restaurant with an outdoor deck where we had dinner and also where I snapped this view of the old lifeboat, boathouse. I also got a very nice picture of the lighthouse, but there are only so many photos that you can put on a page before it starts to look tacky. But take my word for it, it's a very fine lighthouse.
The Minack theater is a wonderful outdoor theater built into the side of a cliff. The brochure I have says it was built by a woman named Rowena Cade with her own hands. Unfortunately I somehow failed to gather more information on the building of the theater so that's all I know about it, aside from the fact that it has a spectacular backdrop, the Atlantic Ocean and the Cornish coastline. The play was Beware the Jabberwockey, written, produced and performed by students the Central School of Performing Arts who are based in London. It is loosely based on the poem The Jabberwockey by Louis Carrol in the story Alice in Wonderland. It was very well done and was a wonderful evening out.
Thursday, June 24 we had a kind of low key day (for us anyway) We drove up to Newquay in the afternoon, and as none of us are into the surfing scene we were not particularly interested in hanging around. One thing that was interesting however was that while strolling down one of the main streets I decided to pop into a book store and see if Through The Stones had been released over here yet. They said it would be out on July 8 so I will pick it up in Scotland. BUT, while looking it up in the computer, the clerk exclaimed "Look at this." to another clerk. It seems that Fiery Cross is listed in the W. H. Smith, Bookseller�s computer to be released in 2019! Let us all hope that someone over here made a typo! I'm not sure I�ll last that long.
After Newquay we drove down the coast the St. Ives. That was much more our style! Quaint little sea port, flowers every where and a brass band playing a concert on the Quay to raise money for the RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) this is the main sea rescue service throughout the UK and is manned totally by volunteers and all the boats and boathouses are funded by public subscription they receive no government money at all. We made it back to the cottage before dark since we had a big day planned for Friday.
On Saturday we packed up and headed for Ilfracombe in north Devon. On our way out of Cornwall we took one last drive through the countryside, took a few more pictures and finally made it down to the end of the Lizard Peninsula. We stopped at St. Austell where they have a large weekend flea market. I have been admiring the lovely lace curtains that grace the windows of most of the houses in this country. When I bought my house, I have never put up curtains in the dining room, planning to buy my curtains the next time I was here. I did. I got a lovely set of nets in the flea market and also bought a duvet cover for a friend. Then we hit the road seriously and arrived at our B&B about seven p.m..
I really enjoyed Cornwall. It was sort of sunnier, gentler Scotland. But it just doesn't have the "presence" that Scotland has. But a very close second best.