20240516 Thursday, May 16, 2024; Falmouth & St. Ives England
Those who may be BBC fans may recognize Cornwall as the part of England where a couple of very successful TV series are set. Poldark was set in Cornwall in the 18th century when tin and copper mining was the life blood and downfall of the region. Doc Martin was also set in Cornwall in fictional coastal township of Portwenn, which was filmed in Port Issac on the north coast of Cornwall. Our excursion started with a drive from Falmouth harbor on the southern coast of Cornwall, through central Cornwall to the north coastal city of St. Ives. St. Ives is 60 miles south of Port Issac, but has most of the same charm and quirky architecture and geography as Port Issac.
The countryside of Cornwall is very lush and green. This part of England is blessed with moderate temperatures and plenty of precipitation so all the hillsides are divided up into paddocks separated by stone fences or hedgerows. There is evidence of it’s copper and tin mining past with scattered ruins of mining and smelting equipment and buildings littering the hillsides. There are a lot of cattle ranches and industrial scale agriculture dominating the landscape outside the villages.
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The older villages are characterized by stone row houses, referred to as Miner’s Cottages. These tend to be clustered in tidy rows with tiny front and back yards barely the size of 2 parking spaces.
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The roads are extremely narrow and have no shoulders. Embankments, vegetation, and even buildings sprout up vertically from the edge of the roadway. When the bus whizzes through these villages, buildings and retaining walls sometimes fly within inches of the tour coach windows. When a bus and lorry (British call their semi-trucks and heavy deliver trucks lorries) pass, in these villages they slow and pass with their mirrors just missing each other. Compared with Australia, these are much more dangerous roads. The traffic circles are sometimes merely implied by painted marks on the asphault rather than defined by a raised center uncrossable center island. At one traffic circle, our bus managed to clip a stationary motorcyclist. Fortunately, there were no injuries or damages. Just one shaken up motorcyclist and for some reason, another motorist seemed to be particularly upset, although they did not seem to have been directly involved. Our tour coach was delayed momentarily while insurance information and words (some with gestures) were exchanged.
The coastal village of St. Ives evolved on the steep hillsides of the northern Cornwall coast long before there were automobiles. The streets take narrow to new heights, with many being only 6’ wide. They are generally paved with cobblestones, and invariably winding and twisting, with no straight streets in town beyond a couple hundred feet. Traffic is limited to locals only, so there is a big parking lot at the outskirts of town and a shuttle bus service from the car park to downtown. All the buildings are 2 or 3 stories tall, so it is very much like a maze when you get into the center of town and the harbor.
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After walking around the harbor and town, we treated ourselves to Cornish Pasties, which are local meat pies which date back to 18th century when these pastries, filled with meat, potatoes, onions, rutabagas and cheese, were taken into the mines for their lunch break and sustenance. These have a thick shortcrust pastry which kept the freshly baked fillings warm for a long time, and the miners would hold them by the thickened creased seam when eating, and then throwing away that creased seam, which would have been contaminated by things like arsenic which would be on their hands from mining the ores. These were certainly hearty. We were warned by our guide to avoid eating outside, or prepare to be raided by the town's very aggressive sea gulls, who seem to have a penchant for these Cornish pasties.
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From St. Ives, we headed southwest to the tip of the British islands called Lands End. Here we got in a nice walk and views of the crumbling dramatic north Cornish coastline.
We were on the last cruise passenger tender back to the ship. We had a late dinner at the sit down dining room. Because we had missed our regularly scheduled seating, we ended up sharing a table with 2 other couples. One couple was from Arkansas who have a 2500 acre ranch and run cattle. They say they are slowing down because last year they sold off their sheep, and they are now down to “just” 20 bulls. It was interesting to hear they had to kill 38 feral hogs last year. Locals will come and take the feral hog meat for consumption because at least in Arkansas, poisoning the feral hogs is illegal. The other couple was an interesting match up between a retired cargo container ship captain (Think Captain Philips) from California, and his partner, who is a woman who immigrated from Ukraine to Sydney Australia over 30 years ago. She still has a Ukrainian accent. Ukrainians would probably say she has an Aussie accent, although we didn’t hear it.
We finished up the evening with a Princess Theater Showtime featuring a pair of Cirque du Soleil style acrobats who put on a mesmerizing and amazing show with hanging silks, ropes, and free balancing, demonstrating amazing strength, balance and stamina. It was certainly not a show to be missed.
Tomorrow we arrive in Portland, UK, which is south of the well known landmark Stone Henge. We have an excursion in the afternoon to visit a village called Athelhampton which has a neolithic giant on a hillside. In the morning, Ben plans on taking the shuttle from Portland to Weymouth to shop for a UK/Europe SIM card for our upcoming self drive tour.
