Cornwall - Tuesday

Weather wasn't so good today. One thing about Cornwall though is that it can be crap on the south coast and great on the north coast, or vice versa, and as the two coasts are separated only by a few dozen miles of land (depending where you are) its easy to get to the good weather.

Today we went to St Michaels Mount, which is on the south coast just before Penzance. The island is the twin of Mont Saint-Michel in France. We've been to St Michaels Mount before on a few occasions and always enjoyed ourselves on the island and the long beach. The island is linked to the mainland when the tide is out by a stretch of sand and a cobbled causeway, both of which are submerged on the turn of the tide. If you get stuck on the island when the tide comes in then they have ferry boats to bring you back and forwards.

The island is part of the National Trust now but is still owned and lived in by the St Aubyn family who have lived there since 1647. Its seen its fair share of history though, even stormed by William Cromwell from the sea side of the cliffs.

As we walked along the beach to the causeway we came across one of those kite flying skateboard geezers. He was hairing it along.

As you can see from the photo below of the mounts own harbour, the tide was well and truly out, but we had got here early and it wasn't due to turn until later in the afternoon. I think this would be the first time we haven't had to take a ferry one way or the other.

One of the main reasons for going straight over to the island was because the other two were hungry and they have a couple of nice restaurants there. After my shock of the scales last night I was determined to have a light lunch. This was foiled by the bloody crap menu they had. The apparently obvious light meal was the ploughmans lunch but when I asked about it I was told it wasn't served with ham, but with 3 different cheeses! The next "best" thing was a baked potato with cheese and bacon which is what I went for. Ben had a tomato and basil pastie and Karen went for the ploughmans lunch (shes a cheese-a-holic). When her meal arrived I was aghast at the size of the slabs of cheese they gave her; they were HUGE. Then she had a big wedge of chocolate cake too! Photo below shows it half eaten (devoured more like) by the way.

Following that we decided to take a ferry ride around the island and saw some stunning sights you'd never usually see.

In the photo above, you can see a kind of grassy slide on the right of the castle all the way to the top. This is apparently the route Cromwell took to seize the fortress.

Photo above looks very "Hogwarts" doesn't it?

The ferryman. Chris De Burgh once said not to pay the ferryman until he gets you to the other side, but we had no choice!

A bloodthirsty bunch of pirates if ever there was one! Aaaaar!!

Finally we had a walk around the rest of the open area of the island before heading back home. Unfortunately Ben got attacked by some Medusa plant while he had his back to it. Only my supreme bravery saved him!

Tomorrow we go to a play at the Minnack Theatre which is carved out of the rock face overlooking the sea.