Westward Ho!
Tuesday, April 29th, 2003 02:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tamaranthOn leaving London, early Saturday: glorious sunshine. On arriving in Plymouth: torrential rain. Sailing, we decided, was out of the question; we might get wet. So we did a little spontaneous tour of Eastern Cornwall instead.
The first stop was Looe, where the rainclouds cleared enough for us to wander up along the West Looe quayside. Then we attempted Polperro. Polperro and cars don't mix, especially when the car is a Jaguar. The locals stood and stared in awe, and persisted on being in the way. But Polperro itself was very pretty, despite the lack of obvious parking facilities and the lemmingness of the inhabitants (most of whom, to be fair, were probably tourists).
After following a long and twisty diversion which led to another non-motorable part of the town, we gave up and headed for Fowey (pron. "Foy"). Took the car ferry across the river (Fowey's still a working port, and cargo ships use the river too). You can park in Fowey, and dodge traffic with the rest of the locals; many of the streets aren't wide enough for car plus pavement. We had lunch in The Lugger, and laughed merrily at the notices in the estate agent's window. (London prices, or more. If I sold my 2-bed flat in zone 2 I could afford (1) a garage or (2) a studio flat. And it's a hell of a commute).
We ate fudge at the waterside, then headed for Charlestown. This is the site of the Shipwreck and Smuggling Museum, but there are also a couple of sailing ships moored there. One, the Kaskelot, was Endurance in the recent TV drama Shackleton. The first week in August, they're offering 2-hour cruises around the bay for £30. I'm game...
Also a working port, as evidenced by the heaped lobster-pots and swathes of netting.
After that we headed for the Eden Project, Cornwall's newest tourist attraction. It was closed. And it's so well hidden in a narrow valley sloping down to the sea that you can see nothing of the geodesic greenhouse domes from the outside.
Next stop: Restormel Castle. Closed. (Jerry's mum later advised us that we hadn't missed much).
Next stop: King Doniert's Stone, up on Bodmin Moor. We drove slowly through twisty narrow lanes (high-banked, and coloured primrose and violet and bluebell) looking for the place where five roads met. As it turned out, we shouldn't have worried. The local heritage society had signposted it and laid out a stonewalled semicircle with mown grass and stone seats and a plaque. King Doniert was a king of Cornwall who drowned in 875 AD. One of the stones has part of an inscription to him.
There was also a sign to The Hurlers, a nearby stone circle. (The local Cornish Independence movement had overpainted the English Heritage sign with a white-on-black cross). Since it was in the village of Minions, just up the road, we decided to take a look.
Bodmin is an old landscape: people have lived and worked here for thousands of years. The chimneys of abandoned mines (wheals) punctuate the landscape, made miniature by the radio and TV masts at the top of Caradon Hill. The turf between the carpark and the Hurlers (three stone circles, in fact, with outlying standing stones) is sheep-nibbled and contoured with peat-pits, old workings, still pools reflecting the turbulent sky. There are barrows on the hill behind the Hurlers, and another abandoned mine looking dramatic against a livid sunset. The Hurlers had that mystic property of all stone circles: however far you walk, they are still a long way away. But despite the terrain and the biting wind (995 feet above sea level) we made it. I'd love to go back, though it's surely overrun by visitors in the summer months.
Up to Callington in search of a pub called .The Spaniards. We did not find it. Instead, we dined au bateau, on pasta, garlic bread and sticky chocolate pudding and pink drink, and slept like people who'd been out in the fresh air (with rain) all day.
Sunday; a leisurely start, via the Scott Memorial at Mount Wise (adorned with quotations from Tennyson's Ulysses -- 'to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield' – and Scott's own epitaph, about the expedition's dead bodies speaking for them). Then to Tintagel, which even in grey and rainy weather was popular with tourists. We decided that the weather, and the fact we only had an hour or so there, meant that it wasn't worthwhile to pay the £5 admission to the main part of the castle. Instead, I walked up to the headland behind the ruined medieval castle (not actually built by King Arthur at all – half a millennium too late) and watched jackdaws, or possibly choughs, playing on the thermals next to the cliff. Primroses, violets and sea pinks everywhere, and the gorse brighter than anything despite the gloom. We had a cream tea in King Arthur's Café, then headed back to civilisation (or Exeter). We stopped for a quick look at the Gaia Centre (situated amidst a wind farm which was quietly whirring away) but it was closed.
Felt wonderfully spoilt by my extremely wonderful hosts. Not everyone would have indulged my antiquarian whims to such an extent. I still have a warm glow of spoiledness, but I am sure it is quite safe to others ...
The whole point of my trip this weekend was to meet my father's social worker. She seems very pleasant and co-operative, which is a pleasant change. Father not quite so well as before – an 'off' day, so he was more interested in telling me that I have my grandfather's jaw than in registering any of the questions – but nil desperandum, etc; and he is looking so much healthier.
Once the train was past Totnes on the way back, the sun came out; and shone brightly until a livid sunset over London. Suspect I must go further in search of constant sunshine ...
The first stop was Looe, where the rainclouds cleared enough for us to wander up along the West Looe quayside. Then we attempted Polperro. Polperro and cars don't mix, especially when the car is a Jaguar. The locals stood and stared in awe, and persisted on being in the way. But Polperro itself was very pretty, despite the lack of obvious parking facilities and the lemmingness of the inhabitants (most of whom, to be fair, were probably tourists).
After following a long and twisty diversion which led to another non-motorable part of the town, we gave up and headed for Fowey (pron. "Foy"). Took the car ferry across the river (Fowey's still a working port, and cargo ships use the river too). You can park in Fowey, and dodge traffic with the rest of the locals; many of the streets aren't wide enough for car plus pavement. We had lunch in The Lugger, and laughed merrily at the notices in the estate agent's window. (London prices, or more. If I sold my 2-bed flat in zone 2 I could afford (1) a garage or (2) a studio flat. And it's a hell of a commute).
We ate fudge at the waterside, then headed for Charlestown. This is the site of the Shipwreck and Smuggling Museum, but there are also a couple of sailing ships moored there. One, the Kaskelot, was Endurance in the recent TV drama Shackleton. The first week in August, they're offering 2-hour cruises around the bay for £30. I'm game...
Also a working port, as evidenced by the heaped lobster-pots and swathes of netting.
After that we headed for the Eden Project, Cornwall's newest tourist attraction. It was closed. And it's so well hidden in a narrow valley sloping down to the sea that you can see nothing of the geodesic greenhouse domes from the outside.
Next stop: Restormel Castle. Closed. (Jerry's mum later advised us that we hadn't missed much).
Next stop: King Doniert's Stone, up on Bodmin Moor. We drove slowly through twisty narrow lanes (high-banked, and coloured primrose and violet and bluebell) looking for the place where five roads met. As it turned out, we shouldn't have worried. The local heritage society had signposted it and laid out a stonewalled semicircle with mown grass and stone seats and a plaque. King Doniert was a king of Cornwall who drowned in 875 AD. One of the stones has part of an inscription to him.
There was also a sign to The Hurlers, a nearby stone circle. (The local Cornish Independence movement had overpainted the English Heritage sign with a white-on-black cross). Since it was in the village of Minions, just up the road, we decided to take a look.
Bodmin is an old landscape: people have lived and worked here for thousands of years. The chimneys of abandoned mines (wheals) punctuate the landscape, made miniature by the radio and TV masts at the top of Caradon Hill. The turf between the carpark and the Hurlers (three stone circles, in fact, with outlying standing stones) is sheep-nibbled and contoured with peat-pits, old workings, still pools reflecting the turbulent sky. There are barrows on the hill behind the Hurlers, and another abandoned mine looking dramatic against a livid sunset. The Hurlers had that mystic property of all stone circles: however far you walk, they are still a long way away. But despite the terrain and the biting wind (995 feet above sea level) we made it. I'd love to go back, though it's surely overrun by visitors in the summer months.
Up to Callington in search of a pub called .The Spaniards. We did not find it. Instead, we dined au bateau, on pasta, garlic bread and sticky chocolate pudding and pink drink, and slept like people who'd been out in the fresh air (with rain) all day.
Sunday; a leisurely start, via the Scott Memorial at Mount Wise (adorned with quotations from Tennyson's Ulysses -- 'to strive, to seek, to find and not to yield' – and Scott's own epitaph, about the expedition's dead bodies speaking for them). Then to Tintagel, which even in grey and rainy weather was popular with tourists. We decided that the weather, and the fact we only had an hour or so there, meant that it wasn't worthwhile to pay the £5 admission to the main part of the castle. Instead, I walked up to the headland behind the ruined medieval castle (not actually built by King Arthur at all – half a millennium too late) and watched jackdaws, or possibly choughs, playing on the thermals next to the cliff. Primroses, violets and sea pinks everywhere, and the gorse brighter than anything despite the gloom. We had a cream tea in King Arthur's Café, then headed back to civilisation (or Exeter). We stopped for a quick look at the Gaia Centre (situated amidst a wind farm which was quietly whirring away) but it was closed.
Felt wonderfully spoilt by my extremely wonderful hosts. Not everyone would have indulged my antiquarian whims to such an extent. I still have a warm glow of spoiledness, but I am sure it is quite safe to others ...
The whole point of my trip this weekend was to meet my father's social worker. She seems very pleasant and co-operative, which is a pleasant change. Father not quite so well as before – an 'off' day, so he was more interested in telling me that I have my grandfather's jaw than in registering any of the questions – but nil desperandum, etc; and he is looking so much healthier.
Once the train was past Totnes on the way back, the sun came out; and shone brightly until a livid sunset over London. Suspect I must go further in search of constant sunshine ...
