Goons and porths

Adam and I had a week in Cornwall, staying at a little holiday park that had some good winter specials. I thought it sounded a bit odd to go to a summer holiday park in the middle of winter but it was fantastic. It was a 5 star lodge, with maid service, our own hot tub, wood burning stove, free massages and almost no one else around. Luxury. So when it wasn't too windy we would sit in the hot tub and look at the stars, which drinking the free champagne. And then we could come back into the warmth of central heating and a fire. ahhh.

The lodge was up the hill just behind Portreath, so we had lovely sea views, and a short walk down to the beach and the harbour, which meantthat we got to experience the Cornish harbour concept. We are used to Sydney harbour, or the fishing industry on the NSW coast, which all use estuaries for harbours. In Cornwall, and probably in many other places, harbours are completely manmade structures that rely on the tides. Most times that we saw them they were empty, which looks very odd. In our naive Australian way, we thought that the harbour would be an obvious feature, easy to find, which meant we spent one fun night driving up and down the one way streets at the beaches in Newquay trying to find which section of which beach was 'the harbour'.

We generally had some rain every day and a lot of wind, but we found that the other side of the peninsula often had different weather. We went on little adventures to Pendower beach, hunting unsuccesfully for fossils. And then had proper afternoon tea at the Nare Hotel, overlooking the beach, which included cucumber (and other) sandwiches with the crust cut off, fruit cake, shortbread, fairings (cornish biscuits), scones with strawberry or raspberry jam and clotted cornish cream, and lashings of tea.

We went to the National Seal Sanctuary in Gweek, and the Newquay zoo.

We went to Truro, which had an improbably large cathedral, considering how small the city was and how sparsely populated the area was in general. We tried to go to the cinema but everything was sold out.

I had forgotten how cool trees are that grow in windy environments, so I had fun taking photos of them and some of the other plant life. Cornwall has a 'subtropical' climate, as opposed to here which is, well, covered in snow at the moment.

On the day with the worse weather, we went to St Michaels Mount (a relative of the french one, an old monastery only accessible across a causeway at low tide, but with its own tidal harbour of course). It was the only day we could go and do a tour unfortunately. And while it was misty and rainy and you couldn't see anything for the most part, it was lovely.

While it is easiest enough to get there and get around, I prefer the country lanes to the motorways, which makes it a bit more challenging. A lot of towns had old rows of terraces without any road access. We went to St Ives, which was a lovely (large) village with harbour on one end of the beach, where much of the old centre is cobbled one lane roads (no footpaths), or just cobbled foot paths.

But also, when we were driving around, there was the comedy provided by the cornish town names. Goonhavern, Goonown, Goonbell, Goonhusband, Shortlanesend, Idless, London Apprentice, Probus, Carne and Barcelona to name a few.

But now we are home.