Cornwall 5 - St Austell/ a visit to the rain forest /b****** h**l is that the price? Deep in a china clay quarry


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February 28th 2017
Published: February 28th 2017
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We pondered this visit very hard . First we decided to go as it would be a good rainy day activity. Then we looked at the admission price . We could hardly believe the cost £25 each if we paid on the day on the door . There was a 10% discount for on line purchases . That took us down to £22.50 each which was still a lot of money. We slept on it. I checked every discount site known to man and found nothing better than our 10% on line offer. We slept again and thought no we are not spending that sort of money. Would we get the chance to do it again? Who knows? Would we come to this part of the world again? You never know. Would we just keep thinking what we had missed ? These were all thoughts going through our head. In the end we bit the bullet and paid the £22.50 and printed our tickets off . Rainy day event sorted . At the time though we had little idea every day was going to be a rainy day.

We drove down to St Austell . Sally Sat Nag seems to be in apologetic mood . She has not taken us the wrong way since we arrived in the South West . Perhaps she realises she has upset us and is trying to make amends. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that there are no motorways here. Before we left we spoke to our host. She told us she had lived and worked in Germany. Her husband now worked on IT designing a system for WiFi on trains and he worked in London commuting from Cornwall on a Sunday evening so we would not see him much. She had a dog she walked on the beaches . She collected driftwood from the beach . It was clear to see the handiwork in our cottage.

Arriving at The Eden Project we realised just how much we were in the land of China Clay. Much had changed over the last thirty years with many mines closing and the white boncs that I remember scarring the landscape had greened over. They were less noticeable. The Eden project was set in one of these such quarries . Car parking is set high above the reclaimed Kaolinite pit which is located just 2 km from the small town of St Blazey and 5km from its larger neighbour St Austell. The site was relatively empty apart from a number of schools that had chosen today to visit the site . The walk down was a long way through the Zig Zag of time where prehistoric plants were planted telling the story of time before and after the dinosaurs. In the summer months a land train brings visitors down from the car parks . Today with so few visitors the land trains were not running so much. It rained as we walked down but luckily we did not get soaked just gently wetted as the drops fell on us.

As we walked what came into sight were what looked like giant marshmallows or giant pillows. The domes housing the exhibits even to my eye resembled huge frog spawn . The biomes consist of hundreds of hexangonal and pentagonal shapes each joined together , inflated and held by steel frames. The largest of the two biomes simulates a rainforest environment and the second, a mediterranean . Which to see first we wondered? I had hoped we picked the right one and were not going to be disappointed . The first task though was to find the entrance. It was particularly poorly signed and we found ourselves walking round in circles through beds of early spring flowers, iris and snowdrops, daffodils and hyacinths , all vying for space. Eventually we did find the way in but this was only after hanging on to the back of a school party.

Inside we found out a little about the biomes. The project had been conceived by a guy called Tim Smit. It utilised the shape of the disused quarry and was built by Sir Robert and Alfred McAlpine a family that lived close to my native Wrexham. It took 2 and a half years to construct the buildings and they have been opened since 2001. A charity it depends on the goodwill of visitors paying the rather high entry fee. It made a loss when it was first built , it failed to get any funding from the lottery but it seems now it is in profit and is playing its part in educating the world about the plants we have on our planet , how they can be used and to highlight the waste of modern living and the cost of bringing produce to our country.

So what were our thoughts so far? First what a long walk - thank goodness the place was not busy. The food was functional but OK, flapjacks and victoria sandwich and a decent cup of tea. Toilets flushed by rain water sanitized on site after it filters down into the quarry. Horse sculptures made of driftwood , pretty planting which would change season on season . The rainforest biome was wonderful. We were glad we went in there first . The humidity hit us as we opened the door, the noise of bird song was deafening. It took us almost an hour to walk through this one dome. The paths meandered amongst the huge plants and climbed up and down via steps and bridges .

The plants majestic they rose to the roof high above us. If there was anything missing in there it was butterflies . Where were they? You expect them in a tropical house of this magnitude. The house plants we recognised were enormous. Rubber plants thriving in this enviroment clung to other trees we did not recognise and were massive things. Water flowed everywhere from tiny streams to waterfalls. The plants indiginous to Africa were in the African part of the biome, those from the south american rainforest in another . Plants from Asia , vines and exotics with flowers we have never seen before . Raindrops drip drip dripped from the roof. We walked up in the canopy which gave another view over the top of the rainforest - a view that perhaps animals see best . All around the site were displays on growing rice and sugar cane. Pineapples grew naturally in the heated biome., We were enthralled with it all. One thing I did miss was the walk to the very top of the roof - too high for Glenn and I hadnt the heart to leave him whilst I went on that adventure . Hundreds of feet up it would have been wonderful to look down on the entire dome. Displays on coffee growing , the African bush - nothing was missed . Was it a waste of money? No most certainly not - up to now worth every penny.

On to the Mediterranean dome - smaller in size with areas devoted to Spanish plants, Italian and Greek. Many beds were unfilled and it felt small in comparison to its near neighbour the rain forest . Not so high. Not so impressive . If we had gone in here first I guess we would have been disappointed . As it was though we appreciated it was work in action and in the future too might have the wow factor of its neighbour.

Was it worth it ? Yes it was . A taste of the rain forest , a taste of Eden in a small corner of England .


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