I woke up this morning to lots of birthday love already waiting for me, since my birthday was already well under way in Australia. It was a lovely way to do it and I felt very loved even before I headed down to breakfast. I had messages from both my boys, my siblings and Dad and lots of other special people. Thanks everyone. You made my day.
We had a late start to the day, which meant that we could get up at 8am with no hassles and still have time to linger over breakfast. Very decadent. The Cornish seem to make strong tea, which suits us really well.
First stop today was the Trebah gardens. This is an amazing gardens , set out in the early 1900s and later left to go wild, then re-established . Now it has beautiful trees, protecting a wonderful hydrangea garden, an amazing "bamboozle", and a water garden. A lovely protected beach is where some of the D day troops embarked from. There are entrancing views of curving paths, water reflections, different textures, heights and colours.
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| Had to show you Trev amongst the giant rhubarb.... scary! |
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| One of the traditional cottages on the estate with boats on the mud at low tide. Sorry my blog is insisting on putting photos out of order so I have given up on trying. |
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| Another of the cute cottages you can rent. |
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| This is Lewis , our Cornish guide.. he wore a tie to take us for a walk! I loved him for that before he even said a word. The tie is the Cornish tie-the black and white flag, the yellow for the royalty, blue for the coast and red for the Cornish bird with red beak and legs which is very rare (called a chough "chuff") |
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| The giant rhubarb has this weird pink fluffy stuff, prickey bits on the stems, and dies off in the winter. (That's the way I think all rhubarb should be all the time....dead. )
The garden has about 4.5 miles of paths sloping down to the sea, and it was some wonderful vistas. We had a great time wandering, exploring, meeting our fellow bus mates at random spots and sharing discoveries.
Then we ventured on to Trengothnan estate, where we met a local Cornish guide, who took us for a stroll along the Fal river and told us about the estate. They grow the only tea grown in England here, but also make honey, harvest Kea plums, apples, have a herd of deer which they harvest, and they also have houses for rent for holiday makers. How is that for diversification? The tide was out, so we could walk along the paths beside the river. See the pictures above as they would not drop into the correct spot.
On to Cornish afternoon tea at a tea rooms so out of the way it should not be thriving, but is. We had to drive down a road with a sign saying "not suitable for motorized vehicles" between very narrow hedges with granite right behind them . Only had to back up a couple of times. The scones (although cold) were good, as was the jam and the clotted cream (a Cornish speciality which is extremely yummy but I'm sure also disgustingly fattening) . The cottage where we had this afternoon tea also fronts on to the Fal river, and is directly across from where more of the troops embarked from. Apparently Churchill, Eisenhower and Lord Mountbatten sat here to plan for it and could see the ships in this deep harbour as they did so.
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Then we headed on across the King Harry ferry (which has been running in one form or another for the last 500 years!!!)
Briefly admired Charlestown with its historic port with a number of old tall ships, and an old couple sitting in the rare sunshine, just soaking it up.
And finally on to Fowey ("Foy") where we settled in with a view to die for drinking Cornish Gin, ate a delicious and expensive dinner along with some McLaren Vale shiraz (sadly not Wirra Wirra) and admired the view some more before dropping into bed.
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| The view from our spot. |
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| Night shot from our window. |
So now it is way too late again and I must go to sleep. Goodnight all.
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