July 6th-7th 2007
Had brunch with Mario and the rest of the guests early the morning after the wedding at a cute little cubby hole in some random alley where the server/cook didn't even know how to make eggs properly. I'm surprised they were still in business. Regardless, an interesting experience. Once breakfast was done it was time for me to move on. On the ferry ride back, called the Enterprise, to Falmouth I got chummy with the captain and he let me drive/ride/steer ... whatever you do to a boat, like the whole way and at the end I even parked the thing in the harbor. If the other passengers only knew they had moi behind the wheel!!! Hahaha My mission for the day was to get to Saint Michaels mount. I managed to get a bus pass good for a week with unlimited usage for certain areas at a great price so I could stop anywhere and not feel it in my wallet. Saint Michaels Mount has over 1000 years of history and is very well preserved with several antiques to see. The gardens surrounding the castle are gorgeous and there are even some homes with residents living
ON the island (must be expensive) The castle itself has no one living in it. You can walk over to it at low tide following a cobblestone walkway or if you miss the low tide you can take a ferry over. I really wanted to experience walking it because it was the perfect day with the sun shining and it was nice n warm. The trekk to the Mountain was fine but the walk up to the castle was a little tough. Steep at times but mostly just long. Don't remember how long it took to get there but it was worth it just for the view from the top.
After I got my kick from seeing my first medival castle ever I had to get outta there and get to the town where my hostel was, Penzance. The moment I checked in and walked into my room to unpack this girl asked me if I was doing anything that night and I was like, no, not yet. So she invited me to go clubbing with a couple of other backpacker girls. Didn't have much to wear but that didn't matter - neither did they but we found a
really cool club rumoured to be good by a local. Lots of blue lights and two floors it reminded me of Unity back in Montreal for it's ambiance. We decided to stay but the other girls left, oh, btw the girl who picked me up, her name is Sue and she's a Kiwi backpacking like all the rest of the kiwis on the planet it seems. So we stayed for a bit finding a spot to order some drinks and before long some blokes came to join us and entertain us with their silliness. All in the name of fun!!!! I had a great time and it was the first and only club I went to in the UK. Sue and I got back to our hostel at an ungodly time and passed out. Next day we decided to stick together and travel to lands end seeing as we were going in the same direction and two is always better than one. At that point I was a little sick of travelling alone and realize that I don't like it very much. You get to experience all these new things and turn around to smile, and share and realize you
have no one to share the moment with so from now on I'll try to travel with at least one buddy to make it exciting. So we hopped onto a coach and made our way to the Minack Theater. http://www.minack.com/ This theater is really, really cool because it's an outdoor theater constructed with stone from the cliffs it sits on. There's nothing much to it. Kinda looks like a theater you'd find in Rome or something back in the day. There are plays that go on but we had bad timing and couldn't stay to watch one. On our way to the Theater we had to trekk quite a distance along the beach/coastal line but it was GORGEOUS scenery. Surprising coming from the uk. We also came across a Loo of the year award Loo. How crazy is that?? I didn't know they had awards or even rated their toilets but hey ... keeps them super clean for competitions sake cuz if I was a loo owner I know I would want my loo to be awarded at least 4 stars!! Once we were done enjoying the scenery off the edge of a cliff we took a very long hike
along the coast to the very tip of Lands End. This is the most Westerly point of England and again I couldn't fathom the fact that I was in England witnessing these beautiful scenes with my own eyes. The variations of blue in the ocean ... it was as if I was peering at it from Australia or from Thailand (so I've heard cuz I've never been) The sand was a little rough and granular unlike the soft, fine sands of Oz but still awesome in it's own way. Well, like I said it was a long trekk and we actually had plans to catch a coach to St Ives and we were getting a little worried we weren't going to make it so we decided to try and hitch hike. That was a first for me and I didn't think I would ever do it. Too risky but we weighed the pros and cons and you know, we're two and if we stick together we could handle ourselves so we stuck our thumbs out in the universal signal of PLEASE PICK ME UP!!!! And lo and behold, not long after a woman and her kid pulled over and let
us in. So, so nice of her. She wouldn't take any money we offered and she dropped us off right at Lands End doorstep. I was slightly dissappointed by Lands End seeing as it's such a touristy place to visit when in the UK or at least I thought but once I got there I found myself thinking 'This is it??? I came all this way to see this?' As my picture suggests, all there was was a refreshment shop and a few benches, some binoculars you of course had to pay for to see the view and the sign that people were actually charging you to take a picture next to so I took a pic of the sign with my invisible friend next to it for free. That works. I loved the adventure of getting there though and the adventure of getting away from there because once we got our fill of the scenery we were once again backpacking along the coastal hiking path to our bus that will take us to Saint Ives. Again, another grueling couple of hours with our full packs on our backs!! Troopers I tell ya. We were troopers!!
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