Camping in Cornwall

Hello all! With just a couple of days before work and school were to start the lovely P had an idea - a last-minute camping get-away to Cornwall. How could I refuse? We haven't camped as a family for a few years: as the children had got older camping had not worked so well at a time when the teenagers needed their space. A family of five for a week in a tent was not very conducive to this, so as the years have passed our holidays have evolved into staying in cottages with differing combinations of whoever is available/wants to go at the time, and this works well. B has graduated now and is enjoying a new job and spending time with her boyfriend, and J is getting ready for his second year at University, while D is in her final year of GCSEs and has a busy social life. As a result we have to be very flexible about planning our holidays.



Most summers we go to Cornwall at some point, and usually to our favourite holiday destination of St Ives, but as this year we were camping for just one night and the weather forecast for the weekend wasn't great, we decided to go a bit closer to home. We decided on the North Cornish coast and J found us a lovely campsite in the pretty coastal village of Tintagel. Most of my photos look rather gloomy as it was overcast for most of the weekend with the odd burst of sunshine, but it was very warm, despite this. Here's one of the many dry stone walls which I love. They're always full of wild flowers and covered in lichen.



The campsite was a good one and we woke to a shimmering silvery sky the next morning.

 I love all the little rituals of camping: the unzipping of the tent in the morning to see what the weather's doing, that first good lungful of fresh air, walking across the dewy field in wellies to the shower block, lighting our little stove (we travel lighter than we used to), boiling the kettle to make our first cup of coffee, saying 'good morning' to other campers. It's a holiday experience which runs right through my childhood, our pre-children years and our time with a young family and we hope to have many more.

After breakfast we packed up and headed for the village, and this beautiful NT property, The Old Post Office. Over 600 years old, it was originally a medieval farmhouse and has the most amazing undulating roof. A sweet building, it made a refreshing change from the usual stately homes owned by the NT.

The inside was fascinating, with very low ceilings and a calm, whitewashed simplicity.

The beams on the ceiling were very low, and the rooms quite small.

These slate ladder steps led to a platform where the unmarried women of the house would sleep, hence the old expression 'left on the shelf'. They look a bit dangerous to me!

The hearth and oven downstairs exuded homeliness. 

I was impressed by the intricate stitches made by the young lady who sewed this.

At the back of the house the garden was a lovely retreat.

We left the Old Post Office and decided to head to the beach down a steep path which wound through a valley, a little rushing stream to our left.

Wonderful orange crocosmia grows wild throughout Cornwall and here was no exception.

When we reached the Beach Cafe we stopped for lunch, and very yummy it was too.

And then began to climb down the steps to the beach below us.

As we looked up we could see the bridge taken by everyone visiting the castle (myth has it King Arthur's castle) on the cliffs high above.

Down on the beach the stream cascades over the cliff in the form of a lovely waterfall - it was very cooling to paddle in the icy water at the bottom.

The tide was just beginning to come in and the water whooshed and rushed around the rocks with great force.  

Red and pink seaweed lay scattered along the strand-line, and was thrown by owners for their dogs to chase and catch.

There are a couple of caves in the cliffs and one, Merlin's Cave, is easy to walk into at low tide.

A different view of the beach presented itself from inside.

At shoulder height on the rocks there were limpets, showing how deep the water gets when the tide's in.

The sun came out for a while, making the cliffs greener and the sea bluer.

I got out my seaside journal and sat jotting my thoughts, as is my custom at the coast.

Soon it was time to leave, and we headed back up the steps to the top of the cliffs.

We decided to take advantage of the Land Rover rides back up the steep valley and piled into the back of one along with lots of other hill-weary tourists. It was a bit of a squash!

We also went to Trebarwith Strand. J and P wanted to swim, and were hoping for a beach. Instead we found a very dramatic place. This area of coastline is made up of slate and it's very evident here. Great shelves of slate make up a pavement here down to the sea, layers and layers of rock with natural steps at their edges.

The beach was submerged, but there were plenty of surfers here. It seemed a wild place and was evidently very popular.

I was fascinated by this little cottage cut into the cliff. I'm not sure I could relax in it with all that rock hanging over it!

We finished up at Polzeath, a place we've never been before. It was a lovely beach, very sandy and with huge rolling waves crashing onto it. It was also a very busy place, full of families body-boarding and masses of surfers too. As a result photography was difficult so I only managed one photo. 

As we drove home after a day and a half away we were really glad that we'd squeezed in this little camping trip. We were so lucky with the weather and the camping was great. We saw some bits of Cornwall that were new to us and loved being by the sea again. There was a wonderful sunset as we drove, the perfect end to our mini-holiday.

A Spring Walk

Today was another warm, sunny, blue-skied day - hazy at times but absolutely glorious. J and I had planned to go for a walk today as he will be heading back to university before long and I am back at work next week (sigh), so we pulled on our walking boots and headed out into the deliciously warm air. Our walk took us along the local network of cycle paths which are criss-crossed by lots of smaller footpaths. J knows these paths very well from cycling out and about with his friends over the years, so I let him decide where we went.

I'm always surprised at the speed with which everything starts to grow at this time of year. The greenery everywhere is quite astounding in its, well, green-ness. I love new hawthorn leaves for their freshness and the pretty shape of their leaves. My dad (who will be 90 this month) tells me that when he was a child he and his friends would eat the new leaves straight from the tree and knew them as 'bread and cheese'.

All around us the trees were in bud and starting to turn quite green.

A little way from the path I saw these lovely cowslips, and was reminded of cowslip wine. I must try it some time ...I wonder if it tastes very flowery?

As we walked I looked out for violets, as I've seen that some other bloggers have spotted some already. Just as I was beginning to give up I spotted a patch of delicate little white violets.

I walked along here at the beginning of March and photographed it in this post. It's certainly looking greener now.

These incredibly sunshiney daffodils caught my eye, and made me smile.

They looked like an Easter card - only some lambs/chicks/bunnies were missing from this scene.

The cycle path took us into the centre of a little town and we stopped for a lunch of toasted sandwiches at a coffee shop. After a coffee each we headed back again along the cycle track, but soon took a detour up a grassy hill.

Once at the top of the field, we carried on climbing up this enchanting little path lined on either side by incredibly bright celandines.

 They looked as if they'd been sprinkled there - Wordsworth thought them 'bright as the sun himself'. I love their reflective, waxy petals.

At the top of the hill we walked between wide green fields, and I felt very happy indeed to be out on such a lovely day. Above our heads skylarks were flying and we were surrounded by their sweet, warbling song. Their singing was continuous as we walked and we strained to see them above us. Eventually J spotted one - a tiny brown bird rising into the blue high above our heads.

Beautiful views appeared through every gate and opening.

In the hedgerows nettles were beginning to flower, attracting lots of butterflies none of which stayed still long enough for me to photograph.

The blue sky deepened as the afternoon wore on, a fabulous azure with a few wispy white clouds.

 

We passed a house and growing in the verge was this amazing double daffodil. I stooped to take a photo and caught the sun as it shone through its petals.

On up the hill we went, and looking out across the fields and town I realised we'd reached quite a vantage point.

Soon it was time to turn towards home down a long, steep footpath. J told me that he had once found a lost cow down here!

After a stop for an ice lolly we headed through a very familiar stile and up steps we've walked up many times. When we got home J worked out that we'd been on a 5.6 mile walk. 

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We'd had a wonderfully amiable day together walking and chatting, but also looking around us and listening to the sights and sounds of spring. A day I'll treasure for a long time.