Saturday was very cold and cloudy and we drove to the carpark at the top of the hill at Polperro and walked down to this beautiful, old fishing village. Tiny houses with Cornish Piskie-sized doors and stucco walls lined narrow lanes. All of this surrounded the craggy, rocky-cliffed harbour which contained beached, small fishing boats on the low tide. One could certainly imagine a time of eye-patches, wooden legs, cutlasses and treasure squirrelled away in secret.
There were many photo opportunities but we made the fatal mistake of the traveller and didn't charge the camera battery. Ahh!...I mean Arrr! It was certainly a lovely place to explore and not very far away at all so we knew we would be back soon.
We decided to have lunch with the locals in The Three Pilchards Inn. An interesting English phenomenon is dogs. They are allowed everywhere. We found ourselves enjoying a pint with a couple of well-behaved black Labradors. At least they were well-behaved until the food came out, then they looked at everyone hopefully and upon realising that they weren't going to get a chip or even better an entire steak they started to fight and bark. It was very startling and led us Aussies to question whether an open door policy on dogs was a good idea. Anyway, after the hearty lunch it was time to go home.
Stefanie and I were wondering where to go on the Sunday. The only thing that was certain was we needed to get out and about. Lo and behold an email from Tim arrived on cue and he suggested that a walk from Talland Bay to Polperro is lovely. "Let's do that," Stef said. So, we left the children, who were in need of a rest and DVD, behind and off we went for more exploring of the smugglers' coast.We drove down a long, windy lane to the small carpark at Talland Bay. We are now much more used to driving along Cornish lanes and are used to the courtesies and etiquette. The parking space was near a rocky beach with small pebbles and the Cornish Coastal Path streched away in both directions along the coast from the carpark. Following the sign to Polperro (1 1/2 miles) we set off on our ramble.
The sun came out and the temperature was
relatively warm. It was nothing short of a sparkling, glorious day. The path went steeply up the over the headland and at the top we found ourselves quite high, looking over the millpond-like English Channel. 'Why no tinnies fishing out on the water?' I thought, as the water certainly looked excellent for fishing. Maybe the water temperature of 9 degrees puts the recreational anglers and the fish off.We looked along the rocky coast line and were struck by the beauty of the place. To be honest, Stefanie and I were not aware of or prepared for the stunning view of the coastline and the sea before us. Coming from the south coast of NSW with the best beaches and coast in the world and having holidayed at the Whitsunday Islands we didn't expect to see a combination of both in England. The coastline was rocky, steep and wild. The sea was turquoise, flat, deep and stretching to the horizon. We were so high up that seagulls drifted below us catching the updraft from the cliff-face. The sun was bright and sparkled on the ocean. "It is moments like this you come on exchange for," Stef said.
After walking across the headland we descended down into Polperro once again, had a coffee at a lovely little coffee shop with its obligatory quota of dogs lying at owners' feet and then marched back across the headland to the car.
We noticed the pink colour of the rock on the beach. It might be weathered pink granite but I'm going to have to do some more research to confirm this hypothesis (...says the Science teacher). Here is Stef in front of the rocks. She is suffering from 'hat hair' at the conclusion of our walk but she said it was alright to use this photo in the name of Science so you can see the rocks.
The telling of our three days of adventure continues in our next blog-post in which we do nothing less than chase the legend of King Arthur and The Knights Of The Round Table...
No comments:
Post a Comment