For those interested in low-quality video-lets of our walk, you can find 14 on my flickr.
I have a cold and I have to go to work. Boo hoo! At least I start work at 11 today instead of 8:15.
Showing posts with label uk09. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uk09. Show all posts
21 November 2009
19 November 2009
CAMBRIDGE AND HEMINGFORD
HA! So this blog comes over a month after the fact, but I’m sure the three people who read this blog will still be interested. Maybe! Some of this was written or drafted at the time, other bits I’ve just tried to remember. You can see all the pictures from this jaunt here.
Tuesday 6th October 2009
On holiday again!!! We got a lift from M to the station, then rode the packed tube to Kings Cross. We were there nice and early so after we picked up our tickets we went to find Platform 9 ¾, where they allegedly have a trolley stuck in the wall. Alas, they are putting a new platform in, and because of all the works we couldn’t see it. SADFACE. The train to Cambridge was speedy and smooth (in fact I think it took less time to get from Kings Cross to Cambridge than it did to get from home to Kings Cross).
Our first port of call was the Botanic Gardens, and we spent almost two hours there. First we wandered through the light rain smelling herbs and admiring the autumn colours. When the rain got heavier we escaped into the glasshouses where we saw things ranging from tropical rainforests with vines of lush flowers to a room of carnivorous plants (DON’T FEED THE PLANTS, said the sign), an Australian and African comparison, and a rock garden where we sat and drank a cup of tea from our thermos. It was fabulous!
Then it was into the centre of town to meet S & S (from the internet, as I so often say about the folk I catch up with on our travels). I liked Cambridge immediately, though I’m not sure I could cope with tourist season! It was fairly low key, full of students on bicycles, and not quite as picturesque/pretentious as Oxford. (That’s the extent of my weighing in to the rivalry!) S took us to the top of the tower at Great St Mary’s (the University church), where she pointed out various landmarks and S&S discussed the pros and cons of climbing the turrets and walls.
AND THEN WE WENT PUNTING! We walked around the Backs, looked at bridges, laughed at fail!punters – though no punters were failier than the ones we saw using a guitar as a paddle! Once on the river, we glided past swans, ducks, geese and moorhens . . . until it was time for us to punt, and then we turned around in circles (me) and zigzagged across the river (DB). S & S were excellent punters, though, and we had an ace time.
We parted ways after a few hours, and we hopped on a bus to St Ives (which went through the rather drab and unfunny town of Lolworth) and then another to Hemingford Grey. The bus drivers were jovial and got us to our destination with no fuss and a lot of loud friendliness and complaints about their working conditions. Upon arrival we walked what seemed like a long way down the street til we arrived at the gorgeous little B&B, checked in, then went for dinner next door at the pub called The Cock. It was expensive but delicious. Mmm, cheese platter!
Wednesday 7th October
DEAR DIARY. TODAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!
First of all, you need to understand that I (J) read all the Green Knowe books when I was a kid, and I loved them! Last year a friend (I) told me that the house in the books was real and that you could go and look around the gardens and book a tour of the house itself. That’s why we decided to stay in Hemingford Grey.
Walk to St Ives (once St Ivo’s) via church with its harvest festival stuff and through Hemingford Meadow. As we left the meadow, we stopped to talk to a woman who we discovered had written a booklet on the history and seasonal nature of the meadow. That was pretty cool!
We strolled through St Ives and stopped off at the Norris Museum. They had a fantastic collection, from locally found dinosaur bones to old axe heads, from Roman vessels and tiles to 19th century lace, several maps showing settlements and historic events and artwork depicting local scenes. At the end was a display of ice skates showing their evolution, paired with photos and silent 1920s or 30s film footage of races on the fens (with a gorgeous moment where a police officer in his helmet falls flat on his bum and his colleague laughs at him).
We got talking to the woman behind the desk about the area and about the Manor House and Lucy Boston. She was very excited to tell us that the ‘Bishops Seat’ we had seen outside was actually one of the ‘seats’ from The Stones of Green Knowe! Outside, there was also a display of a centuries-old fire pump, and a little herb garden beside the river with a display outlining what all the herbs were used for in medieval times.
From there, we walked up the River Great Ouse (what an odd order to have the words), through St Ives Thicket, and to the outskirts of Houghton. The National Trust has a mill there, but it wasn’t open. Instead we sat near the lock and drank hot chocolate (yay for our thermos!) and watched a narrowboat go through the lock. We were also terrorised by a teenage swan that strutted over and hissed at and pecked D’s backpack. We think it was because the backpack on the ground looked roughly the same size as a small animal or even the body of a small black swan.
In Hemingford Abbots we stopped at the Axe and Compass pub for lunch, which was nice and low-key. The cider was less low-key. In fact, it was quite alcoholic. I was rather cheerful when we left!
AND THEN WE WENT TO GREEN KNOWE. OMG THE HOUSE. F;LAKSDJF;LASDKFJ;LSDKFJ;ALSKDFJA;LSKDJF;ALSKDFJ;LSKDFJ;ALSKFJ;ASLKDFJA;LSKDF;ALSDKFJ;ALSKDFJ;SKDJF;LASKDF;KSDLOIWJF;ANA;SDLCKNFJALSDKJF
THEY ALL DRANK LEMONADE THE END.
To anyone who hasn’t loved the books, it’s pointless to outline how awesome it was. The gardens were lovely anyway, but we saw the old moat, the bamboo, the green deer, chess pieces, St Christopher, Green Noah (ARGH!), chooks, herb garden, a man with a gun, the gravel path. The man with a gun returned sans gun and offered to give us a tour of the house. I gleefully accepted!
THE HOUSE. sa;dlfkja;sdlfkz;sldkfj;alskdjf!!! Photography wasn’t allowed, but there was the mirror, the little figures in the rafters (one with birds nest) and Feste’s board, the fireplace, the human hair, the other mirror (creeeeeeepy!), Tolly’s room, the rocking horse, the dogs, the beds, the birdcage, the toy chest (Toby’s sword, Linnet’s doll and book, Alexander’s flute OMG! Susan’s shells) with the key . . . THE MOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Knight’s Hall was the Music Room in Lucy Boston’s time, and she used to invite the airforce men over to listen to music on the huge gramophone. The trumpet was made of papier mache, and the needle was bamboo. We got to see the needle trimmed, and listened to a minute or so of an old record. AMAZING. We also saw the quilts Lucy made, the original manuscript of The Children of Green Knowe, Peter’s original paintings that are the covers of the books (and the artworks of Lucy’s ‘lifelong friend’ Elizabeth). It was great!
The guy was really friendly and lovely. Apparently they’ve made a movie which is going to be shown on Australian TV before/around Christmas. It wasn’t shot there (logistically that would be ridiculously hard to do), but they’ve used some of the things from the house as props and the current owner is in it for a second or two. I think it’s the story from Chimneys. It has Maggie Smith and Timothy Spall in it!
I can’t remember what we did after that! I think we went back to the B&B and collapsed for the evening. Possibly we watched TV.
Thursday 8th October
Since the B&B operators let us borrow their OS map of the area, we decided to go on a nice leisurely all-day walk. We started in the morning, wandered past the lakes (old quarries) on the outskirts of Hemingford Grey, attempted a possible shortcut which was very lovely but necessitated a loop back to where we began.
We wandered to Fenstanton and checked out the church on the way – it’s where Capability Brown is buried. Only his name was actually LANCELOT. Excellent.
We were thinking of having an early lunch at Fen Drayton (we didn’t have a packed lunch), but the pub wasn’t open yet, so instead we headed up to the Fen Drayton Lakes Nature Reserve (I think that’s the name!) and had a cup of tea while watching the abundant birdlife. The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway goes along the route of the old railway line, through the Nature Reserve. We walked alongside it for a while before turning off and heading into Swavesey, where we had lunch at a pub the kind of which I didn’t think existed outside of TV shows set in the English countryside. It was totally a local, with an old man addressed as ‘Major’ hobbling in for his lunch (soup and ‘the usual’), and it was excellent even as it was a bit of a culture shock (and reminded me of my days working in a country pub in Australia).
From Swavesey, we cut across to the river and followed it as close as we could back to St Ives. The fens are huge and flat, and it was quite pleasant and easy walking. At one point we had to make a detour because the police had fenced off a section of path (this also explained the helicopter we'd decided was stalking us!). Policeman Chaz asked us if we’d seen a Land Rover parked anywhere (or was it a Range Rover), and we felt a bit as if we were in an episode of Midsomer Murders, but we were of no help. We hoped it was a drugs investigation and not a murder. We arrived in St Ives in time to have a stroll around the square and then pick up a pizza, which we ate in Hemingford Meadow (much to the disgust of the 2378937 local joggers who trotted past). We walked back to Hemingford Grey in the company of a fluffy-tailed young cat, admiring the sunset.
Afterwards, we thought we’d walked maybe 17 or 18 kilometres, but on mapping it out we discovered we’d actually walked 23km. It certainly didn’t feel like the 23km days we’d done on the Southwest Coast Path, but I guess we were sporting very light packs, and the Cambridgeshire/Huntingdonshire landscape is quite spectacularly flat!
Friday 9th October
We packed and checked out hastily after breakfast because one of our fellow B&B-ers kindly offered to give us a lift into Cambridge. He told us a bit about where he lived, his job (a non-members golf course, which he was very proud of: “As soon as someone is a member of something they want to keep everyone else out”). He also took us on a detour past Madingley to see the American Cemetery, although it was closed in the morning. In the end he dropped us off outside Kings College, right where we wanted to be! We had a coffee and read our books for a little while before heading over to have a look in the Cathedral.
It was a fantastic place to visit – the fan vaulting on the roof is just as impressive as people say, and there are also interesting historic exhibits in the side rooms. Someone was tuning the organ when we were there, and it was fine until they started blasting the high notes. I was not the only one with fingers in ears!
After that, we’d had enough of touristing, so we looked in the CUP bookshop (there’s been a bookshop there for something like 4830 million years) walked through the city centre and back up to the train. (We were in London in under an hour, and it definitely took us longer to get from Kings Cross to M & A’s house!) I noticed once again that I started feeling grumpy almost as soon as we were in London. I don’t know what it is, but despite all the excellent things in it, that city gives me the shits!
Tuesday 6th October 2009
On holiday again!!! We got a lift from M to the station, then rode the packed tube to Kings Cross. We were there nice and early so after we picked up our tickets we went to find Platform 9 ¾, where they allegedly have a trolley stuck in the wall. Alas, they are putting a new platform in, and because of all the works we couldn’t see it. SADFACE. The train to Cambridge was speedy and smooth (in fact I think it took less time to get from Kings Cross to Cambridge than it did to get from home to Kings Cross).
Our first port of call was the Botanic Gardens, and we spent almost two hours there. First we wandered through the light rain smelling herbs and admiring the autumn colours. When the rain got heavier we escaped into the glasshouses where we saw things ranging from tropical rainforests with vines of lush flowers to a room of carnivorous plants (DON’T FEED THE PLANTS, said the sign), an Australian and African comparison, and a rock garden where we sat and drank a cup of tea from our thermos. It was fabulous!
Then it was into the centre of town to meet S & S (from the internet, as I so often say about the folk I catch up with on our travels). I liked Cambridge immediately, though I’m not sure I could cope with tourist season! It was fairly low key, full of students on bicycles, and not quite as picturesque/pretentious as Oxford. (That’s the extent of my weighing in to the rivalry!) S took us to the top of the tower at Great St Mary’s (the University church), where she pointed out various landmarks and S&S discussed the pros and cons of climbing the turrets and walls.
AND THEN WE WENT PUNTING! We walked around the Backs, looked at bridges, laughed at fail!punters – though no punters were failier than the ones we saw using a guitar as a paddle! Once on the river, we glided past swans, ducks, geese and moorhens . . . until it was time for us to punt, and then we turned around in circles (me) and zigzagged across the river (DB). S & S were excellent punters, though, and we had an ace time.
We parted ways after a few hours, and we hopped on a bus to St Ives (which went through the rather drab and unfunny town of Lolworth) and then another to Hemingford Grey. The bus drivers were jovial and got us to our destination with no fuss and a lot of loud friendliness and complaints about their working conditions. Upon arrival we walked what seemed like a long way down the street til we arrived at the gorgeous little B&B, checked in, then went for dinner next door at the pub called The Cock. It was expensive but delicious. Mmm, cheese platter!
Wednesday 7th October
DEAR DIARY. TODAY WAS THE BEST DAY EVER!!!
First of all, you need to understand that I (J) read all the Green Knowe books when I was a kid, and I loved them! Last year a friend (I) told me that the house in the books was real and that you could go and look around the gardens and book a tour of the house itself. That’s why we decided to stay in Hemingford Grey.
Walk to St Ives (once St Ivo’s) via church with its harvest festival stuff and through Hemingford Meadow. As we left the meadow, we stopped to talk to a woman who we discovered had written a booklet on the history and seasonal nature of the meadow. That was pretty cool!
We strolled through St Ives and stopped off at the Norris Museum. They had a fantastic collection, from locally found dinosaur bones to old axe heads, from Roman vessels and tiles to 19th century lace, several maps showing settlements and historic events and artwork depicting local scenes. At the end was a display of ice skates showing their evolution, paired with photos and silent 1920s or 30s film footage of races on the fens (with a gorgeous moment where a police officer in his helmet falls flat on his bum and his colleague laughs at him).
We got talking to the woman behind the desk about the area and about the Manor House and Lucy Boston. She was very excited to tell us that the ‘Bishops Seat’ we had seen outside was actually one of the ‘seats’ from The Stones of Green Knowe! Outside, there was also a display of a centuries-old fire pump, and a little herb garden beside the river with a display outlining what all the herbs were used for in medieval times.
From there, we walked up the River Great Ouse (what an odd order to have the words), through St Ives Thicket, and to the outskirts of Houghton. The National Trust has a mill there, but it wasn’t open. Instead we sat near the lock and drank hot chocolate (yay for our thermos!) and watched a narrowboat go through the lock. We were also terrorised by a teenage swan that strutted over and hissed at and pecked D’s backpack. We think it was because the backpack on the ground looked roughly the same size as a small animal or even the body of a small black swan.
In Hemingford Abbots we stopped at the Axe and Compass pub for lunch, which was nice and low-key. The cider was less low-key. In fact, it was quite alcoholic. I was rather cheerful when we left!
AND THEN WE WENT TO GREEN KNOWE. OMG THE HOUSE. F;LAKSDJF;LASDKFJ;LSDKFJ;ALSKDFJA;LSKDJF;ALSKDFJ;LSKDFJ;ALSKFJ;ASLKDFJA;LSKDF;ALSDKFJ;ALSKDFJ;SKDJF;LASKDF;KSDLOIWJF;ANA;SDLCKNFJALSDKJF
THEY ALL DRANK LEMONADE THE END.
To anyone who hasn’t loved the books, it’s pointless to outline how awesome it was. The gardens were lovely anyway, but we saw the old moat, the bamboo, the green deer, chess pieces, St Christopher, Green Noah (ARGH!), chooks, herb garden, a man with a gun, the gravel path. The man with a gun returned sans gun and offered to give us a tour of the house. I gleefully accepted!
THE HOUSE. sa;dlfkja;sdlfkz;sldkfj;alskdjf!!! Photography wasn’t allowed, but there was the mirror, the little figures in the rafters (one with birds nest) and Feste’s board, the fireplace, the human hair, the other mirror (creeeeeeepy!), Tolly’s room, the rocking horse, the dogs, the beds, the birdcage, the toy chest (Toby’s sword, Linnet’s doll and book, Alexander’s flute OMG! Susan’s shells) with the key . . . THE MOUSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The Knight’s Hall was the Music Room in Lucy Boston’s time, and she used to invite the airforce men over to listen to music on the huge gramophone. The trumpet was made of papier mache, and the needle was bamboo. We got to see the needle trimmed, and listened to a minute or so of an old record. AMAZING. We also saw the quilts Lucy made, the original manuscript of The Children of Green Knowe, Peter’s original paintings that are the covers of the books (and the artworks of Lucy’s ‘lifelong friend’ Elizabeth). It was great!
The guy was really friendly and lovely. Apparently they’ve made a movie which is going to be shown on Australian TV before/around Christmas. It wasn’t shot there (logistically that would be ridiculously hard to do), but they’ve used some of the things from the house as props and the current owner is in it for a second or two. I think it’s the story from Chimneys. It has Maggie Smith and Timothy Spall in it!
I can’t remember what we did after that! I think we went back to the B&B and collapsed for the evening. Possibly we watched TV.
Thursday 8th October
Since the B&B operators let us borrow their OS map of the area, we decided to go on a nice leisurely all-day walk. We started in the morning, wandered past the lakes (old quarries) on the outskirts of Hemingford Grey, attempted a possible shortcut which was very lovely but necessitated a loop back to where we began.
We wandered to Fenstanton and checked out the church on the way – it’s where Capability Brown is buried. Only his name was actually LANCELOT. Excellent.
We were thinking of having an early lunch at Fen Drayton (we didn’t have a packed lunch), but the pub wasn’t open yet, so instead we headed up to the Fen Drayton Lakes Nature Reserve (I think that’s the name!) and had a cup of tea while watching the abundant birdlife. The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway goes along the route of the old railway line, through the Nature Reserve. We walked alongside it for a while before turning off and heading into Swavesey, where we had lunch at a pub the kind of which I didn’t think existed outside of TV shows set in the English countryside. It was totally a local, with an old man addressed as ‘Major’ hobbling in for his lunch (soup and ‘the usual’), and it was excellent even as it was a bit of a culture shock (and reminded me of my days working in a country pub in Australia).
From Swavesey, we cut across to the river and followed it as close as we could back to St Ives. The fens are huge and flat, and it was quite pleasant and easy walking. At one point we had to make a detour because the police had fenced off a section of path (this also explained the helicopter we'd decided was stalking us!). Policeman Chaz asked us if we’d seen a Land Rover parked anywhere (or was it a Range Rover), and we felt a bit as if we were in an episode of Midsomer Murders, but we were of no help. We hoped it was a drugs investigation and not a murder. We arrived in St Ives in time to have a stroll around the square and then pick up a pizza, which we ate in Hemingford Meadow (much to the disgust of the 2378937 local joggers who trotted past). We walked back to Hemingford Grey in the company of a fluffy-tailed young cat, admiring the sunset.
Afterwards, we thought we’d walked maybe 17 or 18 kilometres, but on mapping it out we discovered we’d actually walked 23km. It certainly didn’t feel like the 23km days we’d done on the Southwest Coast Path, but I guess we were sporting very light packs, and the Cambridgeshire/Huntingdonshire landscape is quite spectacularly flat!
Friday 9th October
We packed and checked out hastily after breakfast because one of our fellow B&B-ers kindly offered to give us a lift into Cambridge. He told us a bit about where he lived, his job (a non-members golf course, which he was very proud of: “As soon as someone is a member of something they want to keep everyone else out”). He also took us on a detour past Madingley to see the American Cemetery, although it was closed in the morning. In the end he dropped us off outside Kings College, right where we wanted to be! We had a coffee and read our books for a little while before heading over to have a look in the Cathedral.
It was a fantastic place to visit – the fan vaulting on the roof is just as impressive as people say, and there are also interesting historic exhibits in the side rooms. Someone was tuning the organ when we were there, and it was fine until they started blasting the high notes. I was not the only one with fingers in ears!
After that, we’d had enough of touristing, so we looked in the CUP bookshop (there’s been a bookshop there for something like 4830 million years) walked through the city centre and back up to the train. (We were in London in under an hour, and it definitely took us longer to get from Kings Cross to M & A’s house!) I noticed once again that I started feeling grumpy almost as soon as we were in London. I don’t know what it is, but despite all the excellent things in it, that city gives me the shits!
6 November 2009
SOUTHWEST COAST PATH REVIEWS: ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD
We’ve been back in Australia for over three weeks, now – a longer time than we were walking the Southwest Coast Path, although it doesn’t feel like it! There’s so much to do here, it’s so familiar, and the time seems at once to fly by and not to move at all. On the trail the rhythm was so steady, so regular that after a week we felt like we’d been walking forever. Before we forget, we have written up a list of highlights and lowlights, recommendations, tips, and things for us to think about next time we do a longer walk. Here is the first section about accommodation and food.
ACCOMMODATION
We stayed in B&B accommodation every night, and were lucky not to stop anywhere extraordinarily noteworthy for its badness. The least good of a good bunch were:
• Whiteways Guesthouse in Penzance. It was small, a bit noisy, and the breakfast was nothing to write home about, BUT it was also only 55 for a double, so we’re not complaining.
• Housel Bay Hotel on The Lizard. This was expensive, booking and confirming was a haphazard affair, and the room wasn’t special, BUT they had a very good breakfast and a lovely view from the dining area. And a bath.
• Rashleigh Arms at Charlestown. Also expensive, and we slept really badly due to the hotness and stuffiness of the room, BUT the room was luxuriously big, there was a gorgeous deep bath, the service was good and they made me a flat white for breakfast!
• Jago Cottage near Portloe. Nothing at all wrong with the accommodation, though it’s a bit of a hike from the path at the end of a long day, and you might not want to stay there if you don’t speak English!
Places that stood out as being excellent were:
• Copper Kettle in Porthleven. The hosts are friendly (we had conversations with people over breakfast who we kept in touch with over the walk) and knowledgable, the breakfast is good, and the packed lunch was enough to keep us going right through the day (we didn’t need dinner!). The rooms are also nice.
• Honeycombe House in Mevagissey. Again, the hosts are friendly, and we had one of the balcony rooms with absolutely spectacular views over the bay and harbour. The breakfast was also nice, although you’d be hard pressed to notice given the amazing vista out the breakfast room window!
• Chyavallon in Polperro. Friendly host, bright and clean room, lovely village, very delicious breakfast (strawberries and kiwifruit on the fruit platter, yum yum yum!)
• Parc-an-Grouse in St Keverne. Perhaps we liked this one mostly because we stayed two nights and had a chance to explore the area – the ponds, St Keverne village and Roskilly’s icecream dairy! However, the room, food and hosts were good and there was a lazy cat and a gorgeous old dog to pat.
Best breakfasts: Chyavallon, Housel Bay Hotel, Copper Kettle, Landrivick Farm (near Helford).
FOOD AND DRINK
We ate and drank our way through a wide selection of fare – some of it excellent, some of it too hideous to finish. We ate a lot of standard pub grub which is not what you would call inspired in its vegetarian options (J is vegetarian, D is not), and there were some nights we were too exhausted to contemplate leaving the room, so we dined on the biscuits from the coffee trays. There were, however, a few non-B&B food high- and low-lights, which we feel we should share. Let’s start with those things best avoided by future walkers!
• The fish in Fowey: from the takeaway shop on the quayside, this fish was at once watery, soggy, flavourless and rubbery. It was a genuinely unpleasant experience.
• The veggie burger at St Keverne. From Three Tuns Pub, this ‘burger’ was literally a fried veggie patty between two halves of a cardboard-tasting white bun – no cheese, no sauce, no pickle, and only a few bits of salad on the side. Luckily the chips were very good and there was some live music and interesting wall hangings to take one’s mind off the burger.
• The ‘oriental’ meal in Penzance. Can’t for the life of me remember what the place was called, but the food was fairly insipid, chips were on the menu, and the other patrons seemed to be giving us the stink-eye for being a same-sex couple. Fun times.
• The cider in Polperro. From Blue Peter, this cider was The Worst Cider I Have Ever Met. It was warm and flat (as was the beer), and tasted like rancid apple juice mixed with cow urine. Coupled with the ‘hilarious’ (read: sexist/stupid) sayings on the rafters, this is possibly our worst-of-the-walk.
And now onto those places that make your day better, the ones you remember nostalgically when stuck half-way up a horrible hillside without a food source in sight at 2pm a few days later. Heh.
• The pasty in Helford. From Down by the Riverside Café, the pasty was fresh and hot, with chunky filling and a crisp pastry. The cream tea was also noteworthy, with freshly cooked scones a perfect accompaniment to a sunny afternoon. The staff were also very friendly and helpful.
• The icecream and food at Roskilly’s, St Keverne. Could it get any better than watching an icecream making demonstration then heading to the café and buying cones with huge scoops of delicious creamy goodness? Yes, it can! If you go at lunch time, you could also have a meal with nutritious soup, crispy salad, and tasty vegetarian tart (not J!) in the courtyard.
• The meal at Citrus Café in Falmouth. After however many days of walking through places where vegetarian food consists of chips and salad and maybe soup, finding Citrus Café was an event to remember. Although not all the options are veg, there were many interesting dishes, like a walnut and blue cheese salad, goats cheese tart, a tasty moussaka, and cakes, cakes, cakes! The music and ambience was also lovely and cosy, and just slightly hippie.
• The Thai meal in Plymouth. Thai Palace was literally around the corner from our final B&B, and we thought we would treat ourselves to a nice meal. And it was a fantastic meal, with a wonderful balance of flavours and textures in every dish, good customer service, and – most surprisingly for me – a selection of tasty Thai wine. I had a rose, which proved so good that I had to have another glass. This was the best meal of our walk, and also far and away the most expensive!
• The hot chocolate at Life’s a Beach café in Maenporth deserves an honourable mention. It was exactly the sugar rush we needed at the time: Hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, dotted with marshmallows (vegetarians might like to ask for them to hold the gelatine), drenched with chocolate topping and finished with chocolate shavings.
ACCOMMODATION
We stayed in B&B accommodation every night, and were lucky not to stop anywhere extraordinarily noteworthy for its badness. The least good of a good bunch were:
• Whiteways Guesthouse in Penzance. It was small, a bit noisy, and the breakfast was nothing to write home about, BUT it was also only 55 for a double, so we’re not complaining.
• Housel Bay Hotel on The Lizard. This was expensive, booking and confirming was a haphazard affair, and the room wasn’t special, BUT they had a very good breakfast and a lovely view from the dining area. And a bath.
• Rashleigh Arms at Charlestown. Also expensive, and we slept really badly due to the hotness and stuffiness of the room, BUT the room was luxuriously big, there was a gorgeous deep bath, the service was good and they made me a flat white for breakfast!
• Jago Cottage near Portloe. Nothing at all wrong with the accommodation, though it’s a bit of a hike from the path at the end of a long day, and you might not want to stay there if you don’t speak English!
Places that stood out as being excellent were:
• Copper Kettle in Porthleven. The hosts are friendly (we had conversations with people over breakfast who we kept in touch with over the walk) and knowledgable, the breakfast is good, and the packed lunch was enough to keep us going right through the day (we didn’t need dinner!). The rooms are also nice.
• Honeycombe House in Mevagissey. Again, the hosts are friendly, and we had one of the balcony rooms with absolutely spectacular views over the bay and harbour. The breakfast was also nice, although you’d be hard pressed to notice given the amazing vista out the breakfast room window!
• Chyavallon in Polperro. Friendly host, bright and clean room, lovely village, very delicious breakfast (strawberries and kiwifruit on the fruit platter, yum yum yum!)
• Parc-an-Grouse in St Keverne. Perhaps we liked this one mostly because we stayed two nights and had a chance to explore the area – the ponds, St Keverne village and Roskilly’s icecream dairy! However, the room, food and hosts were good and there was a lazy cat and a gorgeous old dog to pat.
Best breakfasts: Chyavallon, Housel Bay Hotel, Copper Kettle, Landrivick Farm (near Helford).
FOOD AND DRINK
We ate and drank our way through a wide selection of fare – some of it excellent, some of it too hideous to finish. We ate a lot of standard pub grub which is not what you would call inspired in its vegetarian options (J is vegetarian, D is not), and there were some nights we were too exhausted to contemplate leaving the room, so we dined on the biscuits from the coffee trays. There were, however, a few non-B&B food high- and low-lights, which we feel we should share. Let’s start with those things best avoided by future walkers!
• The fish in Fowey: from the takeaway shop on the quayside, this fish was at once watery, soggy, flavourless and rubbery. It was a genuinely unpleasant experience.
• The veggie burger at St Keverne. From Three Tuns Pub, this ‘burger’ was literally a fried veggie patty between two halves of a cardboard-tasting white bun – no cheese, no sauce, no pickle, and only a few bits of salad on the side. Luckily the chips were very good and there was some live music and interesting wall hangings to take one’s mind off the burger.
• The ‘oriental’ meal in Penzance. Can’t for the life of me remember what the place was called, but the food was fairly insipid, chips were on the menu, and the other patrons seemed to be giving us the stink-eye for being a same-sex couple. Fun times.
• The cider in Polperro. From Blue Peter, this cider was The Worst Cider I Have Ever Met. It was warm and flat (as was the beer), and tasted like rancid apple juice mixed with cow urine. Coupled with the ‘hilarious’ (read: sexist/stupid) sayings on the rafters, this is possibly our worst-of-the-walk.
And now onto those places that make your day better, the ones you remember nostalgically when stuck half-way up a horrible hillside without a food source in sight at 2pm a few days later. Heh.
• The pasty in Helford. From Down by the Riverside Café, the pasty was fresh and hot, with chunky filling and a crisp pastry. The cream tea was also noteworthy, with freshly cooked scones a perfect accompaniment to a sunny afternoon. The staff were also very friendly and helpful.
• The icecream and food at Roskilly’s, St Keverne. Could it get any better than watching an icecream making demonstration then heading to the café and buying cones with huge scoops of delicious creamy goodness? Yes, it can! If you go at lunch time, you could also have a meal with nutritious soup, crispy salad, and tasty vegetarian tart (not J!) in the courtyard.
• The meal at Citrus Café in Falmouth. After however many days of walking through places where vegetarian food consists of chips and salad and maybe soup, finding Citrus Café was an event to remember. Although not all the options are veg, there were many interesting dishes, like a walnut and blue cheese salad, goats cheese tart, a tasty moussaka, and cakes, cakes, cakes! The music and ambience was also lovely and cosy, and just slightly hippie.
• The Thai meal in Plymouth. Thai Palace was literally around the corner from our final B&B, and we thought we would treat ourselves to a nice meal. And it was a fantastic meal, with a wonderful balance of flavours and textures in every dish, good customer service, and – most surprisingly for me – a selection of tasty Thai wine. I had a rose, which proved so good that I had to have another glass. This was the best meal of our walk, and also far and away the most expensive!
• The hot chocolate at Life’s a Beach café in Maenporth deserves an honourable mention. It was exactly the sugar rush we needed at the time: Hot chocolate topped with whipped cream, dotted with marshmallows (vegetarians might like to ask for them to hold the gelatine), drenched with chocolate topping and finished with chocolate shavings.
3 October 2009
SOUTHWEST COAST PATH: FOWEY TO PLYMOUTH
Monday 28th September: Fowey to Polperro
All pics of the day
D had a large kipper for breakfast (stinky and tasty!), and J had lots of fruit and no cooked breakfast – you know what they say, a change is as good as a two week walking holiday. We were glad it was going to be a short walk, especially as everyone wanted to tell us that it would be a particularly strenuous stretch of coast and the guidebook described one section as having “severe gradients”. We jumped on the ferry to Polruan for the short crossing, and began the inevitable climb.
Despite the stunning views on offer, the most exciting sight that greeted us this morning was an inquisitive and ottery stoat! A STOAT! Hee! This was extra exciting because in Fowey we'd seen the house on which Toad Hall was based. To recover from this excitement, we stopped for a rest and a cup of tea at the lovely Lansallos Cove. J took the opportunity to de-boot, and for the first time this trip he dipped his feet in the sea. A group of walkers in their 70s showed up and had a thoroughly good time skimming stones; one of them even went for a swim, then rolled around on the stony beach to exfoliate.
After some upping and downing (steep, but with plenty of time to recover), we knew we were nearing civilisation – there was a dramatic increase in traffic passing us in both directions. We stopped for flap jacks and tea at the top of our last climb, and then arrived at Polperro at the ridiculously early time of 2.30. Polperro was a cute little village, even if it was full of tourists.
After checking into our B&B we explored the village for an hour or so, looking at art galleries, buying postcards, drinking the worst cider J has ever had the displeasure of encountering (seriously, it was warm and flat and like some horrid combination of off apple juice and cow urine!), sticky-beaking and scouting out potential venues for dinner. We found a number, but when we went back at 6:30 (the advertised start of dinner time) we discovered that pretty much every place was closed on Monday nights. We ended up at the Three Pilchards, which was inevitably quite crowded, and ordered our food: fish pie and mushroom stroganoff (J also got a glass of wine ON TAP!). A few minutes later, a nervous, awkward teenager in chef's uniform came over to us and announced that they were “out of the stroganoff”. J had “Luxury Burger” instead. Yes, that is what it was called. No, it didn't have turrets.
Tuesday 29th September: Polperro to Crafthole
All the photos!
An amazing breakfast greeted us in the morning – mountains of fresh fruit and nuts, home-made spreads, well-cooked and fresh hot food... a lovely start to what would be a long day. In fact, we decided that to play mind tricks on ourselves and make it more manageable, our walk would only officially start in Looe: the first 8kms of our journey would just be travelling to our real walk.
We started our not-walk by climbing out of Polperro past many, many benches, overgrown plots once used by residents as vegetable and flower gardens (the plots thicken...) and through Talland, where we first noticed the purple slate rocks in the cliffs. By the end of the day the colourful rocks had convinced J that a career in geology was calling.
In Hannafore we chatted with some walkers who were just finishing their stint on the path, and entering Looe we passed a statue commemorating Nelson, a bull seal who had been something of a celebrity in these parts – the inscription described him as being “a fine ambassador for his species”.
We came across the about-to-depart ferry (the boat, for those interested, was called Merlin), parted with the 40p each for the crossing and sailed over, saving ourselves several hundred yards of walking in the process. Well, maybe two hundred. After stocking up on food had coffee/tea and cake before commencing our walk proper. This, of course, began with a climb up a steep hill.
Millendreath, despite its fun-to-say Middle Earth-sounding name, was a bit of a dump. Its dominating feature was a run down old entertainment complex. It felt like the badlands, and we hurried on, even though our knees were not so keen. We approached a stretch of coast which our guide book described as “undulating”. We now know that “undulating” means “lots of upping and downing with no flat bits, which will lead to tired legs and sore feet”. However, there was some stunning scenery (as well as a dead mole, which was not so nice). There was a monkey sanctuary marked on the map, but no monkeys were forthcoming.
After all that upping and downing, what we really wanted was a nice flat stretch on soft, even ground. Imagine our joy, then when what we got was a steep descent from close to the highest point on the South Cornish coast into Seaton (on sea level) on steps (ow, my knees) and then tarmac (ow, my feet). We sat in a park and took off our shoes, eating food, drinking drink, and watching the many ducks, seagulls and jackdaws amusing themselves around us. From Seaton to Downderry, there was a choice of routes: up a hard road or across the beach. The beach is not passable at high tide, but the tide was just going out so we decided to risk it. It was mostly easy walking and J further developed his purple rock geology obsession before we had to scramble across large boulders to avoid the lapping waves.
Passing a sign warning naturists to keep away from the school, we left the beach, and zigzagged our way up to the second highest point on the South Cornish coast, stepping gingerly over a small snake as we went. Topping one hill, we looked up to see Plymouth in the distance, gleaming white in the sunshine. It was our first sight of our final destination, as well as of the sun (for that day).
We rested our weary bodies, and ate a chocolate bar, and set off to brave the path as it edged its unfenced way along the cliff edge and into the delightfully named Portwrinkle.
From here it was another 2km inland along hard roads towards Crafthole, and slowly, hobbling in agony, we approached our destination (“206 yards ahead”, the sign announced, rather specifically).
At the Liscawn, we ate until we were full (J finally got his mushrom stroganoff), opened our desert stomachs for strawberry gateaux, limped to our room, and embraced sleep.
Wednesday 30th September: Crafthole to Plymouth – THE FINAL DAY!!!
Pics, pics, pics
Over breakfast this morning, we came up with an invention that will change the world of breakfast forever: a battery-powered toast rack that keeps your toast warm! No more cold toast in the mornings!
Usually, road walking is neither particularly interesting nor fun, but this morning the road in question went passed a military training facility, and we saw many exciting warning signs (“Do not touch military debris. IT MAY EXPLODE AND KILL YOU”) which makes other warning signs seem, frankly, dull.
We also heard gun fire exploding around us, but we figured that they just played a loop CD of gun noises to keep inquisitive walkers and spies at bay. What we didn't see (honestly, guv) were all the cleverly camouflaged soldiers, jeeps and tanks hanging around the grounds.
We stopped shortly after this for some refreshments, and chatted to a couple who were impressed by the amount of sweat on our backs, before starting our walk (we tried the same trick as yesterday to break up the day). Today's walk, however, began with the path playing a nasty trick on us – the acorned waymark pointed us away from the road, steeply down a footpath towards the cliffs, before immediately (and again steeply) bringing us right back up to the road! We were not impressed, and were even less happy when it did EXACTLY THE SAME THING AGAIN almost immediately afterwards!
But we could see Rame Head getting closer – we'd been able to see it in the distance since the week before – and it was relatively easy walking up to the 600 year old chapel and the obligatory iron age fort (“No walker will be surprised,” says our book, when they find the ithsmus ditched and banked). It was another clear day, and we could see for miles and miles in each direction. There were expansive views behind us of headlands we had conquered, and headlands we hadn't (and wouldn't!) ahead of us. It was a nice spot to eat an incredibly healthy mix of different kinds of sweet things – hot chocolate, fudge, cake (we shared a carrot as well, so that's all right) – for lunch.
After poking around the hollow chapel, we headed off to Penlee Point, where we stopped for another break, because J had forgotten to remove his shoes at our lunch stop, and wished to rectify the situation as soon as possible.
On the other side of a sycamore wood, we found the twin towns of Cawsand and Kingsand (the former site of the Cornish/Devon border) then entered the Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, a large parkland of woods, gardens, deer enclosures, manor houses and follies. Follies are hilarious, the end.
We sat on a bench by a manicured lawn, overlooking the bay and Plymouth, drinking tea and airing feet. The path took us through some woods, but the route had been diverted at one point, due to a landspill, up a section of the woods referred to by the locals as “the Zigzag”. It was, as we soon discovered, aptly named. Much climbing, followed by much decending, took its toll on our knees and feet. Fortunatley after this point the path was almost universally and deliciously flat and we hobbled on through the formal gardens, past the estate house and up to the ferry port where we waited for about 10 minutes for the boat to arrive, talking to a group of people who had sped past us in the park earlier on.
Despite being incredibly tired, we felt a wave of elation as we left Cornwall behind: we had walked along its southern coast in its entirety. On arriving in Plymouth, we were greeted by a stencilled wall reading “POWSAWS AGAS DYNNARGH. WELCOME TO ENGLAND.” Definitely not in Cornwall any more!
That evening we celebrated with a very delicious and very expensive meal at The Thai Palace (the most delicious (for J) and expensive of the whole walk), drank Thai wine and beer, and proclaimed that if that was a 250km/150mi walk then we had done it.
They all drank lemonade. The End.
All pics of the day
D had a large kipper for breakfast (stinky and tasty!), and J had lots of fruit and no cooked breakfast – you know what they say, a change is as good as a two week walking holiday. We were glad it was going to be a short walk, especially as everyone wanted to tell us that it would be a particularly strenuous stretch of coast and the guidebook described one section as having “severe gradients”. We jumped on the ferry to Polruan for the short crossing, and began the inevitable climb.
Despite the stunning views on offer, the most exciting sight that greeted us this morning was an inquisitive and ottery stoat! A STOAT! Hee! This was extra exciting because in Fowey we'd seen the house on which Toad Hall was based. To recover from this excitement, we stopped for a rest and a cup of tea at the lovely Lansallos Cove. J took the opportunity to de-boot, and for the first time this trip he dipped his feet in the sea. A group of walkers in their 70s showed up and had a thoroughly good time skimming stones; one of them even went for a swim, then rolled around on the stony beach to exfoliate.
After some upping and downing (steep, but with plenty of time to recover), we knew we were nearing civilisation – there was a dramatic increase in traffic passing us in both directions. We stopped for flap jacks and tea at the top of our last climb, and then arrived at Polperro at the ridiculously early time of 2.30. Polperro was a cute little village, even if it was full of tourists.
After checking into our B&B we explored the village for an hour or so, looking at art galleries, buying postcards, drinking the worst cider J has ever had the displeasure of encountering (seriously, it was warm and flat and like some horrid combination of off apple juice and cow urine!), sticky-beaking and scouting out potential venues for dinner. We found a number, but when we went back at 6:30 (the advertised start of dinner time) we discovered that pretty much every place was closed on Monday nights. We ended up at the Three Pilchards, which was inevitably quite crowded, and ordered our food: fish pie and mushroom stroganoff (J also got a glass of wine ON TAP!). A few minutes later, a nervous, awkward teenager in chef's uniform came over to us and announced that they were “out of the stroganoff”. J had “Luxury Burger” instead. Yes, that is what it was called. No, it didn't have turrets.
Tuesday 29th September: Polperro to Crafthole
All the photos!
An amazing breakfast greeted us in the morning – mountains of fresh fruit and nuts, home-made spreads, well-cooked and fresh hot food... a lovely start to what would be a long day. In fact, we decided that to play mind tricks on ourselves and make it more manageable, our walk would only officially start in Looe: the first 8kms of our journey would just be travelling to our real walk.
We started our not-walk by climbing out of Polperro past many, many benches, overgrown plots once used by residents as vegetable and flower gardens (the plots thicken...) and through Talland, where we first noticed the purple slate rocks in the cliffs. By the end of the day the colourful rocks had convinced J that a career in geology was calling.
In Hannafore we chatted with some walkers who were just finishing their stint on the path, and entering Looe we passed a statue commemorating Nelson, a bull seal who had been something of a celebrity in these parts – the inscription described him as being “a fine ambassador for his species”.
We came across the about-to-depart ferry (the boat, for those interested, was called Merlin), parted with the 40p each for the crossing and sailed over, saving ourselves several hundred yards of walking in the process. Well, maybe two hundred. After stocking up on food had coffee/tea and cake before commencing our walk proper. This, of course, began with a climb up a steep hill.
Millendreath, despite its fun-to-say Middle Earth-sounding name, was a bit of a dump. Its dominating feature was a run down old entertainment complex. It felt like the badlands, and we hurried on, even though our knees were not so keen. We approached a stretch of coast which our guide book described as “undulating”. We now know that “undulating” means “lots of upping and downing with no flat bits, which will lead to tired legs and sore feet”. However, there was some stunning scenery (as well as a dead mole, which was not so nice). There was a monkey sanctuary marked on the map, but no monkeys were forthcoming.
After all that upping and downing, what we really wanted was a nice flat stretch on soft, even ground. Imagine our joy, then when what we got was a steep descent from close to the highest point on the South Cornish coast into Seaton (on sea level) on steps (ow, my knees) and then tarmac (ow, my feet). We sat in a park and took off our shoes, eating food, drinking drink, and watching the many ducks, seagulls and jackdaws amusing themselves around us. From Seaton to Downderry, there was a choice of routes: up a hard road or across the beach. The beach is not passable at high tide, but the tide was just going out so we decided to risk it. It was mostly easy walking and J further developed his purple rock geology obsession before we had to scramble across large boulders to avoid the lapping waves.
Passing a sign warning naturists to keep away from the school, we left the beach, and zigzagged our way up to the second highest point on the South Cornish coast, stepping gingerly over a small snake as we went. Topping one hill, we looked up to see Plymouth in the distance, gleaming white in the sunshine. It was our first sight of our final destination, as well as of the sun (for that day).
We rested our weary bodies, and ate a chocolate bar, and set off to brave the path as it edged its unfenced way along the cliff edge and into the delightfully named Portwrinkle.
From here it was another 2km inland along hard roads towards Crafthole, and slowly, hobbling in agony, we approached our destination (“206 yards ahead”, the sign announced, rather specifically).
At the Liscawn, we ate until we were full (J finally got his mushrom stroganoff), opened our desert stomachs for strawberry gateaux, limped to our room, and embraced sleep.
Wednesday 30th September: Crafthole to Plymouth – THE FINAL DAY!!!
Pics, pics, pics
Over breakfast this morning, we came up with an invention that will change the world of breakfast forever: a battery-powered toast rack that keeps your toast warm! No more cold toast in the mornings!
Usually, road walking is neither particularly interesting nor fun, but this morning the road in question went passed a military training facility, and we saw many exciting warning signs (“Do not touch military debris. IT MAY EXPLODE AND KILL YOU”) which makes other warning signs seem, frankly, dull.
We also heard gun fire exploding around us, but we figured that they just played a loop CD of gun noises to keep inquisitive walkers and spies at bay. What we didn't see (honestly, guv) were all the cleverly camouflaged soldiers, jeeps and tanks hanging around the grounds.
We stopped shortly after this for some refreshments, and chatted to a couple who were impressed by the amount of sweat on our backs, before starting our walk (we tried the same trick as yesterday to break up the day). Today's walk, however, began with the path playing a nasty trick on us – the acorned waymark pointed us away from the road, steeply down a footpath towards the cliffs, before immediately (and again steeply) bringing us right back up to the road! We were not impressed, and were even less happy when it did EXACTLY THE SAME THING AGAIN almost immediately afterwards!
But we could see Rame Head getting closer – we'd been able to see it in the distance since the week before – and it was relatively easy walking up to the 600 year old chapel and the obligatory iron age fort (“No walker will be surprised,” says our book, when they find the ithsmus ditched and banked). It was another clear day, and we could see for miles and miles in each direction. There were expansive views behind us of headlands we had conquered, and headlands we hadn't (and wouldn't!) ahead of us. It was a nice spot to eat an incredibly healthy mix of different kinds of sweet things – hot chocolate, fudge, cake (we shared a carrot as well, so that's all right) – for lunch.
After poking around the hollow chapel, we headed off to Penlee Point, where we stopped for another break, because J had forgotten to remove his shoes at our lunch stop, and wished to rectify the situation as soon as possible.
On the other side of a sycamore wood, we found the twin towns of Cawsand and Kingsand (the former site of the Cornish/Devon border) then entered the Mount Edgcumbe Country Park, a large parkland of woods, gardens, deer enclosures, manor houses and follies. Follies are hilarious, the end.
We sat on a bench by a manicured lawn, overlooking the bay and Plymouth, drinking tea and airing feet. The path took us through some woods, but the route had been diverted at one point, due to a landspill, up a section of the woods referred to by the locals as “the Zigzag”. It was, as we soon discovered, aptly named. Much climbing, followed by much decending, took its toll on our knees and feet. Fortunatley after this point the path was almost universally and deliciously flat and we hobbled on through the formal gardens, past the estate house and up to the ferry port where we waited for about 10 minutes for the boat to arrive, talking to a group of people who had sped past us in the park earlier on.
Despite being incredibly tired, we felt a wave of elation as we left Cornwall behind: we had walked along its southern coast in its entirety. On arriving in Plymouth, we were greeted by a stencilled wall reading “POWSAWS AGAS DYNNARGH. WELCOME TO ENGLAND.” Definitely not in Cornwall any more!
That evening we celebrated with a very delicious and very expensive meal at The Thai Palace (the most delicious (for J) and expensive of the whole walk), drank Thai wine and beer, and proclaimed that if that was a 250km/150mi walk then we had done it.
They all drank lemonade. The End.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)