DAY 33

Saturday June 25^th 2016                                                         

St. Austell to Thurlestone                                                                       Miles 135

Today I had the pleasure of being joined by Marilyn for the final two days of my round Britain trip.

We said our goodbyes to our very generous hosts, Pete & Sue and returned to St. Austell to start our day, beginning at Porthpean and Charlestown, where we had ended the drive yesterday.

 

Charlestown

Charlestown is a small harbour to the south of St. Austell.  It was originally in private hands and from the early 1800s through to 2000 was a dock for the export of china clay.  However, through various changes in use and bankruptcies it passed into the hands of a company called Square Sail Ventures that now use it as a base for their “tall ships” and hire it out for films and TV programs, such as Poldark. Their main ship is the “Phoenix”.  The town also has a museum - the Shipwreck, Rescue and Heritage Centre.

 

Carlyon Bay

We attempted to go down to Carlyon Bay, but there was a swimming event going on and parking was very restricted, so we turned around in the car park and moved on. The swim apparently was for various age groups and involved a mass start from the beach for a 2km sea swim. There are three beaches in Carlyon Bay and the area outside of the bay has nice homes.  The heyday of Carlyon Bay with its large concert venue has now passed and there are plans in place to build a large number of luxury homes here.  Unfortunately planning restrictions and appeals from both developers and locals, has meant that everything has been stalled since 2011.

Charlestown and Carlyon Bay are really the costal areas of St Austell so we did not go further into the town but instead headed for Fowey (pronounced Foy).  To get to Fowey you pass through the dockland area of Par.  Originally this was shipment point for copper but from the mid nineteenth century until 2007, china clay was the main product shipped from here.  There are plans to redevelop this area into a marina with luxury residential properties.  Near to Par (but not coastal) is the Eden Project, which opened in 2000 to mark the Millenium.  This is built within an old china clay pit and looks like a large wasps nest with its hexagonal geodetic biodomes, the insides of which contain plants from all around the world.

 

Fowey

Fowey is built around the mouth of the River Fowey and again has a history as a port for metal ores and china clay, though in competition with nearby Par and it was only with the coming of the railway to Fowey that their fortunes increased.  In 1943 Fowey was the main loading point for ammunition for the US troops that landed on Omaha Beach on D Day.  

Fowey Architecture

The town has very narrow streets with virtually no parking and visitors are encouraged to use the large car park above the town and walk down.  There are some fine old buildings here and the Parish Church is dedicated to St. Fimbarrus, who may be synonymous with St. Barry and was another one of the early Irish priests who brought Celtic Christianity to Cornwall.

We drove through the narrow streets and headed for the ferry, which crosses the River Fowey and delivers vehicles to Boddinick a tiny village on the opposite bank.  The boatman hardly has time to take the fee of £1.50 before you arrive at the other side.

 

Polruan Looking Across to Fowey

Polruan is immediately opposite Fowey and has a blocktower, paired with one in Fowey that was used to guard the harbour from attack by sea.  A chain was attached to the two towers and could be raised to block enemy vessels.  Daphne Du Maurier the writer once lived in the town.  The entrance down into the village is a very steep road.  A passenger ferry runs between the village and Fowey.

 

Crumplehorn pub close to Polperro

Journeying on you come to Crumplehorn, with a large pub and a water wheel still turning on its wall.  The village is the entrance to Polperro, a popular tourist destination.  We managed to drive a little way into the town before finding it restricted and we had to turn back and go up out of the town to a large car park.  It costs £4 to park here and then you can walk a half mile into the town or take a shuttle bus at £2 return fare.  The last time we came here we had an elderly person on board, but there was no allowance to take elderly or disabled people closer into the town, it is the car park and shuttle bus or nothing.  We decided to have our lunch (2 large pasta salads, purchased earlier at Tesco in St Austell for £2) and then take the shuttle bus into Polperro, as neither of us had ever been there.  After eating our lunch we had both changed our mind and did not feel that it was worth the £8 for two people to visit, take a couple of photos (showcase their town!) and then leave.  So we left!

From other people’s photos it is certainly a quaint old fishing village, but honestly it did not look unique enough to want to spend £8 to visit it.  This reminded me of Clovelly on the north Devon coast that charge £7 per person for you to enter their village.  There are too many other lovely and quaint places that you don’t have to pay to visit so why pay to go to Polperro?  Maybe I will visit it from the ocean someday and see if I have really missed something special, but I don’t think so.  I can quite understand that the roads are too narrow for cars, but paying money to visit so that I can then spend more money in the town, forget it.

 

Talland Bay with ridges of red sandstone

Heading to Looe we came across Porthallow and Talland.  Again narrow lanes but we came across a cute little café almost on the beach at Talland Bay where we had afternoon tea.  This is right on the South West Coastal Path and no doubt is a popular place for walkers.

 

South West Coastal Path

By the time we got to Looe the tide was out and the boats were high and dry.  (This is despite the name Looe being derived from a Cornish word meaning deep water inlet!).  It seems to have been a feature of my trip that the tide is often out, especially noticeable where the harbour is built around an estuary. 

 

Looe 

Looe is divided by the river into East and West Looe.  The town being mainly on the west side of the river.  I have been to Looe a number of times and feel that I know it fairly well.  Last time we were here we had an excellent lunch cooked by a young and up and coming chef.  Looe is now mainly a small fishing town, but over the years its fortunes have risen and fallen in accordance with the demand for minerals such as tin and arsenic.  In the 1960s and 70s Looe was one of the many Cornish seaside towns to which artists flocked “because of the light.”

 

Seaton

Following eastwards along the coast the next seaside place is Seaton.  This seems so very different from any of the other Cornish seaside towns.  Like its namesake in East Devon it is quite open and feels a little bit bleak.  It is certainly not a “cosy” place.  The beach here also seems “sad”, being a grey coloured shale.  This was the start of the “open windswept geography” that now went all the way towards Rame Head where The Sound leading into Plymouth begins.  We passed through Crafthole and Portwrinkle (with its golf course on the ocean edge) and then saw a military “fortress” just above the Tregantle military firing range.  Most of the open country here was marked with red and white poles to warn that this was a military area where live firing might take place.

 

Tregantle Fort

At Freathy we saw a large holiday home/lodge camp on the cliffs, which made me realise that this was almost the only one I had seen for a number of days.  It is no doubt popular with the citizens of Plymouth.  The area seemed moor like and was windswept.  We followed the cliff road around Rame Head and Mount Edgecumbe and eventually found our way back to the Tregantle fortress and the road into Torpoint and the ferry across to Plymouth.

 

Looking towards Plymouth

This ferry was the cheapest we had taken all day at £1.40.  The ticket seller said that this was because the company also owned the Tamar Bridge that provides an alternative to the Ferry.  Once in Plymouth we headed for Plymouth Hoe, where, famously, in 1588 Sir Francis Drake having been notified of the Spanish Armada approaching is said to have decided to finish his games of bowls before going to sea to meet them.  Unfortunately the Hoe is not accessible to cars so we stopped below it in a pub car park that was packed with people enjoying the views across to Drakes Island.  

Old Eddystone Lighthouse

On the Hoe is Smeaton’s Tower, which is the upper portion of the old Eddystone Lighthouse, built by John Smeaton in 1759, and replaced in 1877.  It was transported brick by brick and reassembled on the Hoe.  Plymouth remains as one of the Royal Navy’s major home ports and the town’s economy is dominated by this.

 

Devon Lanes

The next part of our journey we knew would take us up and down country lanes and up and down little peninsulas where no coastal road followed or joined them up.

Our first destination was Wembury and although there is a small town of this name the area around is also called Wembury. We once had relatives living here and so were able to find our way along the lanes to the village and the beach.  One thing I particularly remember about Wembury, when I attended a family wedding here, is the bird song.  It is loud and beautiful.  This is quite unlike Vancouver, where bird song is actually a rarity.  This is mainly because the city has pine trees rather than deciduous ones that song birds need to provide cover.  Also it is possibly due to the over abundance of crows and other raptors.  We have an arborist attached to the council near our home that believes that every tree is precious, even if it is dead and even if it is immediately adjacent to a forest.  Her comments to me on one occasion, when I asked could a dead tree be removed was “Well birds might want to sit in it”! Such trees do provide a roost for birds, mainly crows, and on one near to my house I once counted 34 of them.  No wonder we don’t have bird song.

 

The Mewstone

From Wembury we were able to look out to sea and view close in, the Mewstone a particular feature of the area and often used by the navy for invasion practice.  We could also just about make out the Eddystone Lighthouse, 9 nautical miles south of Rame head.

 

The "New" Eddystone Light

We had to drive up out of Wembury and then come down the other side of the estuary to reach Newton Ferrers a very pretty (and expensive) little town.  Opposite this and reachable on foot at low tide is the village of Noss Mayo.  To get to it by car is about a 4 mile narrow lane drive.  There is an excellent pub here serving great food and if the time is right you park on the beach.  Provided you keep an eye on the tide table and don’t drink too much this is a safe way to park your car and eat at the pub.

 

Newton Ferrers

Noss Mayo

From here we drove through Mothercombe and about 13 miles in total back up to the main road so that we could cross the River Erme and come down its other side to Bigbury-on-Sea.  Apparently a lot of South West Coastal Path walkers get caught out here as they assume that there is a ferry across the Erme.  There isn’t one.  It is either, arrive at low tide and wade across or, walk 13 miles to get around it!

Bigbury-on-Sea has nothing going for it other than it is the landward side of Burgh Island.  Burgh Island is a true island when the tide comes in.  It is separated from the mainland by a sandy causeway, which is easy to walk across at low tide.  However, when the tide comes in, which it does from both sides of the sandy beach, there is a tall tractor like machine that takes people to and from the island.  On the island is the famous art deco style Burgh Island Hotel.  This has featured in many an Agatha Christie “Poirot” movie and was the setting for her story “And then there were none”.  It was built as a house by an industrialist in 1930 and only later became a hotel. The Beatles have stayed here and so have Edward and Mrs. Simpson and Noel Coward.

 

Burgh Island

The final part of our journey required us to retrace our steps back up this time the estuary of the River Avon (not the famous one) and then back down again to reach Thurlestone, where our B&B for the night was located.  This proved to be a bit of let down for us as we were imagining much more luxury than it was.  It promised sea views, but did not deliver.  It was also the only B&B on my trip that did not have an en-suite bathroom.  It was also the most expensive B&B as well (by almost £20).  We had actually had difficulty in getting a booking for this night as being a weekend everyone wanted to let only to people for 2 nights.  I had not actually experienced this anywhere else on my UK trip.

We ate at the Pub in the village, which is owned by and attached to the hotel.  This was OK but not particularly special.  I had expected a menu with more variety.  They let themselves down at the end when having ordered strawberries and ice cream for dessert, after 20 minutes they had still not arrived, so we cancelled them, paid and left.

I spent most of the night sleeping on the floor as my back problem, caused when I lifted my suitcase into the car in Grange-Over-Sands, more than 10 days ago, was still with me and the bed was too soft.

 

Typical Cornish Lane (mettled cart track!)

Altogether a very busy driving day, made enjoyable by the presence of Marilyn.  Also a day of stark contrast in geography between Cornwall and Devon.