On the weekend, Morgan and I hired a car and went for a drive around Devon and Cornwall - absolutely beautiful! The weather was nice and sunny for our drive down (we saw chickens and sheep roaming free in the same paddock!) and we had our first stop at the beach in Torbay. Quite a nice spot with a long row of beach houses and lots of people obviously just come down and spend the whole day relaxing by the beach. Morgan was determined to be able to say that he's swum in English waters, and was quite surprised to find that it was actually not that cold! Following the road south we stumbled upon Brixham with nice views over the water and a quaint little village with a cute harbour.
Back on the road, our next stop was to find and eat the famed lasagne that morgan's family had been raving about ever since their trip down south. We got a bit lost driving around Plymouth, and after finding the place, finding a park and walking there, we discovered that not only was the pub closed but that it also was a JD Wetherspoons pub - ie a chain, one of which we have down the road at hammersmith!
By this time it was starting to get dark and continued our drive to Fowey and to find a place to sleep. We found a sign to a YHA Hostel and followed it down a loooong dark windy road which seemed to take us to the middle of nowhere. About 2km in we finally reached a house, and a bit scared, we walked in to be greeted by a friendly guy who informed us that we could have a whole dorm room to ourselves for only 15pounds each - done. I'd seen a sign advertising good food at a pub down the road so we followed the road into Golant and just before rounding a corner saw the sign "water may cover road at high tide", then rounded the corner and indeed the water had covered half the road and there were ducks happily swimming around the dinghys that had floated up onto the road! We ate at the pub - morgan ordered me a pint of prawns?! and I got a pint overflowing with prawns.. and nothing else.. not too impressed ;)
Sunday we awoke to the most beautiful view from our dorm window - I could've stayed there forever. We both felt like we'd woken up at the farm in chinchilla and were a bit sad to leave - was definitely the highlight of the trip for me :) We attempted to take photos & video but it was so cold our lenses kept fogging up. Fortunately some of the photos turned out okay so you'll have to check them out. We then drove into the "Ancient Town and Port of Fowey" (pronounced
Foy), and went for a wander. I'd recommend everyone go check out this area; Fowey is another quaint little village with a natural harbour and is a great place for a wander around.
A bit of an overcast day but we ventured onwards to Lizard Point which is the most southerly point in England. We had some of Kelly's cornish ice-cream (which I was excited to find in Tesco's today!) and walked along the extremely windy coastline. From here we then decided to skip going to England's most western point and headed straight up to Newquay, home of the surfing beaches. Almost like my trip to the famous Bells Beach in Victoria which was flat, Fistral beach wasn't much better, but there were plenty of people out in what I can only imagine was freezing cold water. I get the feeling that surfing here is definitely not so much an image thing as in Aus, since only the dedicated people would go out in that kind of weather! We spent the night here in Newquay after finding some nice steaks for tea (beef for me, wild boar for morgan!).
The next morning we had a quick stop at the Bedruthan Steps and enjoyed the drive along the coastline up to another historic village called Clovelly. The thing that I love about the English coastline is how much of it remains untouched. There are plenty of sheep grazing on pastures that go right up to the cliff lines, something I can't say I've ever seen in Aus. Clovelly village was interesting but after being to Fowey the previous day it wasn't that exciting; however I did enjoy some clotted cream with my tea and scones :)
Homeward-bound we detoured through Dartmoor which I hope to come back and visit as all we had time for was to stop at Postbridge and grab a map for next time. It was quite cold in Dartmoor - 10 degrees the guy said, apparently it had been 20 previous days. There were lots of sheep roaming freely around the roads and amongst some awesome landscapes that I absolutely loved!
On the way home I had my first taste of English KFC - terrible! They don't even do the seasoned chips - talk about missing out big time! There's also a cool overpass towards the west end of the M4 where the cows cross from one side to the other which was quite funny to see ;)
All in all, we had a great trip and hope to get back down to Fowey and Dartmoor sometime in the future -
click here for photos.... esther :)
Hi folks, a quick update to tell about our trip to Buckingham Palace last weekend. We have been to the palace a few times before (the official residence of the Queen) but you are not allowed inside. Apparently the State rooms are opened up for a few weeks every summer. This kind of event seems to be very popular with both the British and tourists because the place was absolutely packed. We were not allowed to take any photos inside - but needless to say the rooms were fairly decent. One thing that was kinda interesting was that the palace has taken many forms and was initially just a nice house called Buckingham House.
