Friday 24 June 2011

Up early - another lovely breakfast - then on the road again. Kev had the day all planned - we were heading for St Michael's Mount, a castle, which is on its own island off the Coast from Marazion, South Cornwall. The Mount was first a Priory and then later a fort. At low tide the island can be accessed by way of a causeway. The castle and the causeway were built hundreds of years ago and have had to be repaired from time to time. The causeway has been having a major rebuilt as it was prone to movement with the tides because it was basically just sitting on the sand. Any work on it had to be well timed to coincide with low tide and they would only have got a couple of hours each low tide to do it. Unfortunately we were not there at low tide but the place is quite spectacular and the board ride was fun itself. Once you get on the island everything is uphill and the whole place is cobbled, very unevenly, so it was a matter of watching where one stepped! Kevin looked after me though Mum in case you were worried! The castle is the home of the St Aubyn Family who make it available to the public to view. It was beautiful inside and full of gorgeous paintings and furniture, obviously because people actually live in it! The little Church which is part of the castle was lovely and had some wonderful windows in it. We finally dragged ourselves away, back to the boat and back across the harbour to the mainland. We decided that today was the day to treat ourselves to a Cornish Pastie! We passed some people munching and just couldn't resist. I bought a standard steak - asked for a medium steak but they were all out. It was just as well they were because it was huge! I have to say though it was the most delicious thing and we both enjoyed - we shared one of course!

After our delicious lunch we headed round the bay to Penzance which is quite a big harbour town. We parked and headed up towards the town. It was very bustling with lots going on. There were lots of families, buggies, older people and then us of course! Penzance had a lot of shoe shops and I found one with very comfortable shoes! Needless to say my case is now bursting! Penzance also had lots of pirates funnily enough. After we had wandered around for an hour or so we headed back to the car and took off for St Ives (how many people were going to St Ives Stu? Please check it out and let me know.)

As we approached St Ives there were signs warning of driving down into the village because of narrow roads so we took advantage of a park and ride area at the top of the hill. When Kev went to buy a parking ticket he found they were £5.30 and the machine would not take notes? Of course we didn't have enough coin. The tickets were all day ones which wouldn't have been so bad except it was now around 2.45pm and not good value one would think! While Kev was at the machine I saw a couple of people hand tickets to someone pulling in. Kev came back and I approached a guy to ask if he had any coins. He said he didn't and began to walk off then said "you can have my ticket as I am leaving". Wow I was responsible for saving some money! Not only that but we saved the price of the bus fare by walking down the hill! I am into savings mode big time!

St Ives was gorgeous. I keep using that word but Cornwall is really so lovely. Each town is different but they all have similar characteristics in that they are near the water, have narrow winding roads and cute little shops, bars and lots of ice cream shops! St Ives and Penzance are both slightly larger Cornwall towns than we have seen previously but St Ives was definitely the prettier. While we were there the tide was rolling out and boats were high and dry on the sand. We stopped along the harbour and had the requisite beer but it was getting colder and eventually we had to move off towards the car. We did catch a bus back up the hill - just to save Kev's legs! I didn't say at the start but our trip took a little over one hour so we still had a way to go to get back to our lodgings. Because it was getting on we hit the rush hour and got caught up in quite a bit of traffic. We eventually arrived around 5.30pm and were glad to get inside out of the cold.

Drove to Mevagissey tonight for dinner at the pub where we had our prawns yesterday. It is quite a big pub but it was chocka however they found us a space and we are now home having been fed and watered very adequately.

Paul - we are hoping when you get here you are going to bring some of that good luck and good weather that you usually do. Hope you guys werent too delayed getting away and that you are now well into your journey.

Murray playing Lubicic at the moment and seems to have the upper hand.