Cornwall

After a lovely Queen’s jubilee weekend, with its great weather and a barbecue for all our friends to celebrate leaving London, the rain was coming down as we headed out of London in our hire car. Swish, swish went the wipers as we cruised down the motorway. Nonetheless, it felt so natural to be in a car again! We don’t own a car in London and this was the first time we had hired one in Britain.

We were determined to see the most on the break, so stopped in Bath. Bath was chock-a-block with people. When we finally found a parking space (note: the train does have some advantages) we only had enough change to pay for an hour’s parking! Oh well. What could we see in an hour? And that had to include lunch!

The Roman Baths, of course. We paid and picked up our audio-guide. The Roman Baths are sited on top of a hot spring that has been known about and venerated by inhabitants for centuries. The Romans were the first ones with enough technology to build a system of baths on top of it. And they did a pretty good job: their system of reservoirs, overflows, and bathing pools is still functioning.

However, not much Roman is left above floor level. Most of the walls and roofs you see today were Victorian era or later. The Victorians, with their new wealth, adored Bath and would come for health and society reasons. Another great attraction in Bath is the beautiful houses built by the gentry, that we didn’t have time to see. The baths were an excellent attraction, very well presented - I recommend them.

We hopped back on the motorway and roared down to Cornwall. Around the Tamar bridge, the motorway stops and we were back to double lanes, and in some cases single. I guess there is not enough industry in Cornwall to justify a motorway, something that no doubt annoys the Cornish. Anyway, the sun had come out by now and the countryside was beautiful!

We found our B&B and very comfortable it was too. An old inn, the kind you can imagine participating in the smuggling of alcohol that was so much a part of Cornwall during the Prohibition days!

Yes, England had at various times prohibition and such high taxes on alcohol that it was worth smuggling! The owners had built a new wing, where we stayed, which was comfortable as only purpose-built dwellings can be. Coming from the New World, where nothing is that old, it can boggle the mind how ingenious the English are at converting their old buildings to a million and one different uses!

We downed a beer or two in the sun, and wondered how far away the coast was - we hadn’t actually seen it yet! This was to become a feature of our time in Cornwall. There are very few “coast roads”. In fact, the main road heads down the centre of the county. Most of the coastline is big cliffs, so even driving along a few hundred metres from the coast, if you are down a slight hollow, you will see nothing but fields around you. To see the coast, you have to drive off, often on a road that doesn’t go anywhere except to a little town on the coast. This took a bit of getting used to until we started plotting winding routes to include these places!

Eden Project A major destination for us was the Eden Project. I have to admit we didn’t know much about it, but I had heard things like “big greenhouses”, “big domes”, and of course, “tropical plants”. I had also heard it was “amazing”, and knew it would be worth a visit. In the end, Eden impressed the pants off both of us.

On entering the visitor centre we were bowled over. The size and professionalism was staggering. And it quickly became clear that although Eden was about humanity’s relationship to plants, it most certainly wasn’t about gardening. Instead, it attempted to be an education and popular attraction that pointed out to people how much we rely on plants, how much we need to preserve biodiversity, and how the history of humans and plants has involved human exploitation, not just plant exploitation. Along the top wall of the visitor centre was the phrase, “Imagine we had 100 people representing everyone in the world. Then, 57 would have substandard accomodation, 1 would have a college degree, 43 would go to bed hungry, 1 would own a car…”. You get the idea. It was very though provoking, and inspiring, and we hadn’t even seen the domes yet!

Emerging from the visitor centre our jaws dropped at the view. There in an old china clay pit were two of the most amazing greenhouses I think most people had ever seen. They are geodesic domes, so they get a lot of their strength from their shape. They were enormous, and wrapped by the rest of the pit landscaped as an outdoor display.

Naturally we hurried down to the “biomes”, as they are called, admiring the outdoor plants on the way. There are two biomes, one a bigger “humid tropics” and definitely the most popular. This had the most to say about human exploitation, as of course coffee, sugar, spices, etc all come from the humid tropics area of the world. Entering the biome we were hit by the warmth, the humidity, and the pleasant smell of soil.

It was very, very busy. Busy enough that you could only shuffle along behind others. I didn’t mind so much but next time I would suggest not going on a school holiday :-). The displays however were really fantastic. We saw the front of an old cargo ship, complete with boxes of cargo and tarantulas. This was followed by a Malaysian house, with chickens underneath, and a backyard with a bicycle!

We walked around the house to see the kitchen garden, with tropical produce like chillies, ginger, sweet potato, beans, mangoes etc. The point was to emphasise the ability to complement one’s diet with home grown food, something virtually everyone in the west has moved away from.

The plants were fantastic. The range, diversity, and health was impressive. Plants had been grouped according to geography, so there was a West African section, for example, with red earth and native trees. It was very evocative! You could imagine a local woman pounding millet and singing…

But it was only when we climbed the path to the waterfall that we really appreciated the scale of the biome. Gazing out over hundreds of metres of tropical forest, with the spray in our hair… It was amazing. I would love to visit again in a few years because when the trees reach their full potential… wow.

After lunch we checked out the temperate biome. These biomes must be pretty sophisticated because inside it was warm but dry, unlike the humid one! I find it amazing that the atmosphere can be manipulated in this way. I really enjoyed the temperate biome because it felt like home! (Australia, that is).

A real theme of the temperate biome is environmental impact. Mediterranean regions tend to be dry, often with poor soil. This tends to be overworked all over the Mediterranean. Eden was a bit scathing of the polytunnels that grow year round cucumbers and tomatoes that scar the hillsides of Spain.

We wandered along the escarpment inside the biome and smelt the tough, fragrant plants - rosemary, lavender, thyme, lemons. With the lack of breeze the scents were overwhelming. It was gorgeous!

There were also sections on the South African Fynbos region (a small area with a tremendous diversity of plants) and vineyards, tomato plants, corn, and birds! They do have real animals and insects in the biomes as part of their mostly biological insect control.

We were both very taken with Eden. We were taken with the reality, which is very professional, and also with the vision, which is inspirational. And although I am the one in the family who “likes gardening”, Fabian also found it fantastic.

Promising to return, we headed out to spend the night in St Ives, a small town on the west coast of Cornwall. Once again we found the distances deceptive - it takes a long way to go 30 miles along little winding roads! And the crowds on the roads meant at least once we dived onto the side roads and tested the limits of our atlas.

St Ives is a little town basically on a peninsula, so over the years the town has squeezed out every inch of room that it can. This has left little, tiny streets and little more than a single one-way route around the town. We had to drive along the thin harbour road, dodging pedestrians on the way!

The B&B was pleasant, in a Victorian boarding house kind of way. It did have a magnificent view over the town, being high on a hill. We headed out to dinner but actually had difficulty finding a restaurant. It turns our St Ives has a bustling artistic community, and hence gets lots of “townies” visiting. This leads to a profusion of quite nice restaurants, all of which seem to require bookings. I guess that is the local reaction when you don’t want to have to wait in line behind tourists! We did eventually have dinner at a vegetarian restaurant. It was fine, but if I was running a vegetarian restaurant, I wouldn’t offer basic food like nachos and fettucine (nice as it was). I would make the vegetables the star of the meal, with say stuffed roasted eggplant, barbecued vegetable skewers, etc.

Tresco Garden by helicoper The next day dawned bright and clear… only joking, actually it was cold and spitting with rain, but we didn’t care because we were flying off to the Isles of Scilly! These islands are about 28 miles off the coast of Britain, and enjoy a very mild climate (even milder than Cornwall). This has led, among other things, to the creation of some famous gardens, the Tresco Abbey Gardens.

Tresco gardens were established about 150 years ago, and contain many plants in the open air that simply couldn’t grow anywhere else in Britain without a greenhouse. I’d seen them on TV and when the push came to visit Cornwall, there was no way we were going to miss Tresco! And of course making the trip by helicopter was an extra incentive.

So we headed off to catch our helicopter which was a real experience. We drove to Penzance heliport in plenty of time. Waiting in the small departure lounge for our direct flight to Tresco we noticed the average age of the other passengers… old. Mostly quite old. Grey haired. Hmm. Maybe I need to rethink my interests, I’m sure we should be doing scuba diving, mountain climbing etc but actually I quite like plants!!

We had the short pre-departure safety briefing before we heard our helicopter approach. The heliport is so busy that it’s practically a bus run out to the islands and back, all day.

The noise was incredible. The helicopter was a Sikorsky and could hold about 25 - 30 people. The previous people unloaded and we headed out. We didn’t need to duck because the craft is so big, but there were enormous wind gusts and the stink of fuel. Finally we were on board, inside a hull that looks quite basic compared to a normal plane. Seatbelts on! And off we went.

Boy, are those things manouevrable. First it just popped up off the ground about 3 metres, before taxiing out over the green field. When it reached the end, it turned, tilted forward, and accelerated! I guess that is how helicopters move upwards - by tilting forward and powering up. Even at rest, when the helicopter was straight, the rotor blades are actually tilted forward. It was exciting and also alarming! Now that I’ve been in one I would have expectations about what would happen next time, but the first time was exhilarating.

We thundered out over the Cornwall peninsula and soon reached the sea. On the way the pilot pointed to a small plane flying a few hundreds above us to the left. Apparently, it held Prince Charles, who was visiting the Scilly Isles that day! What a job.

We landed right outside the garden, and waited for our luggage. Immediately we noticed the funny plants growing on the rock wall - my God, that looks like a cacti! Such a plant is astonishing in soggy, clay-soil Britain. Finally our day-pack arrived and we zoomed off to the entrance.

The contrast with Eden couldn’t have been more stark. First we walked right thru a little gift shop, followed by a small sandwich counter with some outdoor tables, before coming to the ticket hut. Yes, a hut. Peopled by one lady! Hard to believe yesterday we had to queue in an enormous visitor centre with 10 cashiers, and they took credit card!!

But that was part of the atmosphere of Tresco - laid back, quiet, more a tradtional garden. I really liked it for that. It was all about the strange and unsual plants, and a bit less “visionary”. It was kind of nice just to look at plants.

The gardens themselves were absolutley stuffed full of plants. We wandered aimlessly at first with the shingle paths crunching pleasantly underfoot. We found the Mexican plant section, with stone wall terraces, and an amazing profusion of succulents growing in the raised beds. Succulents are very pretty of course because their thick, finger-like leaves come in many different colours - lime green, bright yellow, red edges. Even without flowers it was a very colourful display. It had a wonderful warm, dry, mediterranean feeling, enhanced by the use of stone terraces and no lawns.

However, it didn’t feel quite like home, like the temperate dome at Eden did, because most of the plants were exotic even to me! Certainly mexican succulents were new, and there was quite a range from South Africa, including a few proteas (which we have in Australia as well, but rarely in domestic gardens). In fact, the plant selection inspired us as to the sort of garden you could have in Perth, Australia - a “native” or “low water” garden can still be stunning.

Half way through wandering around we were puzzled to hear an enormous cheer emanating from the tearoom below. Then we remembered that England was in the world cup playing Argentina that very day! They had indeed scored a goal.

It was similar to a week previously when England was playing Sweden. We were sitting outside having breakfast around 10am Sunday morning with our friend Helen when a similar cheer came from every house around, it seemed! Also a goal. We would later catch up with the Argentina game which England won, to their eternal delight (apparently revenge for previous “unfair” World Cup losses to Argentina :-)

Finally we tired of the garden and asked the way to the port. We were actually flying back from a different island, St Mary’s, as the helicopter had been booked out on all return flights. The port was only a 20 minute walk so we set off. The way was beautiful. There are hardly any cars on the island, we were passed only by a tractor train carrying holidaymakers staying for a few days. The road was full on either side with the magnificent trees and unusual shrubs we had just seen in the garden. Why are private gardens on Tresco growing all of the same unusual plants? I guess, because they can…

Popping up in New Grimsby port we saw a welcome sign for the New Inn, food served at all hours. Yay! Much in need of restoration we popped in and orderd lunch. The pub was very busy, we discovered why when we went into the bar - the England v Argentina game was in its last minutes, and England were leading one-nil. After about ten minutes England officially won and the people were beaming. Really beaming.

After checking our email on the computers in the pub - pretty cool I thought - we went down to the port to catch the 3:45 to St Mary’s. It was a fairly full ride. Leaving the small harbour I said we could believe we were in Scotland - after all we were surrounded by completely deforested hills, a few low buildings at the port, and grey weather! Hard to believe we were on the southernmost point of the British Isles.

So, back to St Mary’s (where we saw a butcher advertising “England 1, Argies 0, and pork and leek sausages!”), and back to the heliport. The flight held less surprises for me this time! The view was stunning as we took off. Unfortunately by the time we got close to Cornwall we were enveloped in fog. Good grief. The grey clouds of Scilly were starting to look positively Bahaman after this.

Back to St Ives, narrow streets once again. We had more luck with the restaurant tonight, getting the last table in Tides Cafe. This was smart, modern, and funky (very unusual in a seaside town!!) and served lovely food. I had prawns on a skewer, perfectly grilled, followed by roast spatchcock, crispy and delicious. I can’t remember what Fabian had but I don’t think it was as good :-).

I must say its very, very nice to be having various trips and adventures but come back to a fantastic restaurant every night. Although we both found St Ives a bit busy and touristy, there is no doubt it is a pleasant place for a city dweller (country delights and city luxuries all in one). And we didn’t even get time to see the Tate Gallery, which is apparently partly responsible for this atmosphere. Next time!

Food, of course

The next morning actually dawned sunny, which was astounding after three days of grey weather. You definitly don’t come to Britain for the weather. It didn’t last that long but it was a nice break! After breakfast - these cooked breakfasts are starting to pall, as I’ve noticed on previous holidays - we left the narrow streets of St Ives for the coast road. We had to be in Padstow by 12 for our booking at Rick Stein’s Seafood Restaurant - the reason for visiting Padstow. (For us, anyway).

Concerned about the time, we were dismayed to pull up behind a massive traffic jam. Fortunately, we had just passed a side road, so after being stalled for several minutes we took it. Consulting our atlas (which wasn’t always that reliable) we managed to head through Newquay and up the coast to Padstow. As it turned out the route was gorgeous - we finally managed to see some of the coast. The little winding road to Padstow - up and down, left and right - did leave us feeling a bit queasy though. So it was a couple of less than comfortable people who made it to Padstow and were hurriedly wandering the streets looking for this pub.

Padstow is a pretty little town. Very, very nice. We noticed immediately that it lacked the electronic games parlours that every other seaside town is cursed with (when there’s no sun, you need something to do). It also seemed to have nice restaurants down on the harbour instead of fast food. And it has a bit of land to expand back onto, so the town didn’t feel as cramped as St Ives, stuck on its little peninsula. I wouldn’t hesitate to return.

Finding the restaurant and relaxing was fantastic. It is a top class seafood restaurant, with fresh fish from the local fishing boats. When I booked this entire holiday I knew this would be the one place most difficult to get into, and I was right. Over the entire 5 days we would be in Cornwall, the only opening they had was 12pm on Saturday. I gratefully took it and arranged all the other excursions around it.

After being seated in an elegant room, feeling a lot better, with tinges of the sea in the grass-woven chairs and a white and blue colour scheme, we surveyed the wine list and were chuffed to see Rick Stein has visited Margaret River in Western Australia! This is our local stamping ground in Oz and it tickled us seeing wines we are familiar with. In the end we got a Chardonnay from the eastern states of Australia which was lovely.

I ordered mackerel, spiced with roast cumin and ginger, with tomato and coriander salad. It was sublime. The fish was moist and juicy with a crispy skin, and the spicing was perfect. Wafts of flavour came up to my nose without overpowering the fish. I love those flavours and I’d be tempted to make the dish at home.

My second dish was nice, but less to my taste, as a whole dover sole arrived in a butter sauce. The delicate fish I found a bit overwhelmed by the taste of butter (I’m not really a butter fan, whereas I have no problem with olive oil). Dessert was a passion fruit meringue, light and lovely. Followed by coffee, it was a lovely, relaxing afternoon.

Finally we staggered out, drunk after champagne and wine, and completely full. We strolled around the hexagonal harbour and visited the little shops. It was very pleasant, even warming up a tad. At an art gallery I saw some paintings by an artist called Rachel Cockerill which I really liked. There is lots of art down in Cornwall, especially designed to liberate tourists from their money, but most of it is strictly beach-hut quality. Her paintings had an extra dimension though - a unique interpretation of the bays and blue sky that I found very appealing. She has appeared on this gallery site of Cornish artists. In the end the gallery only had one original of hers, which was going for about £700, so I guess she is a discovered artist!!

We ambled back to our B&B and spent some well-earned hours relaxing and snoozing. The B&B owner had previously recommended a pub for dinner, and made us a reservation. This turned out to be not so good, because it denied us the opportunity of wandering and choosing ourselves (but we accepted because we remembered the experience of full restaurants in St Ives), and also it was a pub. The food was pleasant, but not good. I had a Stilton and broccoli soup, where the Stilton cheese completely overpowered and oversalted the soup. Still, we were pretty tired and just ate and retired.

Our final day on the coast

Sunday was our final day, and we had to finish in London. After a pleasant breakfast at the B&B (Cally Croft - recommended), with interesting conversations with the owner (!) we headed up the coast. The sun was gradually peeking out behind the clouds, making the landscape shine. We turned off a side road to the coast, and parked. The sun was out, everything was in glorious sunshine, and the wind was blowing a gale! Well, this is a prime surfing site! We explored the beach and the intertidal zone, full of rocks, different seaweeds and little pools with creatures in them. And the coastline is deservedly known for being dramatic.

After a cup of hot chocolate to warm us from the wind we continued up to Ilfracombe for lunch. That’s actually in North Devon, but obviously nature hasn’t heard about the counties because the imposing coastline continues all through Devon. And in the sun, everthing looked gorgeous. Do I like Devon better just because the sun shone there? It certainly helps.

We stumbled on a fair in Ilfracombe. This attractive little town had a Victorian parade running as we arrived, people dressed in fancy dress and riding in coaches. The town bustled. Along the street to the harbour, we passed tearoom after tearoom! They all faced south and were in full sun, all selling Devonshire teas for the same price. After a few photos of the harbour we chose one to eat lunch in.

It was very pleasant, if a bit windy, and as we ate a group of Victorian ladies arrived, laughing and giggling. It was amusing because despite their finery, they all had the broadest accents and were telling rude jokes! I’ve only seen Victorian ladies on TV of course, but the BBC does honour the accents of the time :-).

We liked Ilfracombe, but were disappointed by the lack of good, affordable food there. Unlike St Ives and Padstow, which we suspect are exceptions, full of “townies”, the inexpensive food in a lesser known seaside town was unhealthy and didn’t look like it had changed in fifty years. Everything was deep fried fish and chips, or pasties, pies etc. There did not seem to be any influences like Indian, Chinese, or even healthy eating! Similarly there were no non-white faces we saw (except in St Ives). It seems that immigration in Britain has resulted in massive peaks and troughs of influence, and some communities are staying resolutely white!

After lunch (pastie and a white sandwich!) we drove through the Exmoor National Park, which is one of the few national parks in Britain (Britain is a thoroughly deforested, planted, sown, reaped and tarmacked country. There just isn’t any spare space). The drive was lovely. We saw dramatic cliffs, little bays, heath and forest. At one point we took a “short cut” (it was, it was) through some tiny little backroads and I wished we were out there hiking! We saw quite a few cyclists too, over our entire holiday and each time I felt for them (because the weather wasn’t so good) and envied them!

We stopped at a little crossroads, where the shop, pub, and inn seemed to be owned by the same family! I had a divine blackcurrant sorbet, and Fabian a caramel ice cream. After this it really was time to push on as we were hours away from London. Amazingly the little winding roads popped out right next to a big motorway interchange, and there we were. Back in the land of straight roads, inflated food and petrol prices, and traffic.

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