Pad stow to Port Isaac - Day 11

Thursday, September 22, 2016

Today was a perfect day for hiking, with lots of sun, cool temperatures and no wind.

We started our 7 mile hike in Harlyn, basically circumventing the Camel Estuary and following the coastline.

We ended our hike in Padstow, where some from our party spent the morning.

Along the way, we crossed pastures where cows were grazing, walked through fields, bordered the shoreline with its native grasses, walked along beaches and marveled at more of the amazing cliffs that are representative of Cornwall. Here is a little album of photos from the hike:

This is a "day mark" to help sailors navigate during the day. It is not a lighthouse.

A late bloomer. Not sure what it is.

These are the old coast guard cottages on the right and the captain's cottages on the left, now private housing.

View of Padstow.

The trail took us directly into Padstow and was our lunch stop. It has a long history as a port and once thrived as a center for the fishing industry, the export of copper ore and slate, and the export of grain. Although all these industries have declined, Padstow still has some fishing industry. In recent years it has become famous because it is the home of Michelin-starred celebrity chef Rick Stein, who has several restaurants in the town.

At 2:30 we took the Black Tor Ferry (which has been in continuous operation since 1337) across the Camel River to Rock, an upscale village on the coast.

From there our bus took us to Trevathan Farm where we were treated to "cream tea." This is basically tea and a scone with jam and clotted cream (which resembles thick whipped butter).

We finished our day with a stop in Port Isaac, made famous as the fictional Port Wenn in the Doc Martin TV series.

All of the episodes are filmed here. 

The small house in the middle with the orange trim is Doc Martin's.  

It is a very tiny village with many buildings dating back hundreds of years, but it was fun to see for an hour.

We arrived back at 5:30 and had dinner at 7.  Roger, the owner, made Pimm's Cups for several of us which were very good. A great ending to another great day.

Here's a PS for today. Photo of the hiking part of the group on a beach near Padstow.

St. Ives to St. Agnes - Day 10

Wednesday, September 21, 2016

"As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with 7 wives" as the old nursery riddle goes. "Kits, cats, sacks, wives. How many were going to St. Ives?"

Today 24 of us went to the picturesque town of St. Ives on the Land's End Peninsula on the northern coast.

Once a thriving fishing port, it now caters mostly to tourism. Like so many towns and villages in Cornwall, it is set on a hillside and parts of the residential areas drop steeply to the harbour and downtown. 

Look closely at this photo and notice that the boats in the harbour are floating in water.

Later they will be sitting on land due to the extreme shifts in tides.

We walked through town and split into two groups. One stayed in town while the rest of us went on a 3-mile walk around the old harbour and St. Ives Head and out to Clodgy Point.

We ended up above town in the residential area and walked down a 25 degree incline to return to the village center.

Along the way were beautiful vacation homes.

Sydney and I decided to spend our lunch hour looking around the city. We walked to the harbour where we saw the seemingly dry docked boats,

And the busy boardwalk along the beach.  

For lunch we decided to have a famous Cornish pasty, a type of baked pastry in a half circle that contains various meats and vegetables - and sometimes meats and sweets in the same pastry.

This was the traditional lunch for the tin miners. It was made with a thick edge for the miners to hold so they would not get dirt on their food. It was an interesting culinary experience but probably don't need to do it again.

After lunch we drove to St. Agnes to Blue Hills Tin Streams where we were met by Mark Wills, the mine proprietor and artist.

Tin has been mined in this area since the Bronze Age (4,000 years ago) and was perhaps the reason the Romans came this far west around the first century. Its real heyday was around 500 years ago until the early 1700s when competition with other parts of the world put an end to the mining.

The Wills family, a Cornish family that has been involved with mining for generations, bought this land and mine in the 1970s.  

Mark took us on a tour and demonstrated the full process

including the crushing of the rock with heavy steel beams operated by a water wheel,

washing and panning of the sand (which separates the tin particles from the rock particles),

(the tin is the brown part), smelting and the final production of high quality tin which Mark converts into decorative artifacts such as jewelry, ornaments and commission work. I treated myself to this beautiful Celtic pendant for only £18.

Mark noted that tin does not tarnish like silver. Mark produces about a ton of silver a year for use in his business.

Along the drive to Mark's place, we saw remnants of the tin mining in the hills.

These are the smokestacks that were used to burn coal to run the steam engines to pump the water out of the wells. 

Caught a last glimpse of the coast before we boarded the bus for our hotel.

Another nice evening at our hotel -- dinner with friends and off to rest for another day.

Pentireglaze to Trebetherick - Day 9

Tuesday, September 20, 2016

Today we had our first view of the spectacular  Cornish coastline as we followed the Cornish Coast Path for 6 miles.

Our bus dropped us off in the little village of Pentireglaze. For awhile we followed a country road.

It soon turned into a dirt path

and in the distance we could see Polzeath, on our route for later. 

The trail was everything I expected Cornwall to be. There were quite a few ups and downs but nothing like California.

The walk took us past The Rumps, a rocky outcrop,

and around the promontory of Pentireglaze Head.

And continued around the coast.

The trail into Polzeath was equally beautiful and a little slippery.

We reached Polzeath  about 11:30 and were surprised to see so many people surfing.  (The little black dots in the water are people.)

Apparently this is quite the resort in the summer.

From there we walked around Trebetherick Point and above the dunes of Daymer Bay to visit the church of St. Enodoc.

The church dates from late 12th century, but by the 1700s the church was partially submerged in sand.  In order to keep its charter as a church, services had to be held at least once a year. So the townspeople would enter through a hole in the roof in order to complete this task.  During the 1860s, the sand was removed and the church was cleaned and restored. You can still see how the church could be partially buried.

We ended up eating our lunch in the church cemetery.

From here a bus took us to the Camel Valley Winery in Bodmin where we took a tour and tasted their award winning Sparking Pinot Noir Rosé Brut,

The winery was started in 1989 on the Lindo family's sheep farm with 8,000 vines which they bought for $1 a piece. They now have 24,000 vines which produce grapes for white and rosé wines.

The mother (who must be my age) does all the pruning of the plants and her son says she loves it.

It was a great way to end our day.

Then it was back to hotel for dinner at 6:30 followed by a reading of poetry written by Sir John Betjeman, English poet laureate who died in 1984.