Land's End

Wednesday 1 August

You might be wondering what happened to the posts from 29 July till now? Well, we have been running the van on battery power and the MacBook Pro, unfortunately, will not charge from the vehicle batteries, we need to get an inverter thingy or something like that. So anyway, we are now on power again and we are able to get the blog back up to date.

Sunday 29 July was spent packing up or things and moving on the next site at St Just. The site itself is situated high up on top of the cliffs on a farm called Gurland Farm. (GR. OS 363,285) The drive up to the farm was another paint scraping, nail biting experience. The road was made up of two concrete strips in disrepair with holes filled in with boulders. 

The trip was indeed worth the effort as what greeted us was the most amazing views to imagine. We had a 180 degree view of the horizon across the sea. To land the view looked over Whitesand Bay to the rocks with Longships lighthouse perched on the end. Having got over the view we sorted out the van and settled down. The only small niggle I suppose was that the there was quite a wind blowing. We chatted to the caravan owners next door who told us that they come every year and have done so for the last 17 years. They advised us not to put the awning up if we valued it.....nuff said!

To crown our arrival at the site we had a fantastic sunset. here are a few pics to show you what we can’t put into words.

Monday 30 July, started with glorious warm sunshine we slept very well. After breakfast we  Petra suggested we went for a walk down the cliff and back just in time for a coffee. Walking boots on and off we went. The descent was quite eventful, beautiful coloured heather but slippy and steep. We made it down to the beach and decided to walk along to see where it would take us. The tide was out which enabled us to walk from the beach below our CL past the rocks to the next beach and small village of Sennen Cove.

Clearly this place is surfer’s paradise as they were everywhere, curly haired, tanned, young, slender beach bums parading around covered in sand carrying the tools of their trade under their arms. It was really nice to see and we sat in the cafe watching as we sipped our americanos, dreaming of what once might have been.

Back in the real world, what goes up must come down but in our case what comes down must go back up. We decided to push on to the top of the hill to Mayon cliff to a look out post once used by the Coast Guard now manned by the National Trust Volunteers. We met a fantastic lady who was so enthusiastic, it was a joy to hear someone so animated about something she was passionate about. The views were of course amazing and the post is now used for spotting basking sharks, seals and dolphins....and anything else in the sea I suppose that could be seen through her very powerful telescope.

From this point we could see a the themed park that is Land’s End. We had no intention of going there but walking around the bay a bit more we saw a ship wreck (what’s left of it) it was a German vessel containing rubber parts and shredded plastic. It hit the rocks so hard that it nearly knocked over the lighthouse. How you can not see a lighthouse is beyond us, it’s not as if it was hiding or anything!

Back down the hill side again descending to Sennen Cove via a short detour down the wrong path into someone’s garden forcing us to retrace our steps and make it to the harbour side and the local ‘Chippy’. Delicious ‘Fish and Chips’ sitting at the table outside again watching all the beautiful people walk by.

After lunch we went to a Gallery (Shop) it was in a lovely, and old winching shed for the fishing boats. They had a interesting collection of art from local artists, typical seaside views and pottery looking like shells but we enjoyed it. Kevin nearly fell into the fisherman’s smock trap but escaped by the skin of his teeth. 

We had a lovely day at Senneh Cove and by 2pm it was time to make our way back up the cliff to ‘Campy’. By now the tide was in so our return via the beaches was not an option so we climbed up along the South West Coast Path over the top of the rocks to the style that led to our ascent to the top of the cliff.

That evening things started to change.........

Perched as we were on the top of the world and at the end of the world we should not have been surprised that evening by the sudden and rather rude change in the weather conditions that came in from the SW at full chat. We had blustery winds blowing at 20 - 30 MPH that shock the van from side to side. What was worse though was the noise of the wind that seriously disturbed our now customary 10 hours sleep. (Not good). 

Unfortunately, the next day (Tuesday 31 July) was no better and we decided to stay in the van and do some much needed booking of campsites and our ferry tickets to France 1 October. Not a day wasted but we had to contend with the buffeting of the wind and rain all day. Poor Campy was getting a beating and we were feeling a bit ‘is this site really for us’.... in a ‘wish we were in a sheltered campsite sort of way’.....The night gave no respite and it got so noisy that we had to put the roof down (instant calmer!) 

Next morning (Wed 1 August) we were still in the throws of a gale and decided that as we were free agents enough was enough and we’re out of here. Quick call to Radnor Golf, Redruth and we were off. Within only a few miles from the site we were into sunshine calm weather and felt were back to living the dream.

The afternoon was spent at Trengwainton Gardens. It's 10 hectare (25 acres) of woodland gardens with great views across Mount's Bay. We really enjoyed the walled gardens which were very unusual as they have several separate walled gardens encompassed within one large outer wall. The sloping beds were particularly interesting as we have never seen anything like this before. Also they had a fun display of Scarecrows with a Kings and Queens theme. We thought Victoria was great, clearly she was not amused....

Pic above borrowed from internet....many thanks to the person who took it.