End of the Week Round-up

I was a little bit lax in updates on the back end of the week so here's a synopsis of what went on:

Thursday

I awoke early and borrowed xxx's Cannondale hybrid to do a few miles around the village. I used the Active 10 GPS but unfortunately as it was in my bum bag I must have accidentally pressed the "stop" button part way around. As I got to the end of the circuit around St Mawes castle I tried my hardest to make it up the hill but I had to get off 3/4 of the way up because I thought my heart & lungs were going to burst. Its only 3 miles and the Ride With GPS site or Google Maps are sorely mistaken in their calculation of the elevations. Route HERE

This was our last full day in Cornwall and we drove over to the beautiful coastal village of Polperro. Cars aren't allowed in the village proper as the streets are too narrow so you have to park at the head of it and either walk or take the Shire Horse drawn cart down the hill or take the milk float converted into bus. We chose to walk as its not long and there are some really nice houses you miss otherwise. We had lunch there. I finally got to have a chilli-con-carne, and I have to say it was the best I have ever tasted outside of home cooked ones. I was in heaven! While we were there Karen bought a nice silver charm bracelet of those Russian dolls that go inside each other, made by the woman in the shop. We also bought my sister and brother in law a present to say "thanks" for letting us stay the week.

We then drove down extremely narrow tracks between fields towards Fowey (pronounced "Foy" by the locals). We had to get a car ferry over the river and one of the houses near the bank is where Daphne Du Maurier used to live. Parking the car in the town NCP we had to walk down the side of Mount Etna to get into the town. In truth there wasn't a great deal to see there. Apparently the huge cruise ship "The World" is due to arrive there in a day or so and its a shame we missed such a behemoth. Its the worlds largest cruise ship. My wife refused to walk back up the hill to the car so we took the bus - what a wuss!

After that we drove to Pendower beach to meet up with sis & her hubby for a beach BBQ. Not all went to plan though. We arrived before them and the tide was on the turn making the beach seem very long, so we walked the length of it - probably 1/2 mile - without seeing them. We were half way back when my sister rang asking where we were. I said "we're in the middle of it", and she said she was as well but we couldn't see each other. Anyway it transpired that it wasn't one long beach when the tides in but when its out it looks like one long beach. Its in fact 2 beaches joined together. We eventually met up after a bit more walking and had a fabulous BBQ of salads, steak & sausages. An ideal way to round off the day...except there was more to come...

After packing up we all headed off to St Mawes marina to board their Nr3 boat - a Cornish Shrimper - which is a beautiful boat, and headed up stream. The wind wasn't really strong enough for sailing so intermittent use of the engine was needed, however when it was turned off it was so peaceful just floating along on the breeze. We saw many fish jumping above the surface catching flies. After going as far as we could without grounding we headed home for around about 10pm.

Friday

Dawn proved to be miserable with overcast skies preventing us from seeing the opposite headland. Could hear the lighthouse's fog horn going like the clappers though. Eventually it lifted but it was still overcast. We packed our things hand headed off around 10.30 hoping to stop at Cheddar Gorge for lunch but once on the A30 we got stuffed by a broken down vehicle a few miles ahead causing a huge tailback which was agonisingly slow. Instead, once past the queue we decided to stop in Jamaica Inn for one of their great roast dinners. Fully sated we made it home for around 5.30pm.

My bike mount and 1:50k map of the SE England had arrived from Amazon while we were away and I have to say this has to be the best fitting mount I have ever seen. I have no worries fitting the GPS device to it and considering the GPS was a good few hundred quid that's saying something. The only problem was I had to spend a couple of hours figuring out how to undo the strap which some assembly numptard had inserted wrong and jammed the ratchet up. Eventually I managed to strip it all down and redo it properly & it now sits firmly on my handlebars.

- oh and I weighed myself on our own scales this morning and corrected my weight on the chart. I knew it would go up but hopefully next weeks activities will bring that down to a new lowest ever weight.

Things to do

1. Upload all the rest of the photos. I want to do something a little different with the formatting so this will be tomorrow probably.

2. Do a review of the Active 10 bike mount.

Other things to do

1. Change from BT phone and broadband & Sky TV to all three being on Virgin cable.

2. Look into New Forest bike rides for next week.

3. Buy some bike lights.

4. Buy Karen a new saddle or see if an old one will suit her.

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.

Life On The Ocean Waves

Family KFS are down in Cornwall...well minus one who decided they wanted to stay at home and be boring playing WoW and eating fattening microwave meals. We drove down Saturday afternoon, getting stuck in two traffic jams; one at Bristol and one near Launceston in Cornwall. Probably something to do with the radio reporting that a third of the country were also heading off on holiday this weekend!

Arrived at St Mawes on Cornwall's south coast around 5.30pm where my sister cooked us a wonderful meal of roast lamb and vegetables. They have a fabulous house and its like living in a scaled down palace.

This morning Ben got to go out on one of their three boats - a "shrimper" working boat with my brother in law - and they entered a race with other boats of the same type. It was a beautifully sunny day with a light wind but they got off to a bad start (i.e last) but by the time they reached the first buoy they had caught up with the rest of the racers. After two circuits, including a near miss coming about around a buoy with another "shrimper", they came home in third place. We watched the whole race from the balcony of the house and it was quite exciting.

After that we joined them on their lobster boat and motored around the headland to where they have some pots on the seabed. Unfortunately most of the crabs were under size and had to be thrown back, but we did get two large (quite aggressive) crabs plus a decent sized lobster. On the return journey we also caught a mackerel  on a line towed behind the boat. 

We then returned t o the house for a snack before our hosts went off to a BBQ and we went into the village for a meal. Ben and I were very healthy and had chicken goujon salad whereas my wife had a meal of ham, eggs and chips. Having said that, both meals were very well prepared and excellent.

Got a bit of a sunburn on my arms and neck today but its not painful at all. Must get some suntan lotion tomorrow. I think we're ff to St Ives or possibly St Michael's Mount.

Sorry no photo's today but will get some up on later posts this week.