DARTH

We’d decided to head further north up the coast for some walking and after breakfast we headed off towards Crackington Haven. The walk that we’d planned wasn’t as long as the previous day (slightly less than half the distance), but it was more up and down. It was a circular walk that started at the village car-park, took us through some woods and passed a couple of farms that are mentioned in the Doomsday book, before joining the coastal path to head back toward the village. There was some stunning shoreline to gawp at, along with some moorland ponies and some wild (well we presumed they were wild) goats. The walk itself was very quiet with us not encountering anyone (other than animals) until we were on the coastal path and getting quite close to the village. The weather had started dull and overcast, but soon brightened up again into a lovely morning. We didn’t mind the shortness of the walk as we had plans for the rest of the day.

Cornish coast near Crackington Haven

Once back at the car we headed off for Boscastle, where they’d had those bad floods in 2004. Of course Crackington Haven had suffered too at the time (along with some other places in the surrounding area) but that wasn’t as well covered in the media outside Cornwall, even I didn’t realise until I read some of the info boards around the village. It didn’t take very long to get to Boscastle and after parking up we headed off to explore. We didn’t spend that long here in the end, wandering through the town popping into a couple of shops and the visitor centre. We did pop into the recommended (by our hosts) Cobweb Inn for a quick drink before we left though.

Boscastle

We then headed off for some Arthurian legends at Tintagel Castle (it isn’t a silly place). Tintagel Castle is supposedly the birthplace of the legendary King Arthur. The ruins of the castle that remain today are from the 13th Century, although the settlement is thought to have originally been a Roman settlement.

Tintagel Castle

We spent some time exploring the ruins on both the island part and the mainland. In fact the ruins on the mainland are slowly disappearing into the sea through erosion. There were a lot of steps climbing up to both parts of the castle, but despite the exposed nature of the castle there were areas where it was well sheltered. We then wandered round Tintagel itself for a bit, it seemed to be comprised of gift shops, bars and restaurants and not a lot else. We soon called it a day and headed back to Padstow. After a quick change we headed off out for drinks and dinner. Adele had spotted a good write up of a place that wasn’t owned by Rick Stein so we thought we’d give it a bash. It was called Paul Ainsworth @ No. 6, and it appeared Mr Ainsworth was working himself that night flitting between the kitchen and front of house. Food was delicious only minor complaint was from Adele’s starter where the scallops were probably a bit more well done than we would do them – but that didn’t detract in anyway from what was another lovely evening. This was our last night in Padstow and we’d had a great time here and would definitely come back and stay in the same place.

The following morning we headed south towards the Eden Project. This was another place that we were both really keen to visit. It really is incredible what they’ve done with a giant hole in the ground. We spent most of the day here wandering through the biomes and around the site. It was quite strange seeing plants that we’d seen last year in the wild in south east asia growing in the UK (admittedly inside the tropical biome). As well as all the tropical stuff they are all the plants and flowers more used to these shores in the temperate biome and outside. The time of year we visited obviously there wasn’t as much growing outside, but there were various sculptures around the place, including the Weee Man that is made up of old household electrical equipment.

Weee man @ Eden Project

We left here about half four and headed for our B&B in St Austell. We were a little disappointed with St Austell as a whole, although it has it’s definite plus points (more about which later), but that was because Padstow had been so lovely. We always knew it would only really be a base and we’d be heading off exploring the surrounding area anyway. After dropping stuff off at the B&B and armed with a couple of recommendations for somewhere to eat from one of our hosts, we headed off out for drinks and food. We ended up in one of recommended places (Hop & Vine) and very nice it was too. After dinner we tried another of the local hostelries for some evening drinks, and ended up in the Seven Stars (which we later found out was the first pub owned by William Hicks who founded the St Austell brewery). This turned out to be a good move as the place was really quiet so we ended up sitting at the bar chatting to Barb, one of the bar staff (in fact the only person working) and some of the other locals that were in. We stayed longer than we thought, although we did leave shortly after this pissed up wide boy appeared and started mouthing off – which was a shame as it had been good fun chatting with everyone else.

To be continued…