Wednesday
Bluebell the Motorhome is parked up along with several other motorhomes in the village carpark in Tintagel. For £3 we’re allowed to park overnight here, within walking distance (50m!) to the nearest pub, half a mile to the English Heritage castle site and across the road from the National Trust Post Office site.
you can see Bluebell tucked up on the left
On leaving Barnstaple we visited the most beautiful Heritage Village of http://www.clovelly.co.uk
We paid £6.75 each and headed down through the visitors centre and down to the village. Words can’t describe how pretty the village is so here are my pics so you can see for yourself.
the Main Street lined with pretty houses
looking down over the Harbour
more pretty houses
the harbour and the hill we’d just walked down
the hotel on the harbour
a very picturesque refreshment stop!
After a good couple of hours, we marched back up the hill to the car park: Clovelly is totally traffic free, the locals have to use sledges to transport their gear up and down the hill- once upon a time it was donkeys!
On the way back up, Keith was able to hold and have his picture taken with his favourite animal- A Little Owl
Next we headed towards Tintagel. We hoped to stop at Boscastle, but it was heaving and we couldn’t even get in the carpark to check for spaces (although I’m fairly sure it was chocka block) so we carried on and found a space in the car park at Tintagel much more easily.
Once we’d got our ticket we walked down the hill to visit the impressive site where it’s believed King Arthur lived. It was a beautiful day to visit and although it was VERY steep (something which freaks me out a little!) we had a great visit
After a tiring days exploring we naturally found the pub, and tried a few local pints of cider/ale, wobbled back to the van and chilled out for the rest of the evening!
Thursday
Thursday we parked up at Brit Stop #003, a pub near Redruth. We didn’t have the best day to be honest, everywhere we visited we had trouble either parking or exploring due to restrictions made by the council. First stop, Port Issac, saw us turned away from the main car park as we were over 2.5 tons (daytime parking). We then struggled to get back out due to ignorant drivers and got stuck whilst driving up a 1 in 4 single track hill road with hairpin due to an impatient 4×4 who wouldn’t wait and let us pass him. Next stop was Polzeath to relive some of Keith’s old childhood memories of hols down here with his parents. We managed to get parked easily, despite the very heavy no overnight parking signs, but then couldn’t take Jazz our dog on the beach. We left him in the van reluctantly, because we’d already paid for parking (clever that!) but nevertheless we enjoyed a (dog less) walk along the shore
We carried onto Padstow, hoping to have a fish and chip lunch, but seeing as we got turned away from the park and ride, then got stuck in the middle of Padstow with tourists ten a breast walking in the middle of the road with no awareness of us and the other cars driving down the road, we were frankly relieved, if not slightly hacked off once we got safely out of the town. We rang over 10 campsites trying to find a local one with a last minute cancellations to no avail, so ended up carrying on to Redruth, to a very welcoming Brit Stop pub, where we drank away our troubles of the day!
We did manage a little dog walk around the local area and stumbled (literally!) across an interesting site just down the road, Gwennap Pit, an interesting open air amphitheatre that was originally formed by mining in the area.
It’s now used (and has been since 1700s) as an open air preaching area and is owned by the Methodist Church. Very interesting place to visit!
On our walk back we also passed an old mining chimney, a stark reminder about the history of tin mining in this area.
Friday
Bluebell the motorhome is parked overlooking the sea, on the cliffs in the community carpark at Treen.
We came this way as we are off to the Minack theatre tonight to see Keefy’s brother lead in Monty Pythons’ Spamalot. We also were in desperate need of facilities, and were hoping to get on Treen Farm camspite, which is a short walk away from the theatre. Sadly, by the time we arrived at 09:30, there were already over 50 early birds who had got on the list before us- this campsite offers a no booking policy, so you have to just turn up and hope for the best, hence the early start! In an amazing act of generosity, despite us not getting a pitch, the owners of the campsite allowed us to fill/empty water and loo and pointed us in the direction of the community carpark where we were allowed to park up for £3.50 overnight and £2 all day. The views from here were better than the campsite to be honest, and substantially cheaper, however we spent a lot of money in the campsite shop/farm shop on local ales, ciders, sausages, and even marshmallows!
We were meeting some of Keith’s old friends at the local pub for what turned into a liquid lunch
– this Cornish Tribute Ale is lovely!
By mid afternoon we thought it would be wise to check out the coastal path down to Porthcurno and the Minack ready for our trek down that night.
Porthcurno beach in this weather rivals Greece
managed a dip or 4 in the sea- it was a bit nippy, unlike Greece!
Keith’s brother and sister in law and some of the cast
That evening we watched the show at the Minack and it was fab. Definitely recommend a visit. I’ve never been before but Keefy has played in various show bands here before.
Keith’s brother Neil, playing King Arthur in Spamalot
Saturday
The weather was great but forecasted to change on Sunday, so we decided to stay another night at Treen carpark. We enjoyed a walk to Logan’s Rock, then a massive chill in the sun and a BBQ! Perfect
the view to the Minack on the left and Portcurno bay from Logan’s Rock
The Minack on zoom from Logan’s Rock.The chain of people you can see is the next theatre company passing their set down from the carpark to the stage
Logan’s Rock
We finished off our Saturday with a mahoosive chill in the sun, then a BBQ- steak and sausages accompanied by a bottle of Pape. Perfect
We then tucked into the marshmallows for the first time EVER- we’ve clearly missed out. It was amazing!
As the sun went down the stars came out and what a sky it was- we sat and saw loads of shooting stars. Absolutely cracking day.
Sunday
Bluebell the motorhome is parked up right beside the seaside, at Praa Sands.
We’ve managed to find another place that welcomes motorhomes by allowing us to stay overnight for £5. We’ve paid £8 and this gives us 24hrs parking.
Cornwall is slightly confusing with its attitudes towards motorhomes, and dogs for that matter. Some carparks seem to be happy allowing us to stay whereas others a mile or so down the road have several ‘campers and motorhomes prohibited” signs per carpark. Some beaches allow dogs, others don’t. Lands End, you pay £6 to get in but then you can take your dog into every shop there. It’s all very confusing, but we’ve been lucky and only had one day of anti motorhome/anti dog stress (so far!)
We nipped up to Lands End today, as Keefy’s been wanting to get a matching sticker to go next to our J O’G one from last year. I have to admit, the £6 parking charge seemed steep initially, but on thinking about it, I suppose it’s not too bad- if we had 4 passengers it’d be a cheap to visit. Also, once the £6 is paid, there is no extra admission charge, although there are plenty of outlets for you spend extra money once inside, including an official picture next to the sign (an extra tenner!)
We stopped off at the Famous First and Last Inn on our way out, intrigued to check out the camping area we knew about. We could have stayed over for £10 with no services, not even a water tap, in their back field, but frankly we thought that it was a rip off considering our location the previous two nights for less than half of that. If they’d said free for diners, £10 otherwisewe’d have stayed and eaten/drank. We did enjoy a quick drink there though before carrying on to Praa sands.
Sorry for the lengthy blog this time- a mixture of relaxing offline and lack of signal has results in no updates this week, however you are now up to date 🙂
Our plan for the next week is to Brit Stop along the south coast, hope the weather gets better though as today isn’t great!
Until next time
Lx
Hi u 2, looks like we r going miss u, we r at colliford lake Bodmin until Monday what pub didu say at in redruth? Our local the Star inn is a good stop hope the weather improves for u . ron
We stayed at the Star! Was going to email you but tbh we’d had “one of those days” and drunk ourselves into a deep slumber instead! We did manage a walk up to the mining pit though. We we’re there Thursday night and walked by a motor home parked up on the road opposite the pub. Would it have been yours? Think it was a Hymer (had had a few ciders lol)
No mine is a bessacarr 735, if i was there would have been in there having his pie with mash just lush, anyway sorry we missed u we were on Bodmin moor at Colliford lake all weekend until monday morning when the weather forced us home, your comments about mixed reception in cornwall is very true but generally they dont like us here in sunny cornwall, very small minded and short sighted im afraid, they dont like anyone having something for nothing because they want it!! anyway enjoy the rest of your hols and i will keep watching your site/blogs. all the best ron