Monday 8 - Friday 12 August 2011
Along our route to Newquay we stopped off at Restormel Castle from the 13th century and Lawrie's first castle. It was pretty well preserved and the missing bits allowed you to see how it was constructed.
 |
| Restormel Castle. |
 |
| Surrounded by a ditch with loads of tasty blackberries. |
 |
| The front gate. |
 |
| Looking down inside. |
 |
| Lawrie found the original drop... |
 |
| Kitty on the top wall. |
 |
| Pretty countryside. |
 |
| Jenni from a half hidden room. |
We arrived at the coast and checked into our B & B. We were starving by this point and headed straight down to get some food. Later on we walked to the headland, it's great having sunshine until 9:30pm!
 |
| View from a supermarket carpark. |
 |
| Fistral beach - Newquay |
The next day we planned a big day of driving and started off at Pendennis Castle. This spot was originally built by King Henry VIII and was in use through WWII. Lawrie did a tour of the gunnery while Kitty got some food, as she'd missed breakfast! The castle is fully intact/rebuilt so it was good to see how they could have looked in the past.
 |
| Line up of cannons. |
 |
| Looking out to sea on a WWII cannon |
 |
| The castle |
 |
| The same gate you see in movies... |
 |
| Not a bad spot to be posted. |
 |
| Spiral staircase. |
 |
| Blue skies, green grass and a castle. |
We got some coffee at Glendurgan gardens and spent some time in the maze and walking around the grounds. It was beautiful here and we walked right down to a small fishing village in the cove below the gardens.
 |
| Cool old tree. |
 |
| On the path to the maze |
 |
| Kitty within the maze. |
 |
| Jenni not quite lost yet. |
 |
| The girls getting lost |
 |
| ...still lost |
 |
| Looking down to the cove. |
 |
| Beautiful little inlet. |
 |
| Fisherman cottages and sail boats. |
 |
| BSA Bantam. |
 |
| The maze from the lookout. |
 |
| Boat seat. |
Our next stop was Lands end before heading North and looking for old tin mining ruins. While it was a big day, it was great to check out the ruins, which are situated on the cliffs.
 |
| Kitty tried out various camera settings on Lawrie. |
 |
| Lands end. |
 |
| The coastline North of Lands End. |
 |
| Old stack. |
 |
| Lawrie near the ruins. |
 |
| The weather stayed clear for us! |
 |
| No fancy camera settings here... |
 |
| Headframe and stack. |
 |
| Fancy settings on the ruins. |
 |
| Ruins right down near the waterline. |
 |
| The sunset brought out the colours. |
Wednesday morning we headed up to Tintagel where we woke up with a coffee and Lawrie's first Cornish Pastie.
 |
| Lawrie and his first pastie. |
 |
| COFFEE! |
The castle itself it seeped in history and folklore, being the birthplace of King Arthur & home of Merlins cave. The day was beautiful and clear but the wind started blowing up, which made some of the exposed headlands quite fun to walk on! The castle was definately a ruin but it's location more than made up for it!
 |
| The beach below the castle. |
 |
| Castle construction. |
 |
| The headland walking trail to the North. |
 |
| Tunnel used as a cold store. |
 |
| Kitty getting blown about. |
 |
| That's Lawrie in the distance. |
 |
| The castle and bridge to the 'island'. |
 |
| Very cool cave on our walk. |
 |
| The 'island' |
 |
| The coastline trail goes along here... |
 |
| You can lean like this, until the wind stops... |
We kept heading North to Boscastle to see the witches museum. We went in but it really wasn't that appealing. Luckily, as with Tintagel, the location more than made up for it. Lawrie decided that he could definitely live here...a common theme while the sun shone.
 |
| Stream through the town, unfortunately flooded a few years back. |
 |
| Looking down to the harbor. |
 |
| The wind was howling through the gap. |
 |
| Kitty before our little walk. |
 |
| Picturesque little town. |
 |
| The harbor. |
 |
| Why Lawrie wants to live here. |
On our way back to Newquay we stopped off at Port Isaac, filming location of 'Doc Martin'. It turned out to be a beautiful fishing village and we thoroughly enjoyed the last of the sunlight. For dinner we drove to Padstow (or Padstein, after chef Rick Stein bought up of the town) to get some fancy dinner. The line up outside Ricks seafood take away was two lanes up to 100m long! Thinking this wasn't the best idea we found a quite pub just off the main waterfront.
 |
| Port Isaac harbor, Fern Cottage tucked next to the big building. |
 |
| Still an active fishing village, the tidal keep pools are still in use. |
 |
| The harbor...still a sunny day! |
 |
| Looking back from Fern Cottage. |
 |
| Doc Martins Surgery (Fern Cottage) |
 |
| Beautiful village. |
 |
| In Padstow. |
On Thursday we spent the day at the Eden Project, which is like a massive botanical garden that has been reclaimed from an old china clay mining pit. They have two massive biomes - one with a mediterranean climate and one with a tropical rainforest in it. On the outside they have market gardens, flower beds and a huge interactive information centre. It was a truly inspiring place.
 |
| The biomes at the bottom of the pit |
 |
| Flowers |
 |
These things are HUGE but amazingly only
weigh as much as the air contained within them |
 |
| Slope of flowers |
 |
| Giant bee feeding on the flowers |
 |
| Dorset Naga chillies in the mediterranean biome |
 |
| Cool flower |
 |
| View down onto the canopy in the tropical biome |
 |
| Waterfall in the tropical biome |
 |
| Slope of sunflowers |
 |
| Biomes and sculpture |
 |
| Apples |
 |
| Awww... cute |
 |
| Again with the cuteness |
 |
| Arched pathway |
 |
| Flowers in front of the information centre |
 |
| Huge sculpture man |
 |
| The biomes again |
Friday morning we left early and started the 500km drive back home which was uneventful. We made it back in the early evening and set about getting our gear packed up for our bike ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment