Cornwall and Devon- part 2

Day 2 con'td
Along the way to St Ives we had our notorious ‘toilet stop’. What was meant to be a 5 min stop ended up taking over an hour. We stopped at a Cider Farm where they had free samples of jams, pickles, juices and ciders. They had some exceptionally tasty apple juice and raspberry jam. Just around the corner there was a Cornish Ice Cream farm so we stopped there too. Cornish Ice Cream is made with clotted cream and egg yolks and is just as rich and creamy as it sounds. All the ice cream was made right there on site so tasted nice and fresh. After being on the road again for about 15 minutes, Louise suddenly announced to stop the car as she was going to be sick. She looked yellow and was not in a good way. Not being able to throw up, she got back in the car and fortunately Warren found a plastic bag in time but she needed a toilet- and fast. Half an hour later, with all Cornish Ice Cream purged from her system, she perked up again and we continued to St Ives. We still had quite a bit of travelling to do to get to Plymouth so we couldn’t stay for long here but if we were to go back again to anywhere from our trip, St Ives would be the place. It was such a cool little city with narrow alleyways, cool shops and beautiful beaches. The extremely narrow roads which could literally only really fit 1 car (and a small car at that) weaved in and around houses and shops with people walking to and fro. They seemed more like cobbled footpaths than roads and houses opened right out onto them.

After one more stop to admire the outside of the beautiful 1880 Gothic Cathedral of Truro, (photo above) we arrived at our Plymouth Backpackers at around 8. The place was a strange 1800’s house teeming with foreigners in their early 20’s. Fortunately our rooms were on the quieter top floor, although it did mean Warren had to lug our suitcase up about 4 flights of a narrow spiral staircase. Louise asked the owner if he could recommend anywhere for dinner, to which he replied “yes, good, always ask a fat man where to eat”. He spieled off a list of restaurants and their directions with the end result being complete confusion by all of us so that we couldn’t find any of them. The search for a meal in Plymouth was a frustrating one. We were on a quest for the Mediterranean restaurant. Hayley and Louise were sure he said to turn right, but Kirk thought he said to turn left. Instead we came across a very appealing Spanish Tapas bar/restaurant. But they didn’t have a chef or any waiting staff. Not being able to see any other restaurants in the vicinity, we headed for Pizza Hut, but they were closing. Walking on a bit further we came to Café Rouge – an overpriced French restaurant where a very flustered waiter told us there would be a 40 minute wait on food. Not seeing any other restaurants around, we opted for the wait. Did nobody tell the service industry of Plymouth that it was Bank Holiday Weekend?? Walking around the city centre with all the drunks we concluded that Plymouth was kind of creepy and none of us were particularly impressed by it.

Day 3
Plymouth didn’t offer too many places for breakfast so we were forced to visit the Golden Arches. Full up on Oats and McMuffins (strange but true – McDonalds in England serves porridge!) we set off to explore some sights of Plymouth. The walk along the harbour, called the Hoe, was quite interesting. It was from here that the Mayflower set sail to America in 1620. There was even a plaque on the wall commemorating a fleet of 6 ships that left Plymouth’s harbour in the 1800’s and founded the settlement of New Plymouth. There were plaques on the wall of all the seamen who had been lost at sea. I was surprised to see that some of these plaques were as recent as 2002. The Barbican area had some cool Tudor and Jacobean buildings and gave us an entirely different impression from what we gained the previous night. If only we had stumbled across this area in our search for a restaurant. That's Hayley above looking at the old houses in the Barbican area of Plymouth and Kirk is reading about the naval history on the Hoe.

Sir Francis Drak was supposedly playing a game of bowls on Plymouths Hoe in 1588 when the Spanish Armada invaded and there now stands a statue of him commemorating his deeds (he received Knighthood from sailing around the world form Plymouth in 1577). We decided that despite his girly, frilly pantaloons he didn’t look like a man to be messed with. The city is home to a huge navy base which might explain the many drunken laraks we saw on the town the night before. From here we thought we’d drive along the Devon coast. There was an accident on the road so the journey was pretty slow going but we did pass through a few nice looking beaches and villages. Our lunch stop was at Paignton, one of three villages which supposedly make up the English Riviera. The place seemed to be catered towards families and was smothered in cheesey tourism evident in its many noisy arcade joints, donkey rides in the park and entertainment facilities such as ‘crazy ball’ (the pool equivalent to mini-putt). The beach itself was quite unimpressive with coarse red sand and no waves. (Photo above) Tourquay was 5 mins up the road and looked to be a bit more upmarket and perhaps a better destination for a lunch stop. Tourquay is where ‘Fawlty Towers’ was filmed. None of us are in much of a hurry to see the French Rivieria after seeing England’s equivalent.

A few more hours on the road and we hit Exeter, home of the Exeter Cathedral (pictured above and to the right) which has parts dating back to the 1100s. The Cathedral was absolutely awesome and we spent a good hour in there looking around and taking photos. There was so much history in there, from the tomb-like etchings of the dearly departed on the ground to tapestries and sculptures along the walls. The Cathedral boasted the world’s largest gothic rib vaulting and a 14th century stained glass window. From the cathedral we checked out the waterfront and the remains of a medieval bridge. Back on the road we decided to risk the A303 so the journey back to London was pretty slow going. On the spur of the moment we decided to take a quick detour to Stonehenge. Hayley and Kirk’s previous Stonehenge visit was a drive-by in the rain. Our expectations were pretty low as everyone told us that you couldn’t get very close because of a fence. But you were still only about 15 metres away from the rocks and when Warren lifted me up onto his shoulders I was able to get some pretty cool shots. So that’s another landmark place to tick off the list.

Apart from the Cornish Ice Cream episode, it was a fantastic weekend and Cornwall was definitely worth the visit.