This year we booked a week down in Newquay. Last years drive to Ireland reminded me that whilst I love being by the coast for the holidays, I also love that rugged dramatic coast line, which Norfolk, where we’ve been the last few years really lacks. Cornwall on the other hand, has plenty of it, and it should also hopefully be warmer than other options such as Scotland or Ireland…

We’ve managed to strike pretty lucky with the weather for the UK for the last few years, however in the days preceeding, checks of the weather apps rather suggested we’d picked the wrong week. A low over the south of the country suggested we were in for rain, every day. During the week of our holidays the news was full of woe

as the country suffered flooding in the worst September for 30 years. Luckily it seems most of the bad weather hit the South West in the middle of the night, luckily leaving the days, bar a few showers here n there, mainly dry.

Being a good 5-6 hours drive down to Cornwall, we figured that Cheddar Gorge was roughly lunch time on the way down, and sounded a lot more appealing than a Road Chef…

Of course being Cheddar, you’ve got to get some cheese too, with bacon* too, be rude not to (*my twitter followers who know my bacon obsession would expect nothing less).

Arriving at our base in Holywell & the forecast being crap for the coming week, and with what looked like a beautiful sunset descending, we quickly headed to the nearest beach to ‘bag’ a safety sunset…

Not a bad pair of safety shots.

 

Saturday – St Agnes

Saturday we proceeded out on what the weather men were promising as the only decent day of the whole week. My usual plan of bagging some rough notes in Evernote & researching via the Mifi dongle at night failed miserably as base was in a hollow thus mobile signal pretty much resembled

this all week. Away from base it was rarely much better either. On the positive side this also meant that I was properly switched off & not on email & twitter all night & doing any work. So we just winged it for the week.

Sunday – Lanhydrock, Padstow, Trevose, Bedruthan

Sunday, the weathermen got it right, the heavens opened, and so we cracked out the NT card & headed indoors to Lanhydrock House & tested the high ISO on the 5D. Apparently they have some really nice grounds too but we chose to only explore the house. We then also moved on to Padstow, avoided anything Rick Stein (not easy), then checked out Trevose Head & Bedruthan Steps which had cropped up on my research radar…

 

We’d never heard of Bedruthan before, but it’s absolutely breath taking. 100′ islands said to be giants stepping stones. The tide arrives 2 hours before high tide so you have to be very careful about tide times when exploring (and swimming is strictly off limits due to currents), but well worth the effort of getting down the rather steep steps down to the beach for an exploration.

 

Monday – Perranporth, Newquay, Holywell Bay

Some locations involve searching, walking, & exact finds to discover them. Not so with Perranporth, whilst it’s kind of off the beaten path in many ways, stray off the high street, find the car park, and you’re immediately greeted by the bays show piece, of it’s arch rock & chapel rock. It’s also a lot slower paced & less comercial than Newquay has become.

 

Tuesday – Wheal Coates Mines, Holywell Bay, Porth Joke

Remember me saying some locations needed research, well on Saturday we’d been to Chapel Porth & ascended the south cliffs to see the mine we could see on the approach road. As we neared the top you could then see over the North cliff where there were two mines, and a little further up, it then became clear there was only a wall of a demolished tin mine on this cliff top… Fortunately we also discovered that just up another road you could park on the cliff tops 200 yards from the mines. Result. Having bagged the mines we then returned to Holywell bay and had an enjoyable (if windy) stroll along the coastal path to Porth Joke & back.

 

Another great discovery at Chapel Porth by the Wheal Coates tin mine, was a farm cake stand (location on google maps) with a great selection of cakes, jam, treats and an honesty box. So good, we went back for seconds on the way home…

 

Also whilst in Holywell bay, I shot a short time-lapse on the 5D using the recently acquired TriggerTrap for iPhone dongle

 

Wednesday – Mevagissey, Gorran Haven, St Anthony Head

For a change, we dropped down to the south coast, luckily by this point Cornwall is only 20 miles across North to South coasts. Stopped in via Kingsley Village, Fraddon, discovered the huge Deli & picked up more goodies. Now need to find a Derbyshire equivalent of this place.

 

Thursday – Tintagel, Port Isaac, Bedruthan Steps

Tintagel, believed to be the birthplace of King Arthur, & according to Wiki it’s one of the most visited places in Britain. Quite a climb up the steps to reach the castle island! Nearby is the old fishing port of Port Isaac, which benefits from Tintagel’s popularity, as well as recently being used as a setting for the ITV program ‘Doc Martin’, so is rather busy for an old fishing port. Then dropped in at Bedruthan Steps on the way back for some long exposures of it during high tide, before a final walk down to Holywell bay for a final sunset.

Whilst in Tintagel we also found  Penganna Pasties bakery. You could see them making the pasties in the shop, and they were the best pasties we eat all week (and we sampled quite a few…)

Gizmo & Furby

Of course, I can’t go anywhere without taking these guys, so they got a shoot too

 

Friday – Castle Drogo – Home

I’d heard of Castle Drogo via a few twitter followers, and realising it was just 5 mins off the A30, reckoned it’d also be another timely place to stop instead of a dreadful motorway services. So we had a short wander round in the rain before all the kitchen areas of the castle made me hungry & we made for the National Trust cafe before the slog of the M5 home 🙁