Back to Cornish shores...

So we took off for our annual trip to Cornwall last week

It's a 6 hour journey, but as its by train, we can keep ourselves amused to make the time pass quicker, plus once we've crossed the bridge into the county the views are spectacular! 

On arrival, its just half an hours car journey till we get to the coastline. As there had been strong winds the previous night, it meant the waves had been whipped up. We took a drive along Porthleven coastline to view the waves crashing against cliff edge

To make the most of our time, we planned our weeks itinerary.

For our first trip out we decided to pay a visit to St Michaels mount,  a place we'd driven past and admired many times before. As the tide was out, we were able to walk up the causeway to reach the island.

Blue sky opened out and the sun shone, as we spent the next couple of hours walking around the layers of spectacular gardens. From the giant native Echiums

 to smaller colourful blooms

and weird and wonderful plants

 We worked our way up the different tiers, finding amazing views down over the lower gardens and coast.

We stopped for a much needed lunch break, before heading up to the main house.

Each room showed beautiful decor

 and were filled with treasures. 

With the outside architecture and views just as pleasing to the eye.

We literally stayed until closing, winding our way back down the steep pathways, finding the Giant's heart on the way.

 The tide had come in, so it meant a short boat trip to take as back to the mainland.

After a long day, we'd booked to go to a local restaurant for our dinner. We had chosen Amelies.  The food was lovely, but unfortunately there were a few service niggles! 

The next day we'd allocated as a rest day. After a lie in, we went down to the village, stopping off at our favourite milkshake cafe. We had intended to try some Geocaching in the area, but we were unsuccessful, with bad signal and no forward planning. We did attempt to clamber around over rocks and search, but to no avail!

We went back and had lunch in the garden,

before venturing out round the village again, this time with Dad, to pop into the local crafts and galleries.

For the evening we had prebooked a trip to the theatre in town. Although we love the theatre, neither of us had seen a play before. We both thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt the two main actors gave a compelling performance.

Then back for a very late dinner, but as always we were warmly greeted!

When we originally planned our trip here, we chose to coincide with the Royal Cornwall show. 

The weather started out a bit dismal but thankfully cleared up by the afternoon. We made our way round the various craft tents, 

and admired all the floral displays in the flower tent. 

We stopped briefly for a pasty before making our way to the arena to see the bikes 

and the cattle awards. 

Finally we checked out the food tents, munching our way round all the tasters!

Despite having a full day we didn't cover half of it!

Again we'd arranged to eat out, this time at Kota Kai. This is a relaxed, contemporary restaurant and I have to say the food was outstanding!

Another relaxed day. After a quick stroll to the harbour, we had another Al fresco lunch.

In the afternoon we drove up the road to Rinsey, to collect Doris, which we'd reserved. 

We then took a walk along the cliffs as it was lovely and sunny again, although a tad windy!

This site has some of the old mines, which featured in the original Poldark series.

On the return we stopped off at a pub called Out of the Blue, here they are compiling a photographic history of the village. My Dad has spent many painstaking hours researching, editing and compiling these photos into topics, I think it will be fantastic once complete, and a great legacy for the locals.

After a lovely home cooked meal, we relaxed with a film.

For our last big day out, we had chosen the Lost Gardens of Heligan, somewhere I've always fancied visiting, and it certainly lived up to its reputation! 

We started round the yellow route,

 and linked back round to do the pink trail.

 Some of the ancient huge trees were amazing with their mass of trunks and branches!

We stopped for a lovely lunch before wending our way round the various styles of garden.

 I was in floral heaven!

We wound our way around the Jungle, despite the steep terrain,

 and across the rope bridge.

 After struggling to find our way out, we made it to the last part, the woodland walk,  which enabled us to see the 3 sculptures.  The newest one is hardest to spot as it hasn't developed enough. 

But the mud maid

 and giants head were fully established and fun to see.

Again we had packed in a full day, so for our last night we went to a local Indian restaurant aptly named India. With its traditional decor, we were served up a tasty array or curries, suiting all our different tastes!

The following day was our final day, the week always goes too fast! After packing, we had our last lunch in the garden

before a last milkshake and trip to the harbour

We had a mad sprint to the station, and then it was tearing ourselves away from the relaxed coastal resort for another year...

Cruising Cornwall...

Last week we went on our annual holiday to Cornwall to visit my Dad, which is something we always look forward to. As a bonus we are getting a proper summer this year, which made planning what we wanted to do so much easier, as all of Cornwalls beauty is outside!

It's always a long trip down there, but it is definately worth it!

Our trip coincided with the Stithians show this year, which is an agricultural show, so we got to see plenty of lovely animals.

On our first day we got to see a variety of sheep, including one which had, what looked like a rabbit head. So much lovely fleece!!

3 really adorable Alpaca's, one of which was only 7 days old. They had not long been shawn, which made their fluffy-topped heads look even cuter!! 

All breeds of cows. Watch where you step now!!

There was a marquee of Goats

A massive Poultry tent, with every shape and size of chicken. From the big plump rooster to the fluffy headed, fluffy footed chickens, and also the bare necked chicken, which was as ugly as it sounds!

There was a whole tent of pigeons, yes really! Muli-coloured, tiny, caged birds, and Cavies, the term used for Guinea pigs. But the highlight for me, which you don't normally see at Ag shows, was the rabbit tent! A whole space dedicated to cuteness and fluffyness, which definately had the Aaaaaahh factor! I could have easily taken a few home with me! My absolute favourite was the lion-head rabbit, the ultimate in fluffyness with its tufty mane.

After having explored all the animal areas, we stopped for some much needed refreshment, in the heat, before heading round to the rest of the stalls and displays. It was a long exhausting day, but well worth the visit.

On the Tuesday we opted to stay local, as we did need some rest days. There are usually some small changes to the village each year, but even if there wasn't I'd still enjoy re-visiting the little shops and galleries and you can never tire of the beautiful views of the harbour!!

It was great to have a garden to utilise too, something that we really miss, especially in this fine weather. It enables you to enjoy the full extent of the light, morning and evening, and can enjoy dining Al fresco too!

On the Wednesday, we had booked aboard the Scillonian3, to take us across to the Scilly Isles, this was somewhere that we hadn't ventured to before. It was a 2 1/2 hour trip away from the mainland.

Once we'd arrived at the biggest island, of St Marys, it was a hop onto a much smaller boat called Surprise, to take us to the Isle of Tresco, this was home to some stunning gardens, which Dad wanted to take us to. It looked so idyllic on arrival, with turquoise clear waters, white sandy beaches and palms, a tropical delight. We needed to make haste as we only had a limited time to venture round, as the travel does eat into much of the day.

Tresco gardens certainly lived up to its reputation, absolutely stunning, with a whole host of tropical plants, but giant sized.

All the plants were green and lush and the flowers were bright and colourful.

The trees loomed up into the sky

and the succulents spread out widely.

We stopped for a quick picnic lunch, where we had a little visitor. A beautiful chinese pheasant, with colourful plumage.

There was a gorgeous shell hut

and an amazing treasure house which had a whole collection of figureheads from various wrecks that had washed ashore.

Our time was up and it was a quick march back to board our boats. Both boats seemed more packed for the journey back, and finding somewhere to sit was quite tricky, and we were exhausted from walking around in the midday heat, but it was worth every moment as we have many visual memories to treasure.

On the Thursday, it was yet another new experience. Hubby is an enthusiastic freshwater fisherman, and we had the opportunity to go with a local fisherman to try sea fishing. Dad has had experience of this trip before, which he said was great fun, though I had to admit I was not totally convinced of this, but hubby was most excited to try. It was great to sail away from the harbour, and see it from a new angle.

The sea was totally calm and flat, and as it had been so hot in the uk, there was an unusually large amount of jellyfish in the water. We were handed our rods and shown how to attatch the weights and hooks. We put our lines out over the boat and reeled in and out of the water. We stopped for the boat to move position now and again, and then we changed from using a lure, to multiple feathers, and then we added bait, as the fish werent biting too much in the heat.

Dad was the first to land a fish, and the team went on to catch a mix of mackerel, pollock, ....... To my surprise I managed to catch not just one but 2 mackerel. Oscar the fisherman was a great tutor, and was helpful as most of us didnt really know what we were doing and he was always at hand to help out. It was a sweltering heat, being out on the water in the middle of the day, but surprisingly I thoroughly enjoyed the whole venture. I got stuck in and with the expertise of Oscar, it was a pleasant smooth trip for me.

On our return to shore, we went straight to one of our favourite pit-stop for a milkshake. They make milkshakes from chocolate bars or biscuits, and they are refreshing and yummy.We do have to try as many flavours as we can while we are there of course!! This time I tried peanut m+m's, mint areo and terry's chocolate orange.

We left the gutting of the fish to Dad, but we had the freshest and tastiest fish meal that evening. How satisfying to know you are eating what you caught!

After our last 2 adventurous days, on the Friday we again stayed around the village, with the morning spent relaxing and eating in the garden. In the afternoon we decided to tackle the Treasure trail that we'd brought along. This gave us the opportunity to have a nice walk around the whole of the village, whilst keeping an eye out for historic points and various images. This wasn't quite as difficult and the clues weren't so obscure as our previous one, and as Dad has quite alot of knowledge about the village it wasn't as tricky as we'd hoped for, but we still enjoyed our time scouting around the area.

Then before we knew it, it was Saturday and time to go home again, time always goes so quick. It's so restful and peaceful there, a relaxed way of life, that the thought of going back to the hustle and bustle of town and having to go back to work, was not a pleasant thought.

We had our last milkshake and stroll around the village.

It was lovely to unwind, and more pleasant to by the sea, in the heat, than a stuffy town. So lovely to spend time with family and enjoyable to play and cuddle up with the cats.

It's just a shame that we aren't able to do this more than once a year!!!