UK Diary Part 5: Cornwall
Day 30
Hello Cornwall!
Another train day. After check out and the requisite crumpets we caught the 10.25am train from Okehampton to Exeter, then changed to the next train to Penzance. Not impressed with GWR trains - at least the one they use for Penzance. Each coach has only 1 table!!!
Once out of Exeter (Excreter we call it) the train hugs the southern coast of West England and the views get really nice.
The train was scheduled to arrive at Penzance at 3.07 but it was half an hour early.
We saw people wild swimming! It is beautiful here, or maybe it's just the light. The bus system appears to be wonderful.
Our Airbnb in Penzance is a shared house with a fully stocked kitchen. For a change we bought food from local greengrocers (they exist here) rather than the supermarket, and made butter-braised savoy cabbage and udon soup with roast beef slices on top.
Day 31
Went to Mousehole to find out why Dylan Thomas liked it so much.
Mousehole is TINY. There were maybe 3 cafes? We wanted to eat fish and chips at the harbour but there was no chippy, so we ate a Cornish pasty and Scotch egg instead.
Meant to go to St Michael's Mount, but the place was closed due to high wind, so we went to St Ives instead.
Didn't take a lot of pics at St Ives as the wind was so strong it was hard enough to walk around. St Ives is very busy, a million shops and restaurants, not my kind of place. I was glad to return to Penzance.
Day 32
St Michael's Mount today, and our first experience of the dreaded Cornish weather phenomenon known as "mizzle" - what seems like merely a fine mist but that gradually saturates you from inside out! Umbrellas are entirely useless against this form of precipitation. And the vapour just gets into the seams of your coat, ugg.
We were very lucky to have made it to the Mount before the mist descended, and we could cross the causeway with no problem since it was also low tide.
Once you hit the island, uniformed staff are there to extract payment from you. It's cheaper to pay for either Garden or Castle access but, not knowing which to go for, we went for the exorbitant combination pass at £26/person.
I don't think it's worth it to pay for either because the nice bit is crossing the sandbar and looking at the island. But the Gardens are the better of the two. I do not like the idea of gardens - ripping plants out of context for selfish human consumption - but it was quite interesting to look at the many succulents and wonder how they survive right next to the sea.
Another path (w/ ticket collection sentry) leads to the castle, where the current Lord and Lady reside. It seems this aristocratic family started charging admission fees to pay for the upkeep of the grounds and avoid financial ruin. So although there was nothing much to see inside, it offered a glimpse into the historic relationship between the landed gentry and the servant class. The servants of today are the tour guides and staff running the place; it was very awkward to balance ideals of equality between men with this hierarchical relationship.
Day 33
Today we left the comforts of Penzance for a 3 day Tintagel Quest.
My plan was to take the train to Bodmin Parkway, then the bus 11 to Wadebridge which was supposed to be frequent and fast. Well, turns out the buses don't run exactly on schedule; you do have to stand there and wait rather than count on timetables.
After reaching Wadebridge we realised the Travelodge I booked was fucking far from the town. Actually it's not the distance (1km) so much as the traffic. We were pretty much the only people walking. The Travelodge - like the nearby Tesco and Aldi - was designed for drivers too. We had to top up £10 to check in early because they don't have a baggage holding service.
Anyway, we walked the 20 min to town and I at least was quite disappointed in Wadebridge. There's not much going on and everything closed at 5pm. The lack of people and public spaces (squares, gardens) was weird too. I guess the best thing to do in Wadebridge is cycle along the river to Padstow. I don't think we'll get to do that.
Originally I wanted to stay in Wadebridge 3 nights, but as the town doesn't offer much, we'll take bus 95 from Wadebridge and either stay in Tintagel or Bude tomorrow... if bus 95 arrives, that is...
Day 34
A magical day. First of all - bus 95 actually arrived! Delivering us from Wadebridge. An hour later we reached Tintagel, and enquired at an inn about a room for tonight. There were none, but one of the pub locals took us to his mum's guesthouse across the street. And we were sorted.
Then we went on our Tintagel Castle walk. The weather was glorious - actually hot for once - and it didn't rain at all. And Tintagel didn't disappoint. It was every bit as cool as I had imagined. Pictures don't do it justice, but here is our record of the day anyway.
After walking around the castle ruins we went spelunking at Merlin's Cave and had a picnic.
Dinner at the Tintagel Hotel pub.
Me loving the bay window in our room.
Day 35
Just a stopover at the beach resort town of Bude today. We caught bus 95 from Tintagel and saw beautiful Boscastle and Widemouth Bay along the way. Then boom, shock landing in Bude. Crowds and shops and things. Most people probably came out here to enjoy the sun at Bude Sea Pool. This is a concrete pool built into the beach and is filled with seawater (which floods it at high tide). It's free and run by volunteers which is so impressive.
It was a unique experience watching the (predominantly white) Brits celebrate a bank holiday. As far as I could tell, there was no plan or structure to the day. The revellers simply drove over from wherever and plonked themselves in or around the Sea Pool.
At the Bude Sea Pool was a so-called coronation party going on here with cream tea (scones, jam, clotted cream and a cup of tea) - we obviously had some - and a best-dressed contest! Most people were just sitting around with their cream teas doing nothing.
You can learn a lot about people by looking at their pets. British dogs are rarely stressed. Their humans take them on really long walks and play ball with them, even travel with them (dogs are allowed in most places including trains and restaurants). They are not deprived of their instinctual need to leap around and have fun - they frolicked in the surf and beach in Bude.
We were agog at how chilled out these beasts were. A far cry from the high-strung, nervously barking indoor-bound animals back home. And that's just the humans!
On hindsight I have to say that Cornwall isn't what I'd imagined at all. I thought it would be full of Cornish pixies people and a distinct, un-English culture. Not the case. Apart from the ubiquity of Warrens pasty chain (basically the Cornish Greggs) and some signs in both English and Cornish, the place felt very much like an English holiday region.
Places like Penzance and Mousehole and St. Ives are superficially pleasant until you realise the houses are like 90% second homes, holiday cottages, and Airbnbs. As this op-ed describes, when you walk around there is little sense of an actual community - just a whole lot of touristy stuff.
In coastal towns like Mousehole, St Ives, Fowey and Padstow, it’s unusual to see a light on in the windows in winter. Every other front door has a key safe next to the doorbell, or a cottage company plaque beside the postbox. The village school and the post office closed long ago in some communities, while corner shops and pubs are open only a few months a year. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, with each house that flips into a part-time home, communities wither, fragment and die. Once-thriving towns became tourist theme parks.
It is hard to really enjoy the touristy things and the beauty of Cornwall when you see the locals hanging around at the Job Centre and the food bank.
Tintagel Village feels different. The community here seems small but tight-knit - we walked into a pub asking for a room and one of the guys at the bar literally took us across the street to his mum's guesthouse! We were hoping to meet "real Cornish people", but the guesthouse owners are semi-retirees from Sussex/Surrey. I get the sense that they might not have been able to afford this Northern Cornwall house had they not benefitted from London jobs and salaries.
OK, but Cornwall is definitely worth visiting at least once, and make sure you visit both north and south coast. The milder, sunnier south coast of Cornwall is where the train runs - big towns like Penzance and St. Austell have good transport infrastructure. The north coast is harder to get to, but the coastal scenery is just much more dramatic.
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