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Published: January 8th 2009
Day 1 - Exeter to Truro Thanks to a fairly low-key welcome to the New Year the night before, we were able to set off fairly early on Thursday morning... well, mid morning anyway...
Heading out of Exeter, we doubled back along the south banks of the River Exe towards the mighty English Channel, where our first stop was at a small village called Dawlish. Quite a sweet little town, complete with flowing stream through the centre of town and black swans, this was my first experience with what the English call the 'beach'..... Hmmmm..... not very appealing, let me tell you. Although, to be fair, the weather of the day was hardly adding to the beachy atmosphere, with heavy fog and chilly winds reducing the temperature even further...
From Dawlish, we continued on down the coast, passing through Teignmouth, before arriving at Torquay, where we spent a good half hour trying to hunt down the hotel which served as the inspiration for the Fawlty Towers series. The story goes that John Cleese stayed at the hotel with the Monty Python crew in 1972 where
he was facinated with the rather eccentric owner of the hotel, who later become the inspiration for Basil Fawlty. The hotel itself is rather uninspiring, but it is a tick off our list of things to do!
From Torquay, it was round the bay just slightly to the beachside resort area in Paignton. Again, the beaches were a tad disappointing, and again their fate was not helped by the weather. Although, it was clear that this would be a fantastic holiday area in the summertime, with spectacular views and all the resort ammenities (ice-cream stores, fish and chip shops) close by. This however, was not enough to tempt me out of the car for more than a short 5 minute stroll on the beach, before seeking comfort once again in our heated chariot.
On to Dartmouth, we hit the Dart River. (The English are very inventive when it comes to naming their towns... Surprisingly, Dartmouth is at the mouth of the Dart River, just as Exmouth is at the mouth of the Exe River...) Here we almost got tricked into catching a ferry to the other side of the river....
But being the quick-witted souls that we are, we instead took a short detour inland via Totnes. From here we stayed on the main highway to bypass Plymouth as that was a town already ticked off our list.
Just outside of St Austell, we detoured via the Eden Project - an educational, conservation centre built over a massive quarry. Although running short of time and unable to fully explore all it had to offer, a day visit to the Eden Project is now on our to-do-list. (A more detailed explanation will be provided in a future blog - if you're super keen and simply want to learn more, you can always google it as it is facinating and inspiring what they have have done, and are doing.)
Running short of time as the sun slide quickly down the skies at the crack of 4.30pm, we continued on in a fairly direct route to Chasewater, in the the Truro outskirts, where we were booked in for the night at a little pub called The Kings Head. We were the only guests for the night and so were lucky enough to be upgraded
to an ensuite room. However, the actual pub was closed for the evening so we retired to our room with our supplies - peanut butter, honey and the loaf of freshly cooked bread we bought from the Eden Project - just lovely!
Day 2 - Truro to Penzance After a very satisfying full English breakfast at the pub (complete with baked beans of course), we once again headed off towards to coast with our first destination being the harbour city of Falmouth (you guessed it, at the river of the Fal River!).
We stopped initially at the western headland, Pendennis Point. Here we had lovely views of the ocean and river mouth, but were also completely exposed to the weather, with crazy winds rocking the car. Dav, being the brave sould that he is, ventured out of the safety of the car to explore 'Little Dennis', one of the gun fort blockhouses guarding the river mouth.
From here, we ventured up the hill to explore
Pendennis Castle, an armed fortress built by Henry the VIII in 1545 to defend the mainland against threats of invasion, particularly from the French and Spanish. It is quite a quaint little castle, as far as castles go, and is immaculatley restored and maintained. Even some of the cannons are still able to let off the old round or two, reaching distances over a mile (not that we were lucky enough to actually see this.... we saw it on a TV show the night before...)
From Falmouth, we continued on to Lizard Point, the most southernly point on mainland Britain. This is also claimed to be the warmest spot in Britain... not that you could tell by our outfits. But it was spectacularly beautiful, with the sun (yes the sun) reflecting beautifully off the clouds above, and rocks and ocean below. Just breathtaking.
Next stop on our trip was St Michael's Mont, a medieval monestery built on offshore rocks in the middle of Mont's Bay. We were lucky enough to arrive at low tide so we were able to walk out to it. Unfortunately we weren't able to visit
the monestery as it was shut (it was only open for 2 hours that day), but we still had a bit of a look around. Again, you could clearly see how beautiful it would be in the summertime and at high tide with their own little beach. Lovely.
Penzance, just a little further around the bay, was our stop for the night in a lovely B&B. It was a terrace house (as all the homes are around these parts), and was done up so nicely, with our room having a great view over the bay. So, after some nibblies and a few ciders as the sun went down, we decided to give English fish and chips another go.... And were pleasantly surprised. Although still not as good as back home (batter just doesn't have a patch on crumbed), it went down a treat and was a lovely end to a great day.
Day 3 - Penzance to Treyarnon Not only did the B&B look lovely and provide us with a restful night's sleep, but the breakfast they provided
Pendennis Castle
Day 2
- Falmouth - the next morning was just fantastic. As well as a spread of cereals and fruit, Dav had scrambled eggs with salmon, and I had the full vegie breakfast (vegie sausage, tomatoes, hash browns, mushrooms, tomato, baked beans) - well Dav got half of mine too, so I guess he got the best of all worlds! Soooo yummy!
So after that great start to the day, we once again set out, following the coast line around to Lands End. This was a bit of a disappointment, with the area being very touristy. There we lines and lines of shops, but no typical 'Lands End' signpost (you know the one, pointing out directions and distances to other countries). I'm not sure what the go was - perhaps we couldn't find it through all the shops, but I have a sneaking suspicion that they may actually take it down during the quieter times... Sounds a bit crazy I know but I saw a sign advertising that you could have your name put in the sign (hard to explain) so perhaps it's a bit fancier than the stock-standard signposts I'm used to. Anyway, again the coastline was lovely but
it was a bit of a waste of 10minutes to be frank.
From Lands End we continued to follow the coast to St Ives. What a gorgeous seaside resort town. Very quaint with tiny narrow streets lined with cafes and shops, and stuning views of the ocean. We drove through town to get to the harbour but was quite a stressful few minutes (I was very glad Dav was driving!) as at times we weren't sure whether we were on the roads or pedestrian areas....
Further around the bay at a town called Hayle we treated ourselves to a true Cornish pastie (from the most popular bakery in the area I have since found out - although this is not surprising given the amount of people who streamed through the doors in the time it took us to devour our pasties.) Dav was not too impressed with his mince pastie as he found the vegetables to be quite bland, but I quite enjoyed my chicken pastie, especially the pastry - so light and delicious.
Now for a bit of Cornish pastie trivia which we found
Holding down the fort...?
Day 2
- Pendennis Castle, Falmouth - to be quite interesting.... The original pasties down here were made mainly for the miners and fishermen, and included both meat, vegies and a fruit of some variety. The fruit section (the dessert) was at one end of the pastie, being seperated from the meat and vegies section of the pastie by a pastry pocket. As with the pasties now, one side of the pastie has quite a thick pastry ridge, which is what the hungry workers would hold onto whilst eating their meal. And the funniest thing (considering this is my favourite part of the pastie) is that the pastry was not considered to be part of the meal and was discarded. To them, the pastry's main purpose was to 'package' the meal so that the meat, vegies, fruit wouldn't get dirty!! While I find this to be very disturbing, it worked well as they could enjoy a (sometimes) warm, clean meal and their 'packaging' would just breakdown or get eaten by animals or fish. So there you go - you learn something new everyday!
From Hayle, we once again followed the coast up towards Truro where we hopped onto the main road leading
Pendennis Castle
Day 2
- Falmouth - up to Newquay. It was then back to the smaller, narrower streets following the coastline up to Padstow where we stopped at the harbour and had a bight to eat. We then doubled back south to Treyarnon where we were booked in for that night at the local YHA. Dav managed to stumble accross the hostel on-line and we were really impressed by the photos on their website, but one always has to be a little cynical, with 'seafront' very rarely actually meaning seafront. So we were pleasantly surprised when we pulled up to see that the hostel position was just as spectacular as we hoped. While I was happy to sit on the couch reading and enjoying the view from the comfort of a heated loungeroom, Dav, equipped with camera, ventured out to explore the rockpools, getting quite a few great shots as the sun set.
After whipping up a tasty meal, we climbed into our bunkbeds and watched some epidoses of Kath and Kim (thanks to a friend from work who lent us both the portable DVD player and three seasons of Kath and Kim), thoroughly enjoying hearing both the water crash outside
(been a while since we've heard that) and the old familar Australian twang!
Day 4- Treyarnon to Exeter Our journey once again saw us follow the coastine north, passing through the very scenic Port Issac (where there were at least a dozen surfers in the water...? crazy) before our first stop of the day at a little coastal village called Tintagel, the supposed birthplace of King Arthur.... Even they admit this is a somewhat jubious claim, with one signpost we were reading admitting that there was 'probably' a guy called Arthur and that this 'may have been' the King Arthur... Quite funny actually, as although they admit that the likelihood is quite slim, as a village they have built their whole identity around the fact that King Arthur was born there and lived in the now half delapadated castle. For example, the Tintagel Castle, which we explored the surounding countryside, is also known as the King Arthur Castle.
Whatever the story, the fact is that Tintagel is a gorgeous little village and the coastline just spectacular. We spent a good hour hiking around the headland,
with great views of the castle remains as well as the icy ocean below.
From Tintagel, it was north through Boscastle before stopping at Bude for a bite to eat. The homeward leg of the journey was then all that was to be completed as we cut back across the top of Dartmoor, landing back home in Exeter by mid afternoon. Back to work to earn some more pennies....
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